Niquero Cemetery . Place where 16 Granma expeditionaries were buried and where a monument to the fallen is currently erected.
Summary
[ hide ]
- 1 Geographic location
- 2 Review of the facts
- 1 Entombed explorers
- 2 Other fallen
- 3 Fountains
Geographic location
The Niquero Cemetery is located at the entrance to the municipal capital, on the central highway Km. 1. In this place, 16 Granma expeditionaries vilely murdered by the Batista tyranny were buried.
Review of the facts
They say that Rafael Alcalá, a veteran of the 1995 war, furious at the monstrous scene, expressed with eyes like embers: “Innocent blood is still being shed in Cuba! How long are we going to allow this to happen? Damn!” The independence fighter reacted like this, when on December 9, 1956, in the vicinity of the Niquero cemetery , he saw that several bodies of boys were going to be thrown together in a ditch and cremated without mercy, as if they were wild animals.
They were massacred youths, members of the Granma yacht expedition . They had arrived in Cuba seven days earlier, with admirable enthusiasm, to throw off the shackles of their hurt country. And they found physical death not far from the landing site, preceded by martyrdom. But they faced it with stoicism to begin to inhabit another dimension of existence. At dawn, the inhabitants of the town saw the scene with a shiver: the corpses lay destroyed and placed “on the heap.”
Soon the news spread among Niquereños, including several members of the July 26 Movement., who went to the cemetery. The regime forces then installed posts at the main gate to prevent the residents from approaching. The soldiers began to dig a ditch to throw the corpses inside, obeying orders from Colonel Cruz Vidal. To make matters worse, the uniformed men had carried wooden sleepers and a fuel container in a cart. They intended to cremate the victims publicly. Only the angry and continuous protest of the residents of the town prevented the barbarity. In the midst of the tension, some members of the July 26 Movement spoke with Mario Espinosa, secretary of the City Council, who promised to help them so that the burial would be individual.
This man met with Salvador Hernández Betancourt, mayor of Niquero, and together they went to the cemetery to prevent the atrocity from being carried out. It was thus authorized to build eight boxes. It was in those moments of heated discussion between Nicaraguan citizens and members of the Batista army when the veteran independence fighter Rafael Alcalá exploded with indignation.
Buried Explorers
Finally, the massacred bodies of the expeditionaries were buried: José Ramón Martínez , Armando Mestre , Luis Arcos Bergnes , Andrés Luján Vázquez , Jimmy Hirzel , Félix Elmuza , René Bedia Morales and Eduardo Reyes Canto .
other fallen
The events of that wild day did not end with what is narrated here. On the same December 9, eight other expeditionaries were taken to the cemetery, killed during the previous day in Boca de Toro , due to the denunciation of the peasant known as Manolo Capitan.
Those killed were: Miguel Cabañas , José Smith Comas , Tomás David Royo , Antonio (Ñico) López , Cándido González , Noelio Capote , René Reiné and Raúl Suárez . Their bodies, washed up on a beach, had been left out in the open since December 8 .
Dead, they were put on stretchers and dragged by horses to Las Guásimas. In that place the disastrous van reappeared, which transported them to the Niquería necropolis. Consequently, on the afternoon of the 9th more coffins were ordered. The burial, carried out outside the cemetery, next to a side fence, lasted until late at night.
The burial was witnessed by doctors Juan Cardellá, Amada Rosales and Ángel Fonteboa, who had accompanied doctor León Hirzel; he identified his son (Jimmy) from an appendicitis operation that he himself had performed on her. The guards asked him if he was going to take him, to which the doctor replied no, that if his son had fought for a cause he must be together with his dead companions.
Of the 16, only the body of Andrés Luján was transported , picked up by friends and relatives and taken to his native Manzanillo .
The tombs of the expeditionaries, mostly from the center and west of the country, were not abandoned. The 26th of July Movement in Niquero took it upon themselves to put a cross on each tomb; but none had identification.
Julio Costa, father of the expeditionary Jaime Costa , was in charge of building some small copper plates with the name of each fallen hero. In February 1959 , the remains of the revolutionaries were exhumed and transported, with the corresponding honors, to the Colon Cemetery , in the Cuban capital.
In December 1996 , a modest monument was erected at the site where the expeditionaries had originally been buried in Niquero. The offering was never lacking. Since that icy December, the flowers of the country always appeared wet and open on their graves.
