Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez

Juan Vitalio "Vilo" Acuña Núñez or Joaquín Rivera Núñez (born January 27, 1925 in Media Luna (Purial de Vicana), Cuba ; † August 31, 1967 in Vado de Puerto Mauricio , Bolivia ) was a Cuban revolutionary and internationalist guerrilla .

Acuña was originally a farmer from the Sierra Maestra . In April 1957, he joined the armed forces of the July 26th Movement within the Cuban rebel army against the Batista regime. In November 1958 he was raised to the rank of Comandante and was given command of a unit.

After the revolutionaries' victory in 1959, Acuña held various offices in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (FAR). He co-founded the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in 1965 and was a member of the Central Committee .

In 1966 Acuña went to Bolivia with other Cuban fighters around Ernesto "Che" Guevara to build a powerful guerrilla force with the National Liberation Army of Bolivia ( ELN ) . There he became Guevara's deputy and chief of the rearguard . In April 1967 he stayed behind with some sick people, as a result of which contact with the main group around Guevara was lost. In search of the separated main group, they wandered around the eastern slopes of the Andes , without ever being able to establish contact again. On August 31, 1967, he died together with Tamara Bunke in an enemy ambush on the Río Grande near Vado de Puerto Mauricio .

Web links

• Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez in the Cuban online encyclopedia EcuRed (Spanish)

literature

• Ernesto Che Guevara, 2002: Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria. Cuba 1959-1969 . Reimpresión La Habana. (Spanish)
• Ernesto Che Guevara, 1986: Bolivian Diary. Documents of a Revolution Reinbek.