Simeón Cuba Sanabria

Simeón Cuba Sanabria (according to other sources also Sarabia , born January 5, 1935 in Itapaya , Bolivia, † October 9, 1967 in La Higuera , Bolivia), also known under the code name Willy , was a member of the Ñancahuazú guerrilla column , the was led by Che Guevara in Bolivia .

Born in the village of Itapaya in the Bolivian municipality of Sipe Sipe as the son of Carlos Cuba and Teresa Sanabria, Cuba started as a miner in Huanuni at the age of 17, became involved in the regional miners' union, and soon became one of its leaders. He performed various social support tasks for the benefit of the working class families. In 1956/57 he did his one-year military service, which was a prerequisite for career advancement. In August 1957 he married Felipa García Tapia, with whom he later had three children. Cuba became a member of the Communist Party of Bolivia (PCB), although this was undesirable in his company, was finally fired in January 1965 and then went to Cochabamba with his family . Cuba resigned from the party in the same year to become a member of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary workers' movement, which represented the armed struggle. When he urged this group to put their principles into practice, he was referred to Moisés Guevara. Moisés Guevara then took him to Ñancahuazú in March in the guerrilla group of Che Guevara.

Guerrilla fighters

Chosen as a member of the main group that Che Guevara himself led, Cuba became known as a brave and disciplined fighter. Nevertheless, and perhaps also because of his very reserved character, Guevara developed distrust of him and in his monthly report of September 1967 he wrote in his combat diary: “The morale of the rest of the group is still quite good, I only have doubts about Willy that he if if he finds an opportunity to escape, he would then also leave ... ". His suspicions soon turned out to be unfounded.

When the final battle of the guerrillas began on October 8, 1967 in the Yuro Gorge near La Higuera, Cuba led the main group to find a way out of the encirclement of the Bolivian army . Cuba was just about to clear the sloping path when machine gun fire broke out and injured Guevara, who was some distance behind him, in the leg. Cuba turned and went back to the cliff where Guevara lay. He picked it up and carried it to a place that was out of the line of fire. However, the two guerrillas soon found themselves surrounded by another group of Bolivian rangers who opened fire on them. Guevara and Cuba shot back until the enemy bullets hit Che's beret and his M2 carbine, rendering it unsuitable. Cuba brought Guevara out of the line of fire again and placed himself between his wounded leader and the rangers, who were now firing at him from a distance of 10 meters. In this exposed position, Cuba was hit by several bullets and incapacitated. When he saw the soldiers approaching Guevara and threatening to shoot him, they are said to have stopped Cuba with the exclamation: “Damn it! This is Commander Guevara. Have some respect for him! "

execution

The Rangers took Guevara and Cuba to the nearby village of La Higuera, where they were locked up overnight in a small schoolhouse in separate rooms. The next day, when the order of Bolivian President René Barrientos arrived that both should be killed, the commanding officer sent an execution group consisting of three soldiers into the schoolhouse. The soldiers entered the room where Cuba was being held and killed him with several volleys from their submachine guns. Before he died, Cuba is said to have exclaimed: "I am proud to die near Che!"

The Bolivian army refused to divulge any information about what happened to Cuba's body. On June 28, 1997 - almost thirty years after his death - a Cuban forensic team discovered his skeleton in the same place where Che Guevara and five other guerrillas were buried. Cuba's bones, like those of the other guerrillas, were transferred to Cuba and laid to rest on October 17, 1997 with full military honors in the city of Santa Clara .

Web links

• Simeón Cuba Sanabria in the Cuban online encyclopedia EcuRed (Spanish)
• Mineros de Huanuni en la guerrilla del Che in: Radio Nacional de Huanuni , undated, accessed on July 2, 2012 (Spanish)

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Mineros de Huanuni en la guerrilla del Che ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Radio Nacional de Huanuni , undated, accessed on July 2, 2012 (Spanish) 
2. ↑ Moisés Guevara and Che Guevara were not related to each other.
3. ^ Henry Butterfield Ryan: The Fall of Che Guevara. A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats. Oxford University Press, New York NY et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-511879-0 , pp. 128-129.
4. ↑ On the Other Side of the Barricades ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 21, 2006.