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The
last journalist to be
murdered in Cuba
BY
MARELYS VALENCIA —Granma International
staff writer—
IT
seems his destiny was set that night of May 13,
1958. He had left the modest Old Havana Pasaje
Hotel, owned by Balado – a Galician woman –
where he had been staying since his arrival in the
capital. He had gone there on the recommendation of
the hotel owner’s son, a young man he’d got to
know during his close to two months at La Plata
Central Command in the Sierra Maestra.
Lying
in a hammock under the skies with the bearded
rebels, at night he would recount to young Orlando
Gómez Balado – currently a member of staff at Granma
International – his adventures as a journalist
in Colombia and Venezuela, countries living under
dictatorships similar to Batista’s in Cuba. When
he left, Balado gave him the address of his family
in Havana.
Photos
from the Sierra had already reached their
destination in Ecuador, El Telégrafo newspaper,
via that country’s embassy in Havana; this was
perhaps the indiscreet detail that, without knowing
it, prompted his secret persecution by the Police
Investigations Bureau. If only the young journalist’s
luck had been the same as his experience in
Venezuela, where he had been imprisoned by Pérez
Jiménez’ regime for his articles and then
expelled from the country. Neither did he receive a
definite "no" to his presence in Cuba as
had occurred in the Dominican Republic. If that had
been the case, Carlos Bastidas’ history would not
have ended on that undeserved night of May 13.
Orlando
recalls that his 14-year old younger brother Luis
left the hotel with Carlos to go for a walk. When
they reached the corner of Galiano and Neptuno, they
went into a bar very popular at that time, the
Cachet, and sat down quietly for several minutes
until an unknown individual unexpectedly began to
insult the Ecuadoran and, in the blink of an eye,
Luisito witnessed the most terrible event he had
ever seen.
When
the journalist tried to get up from his seat, the
thug shot him at point-blank range. This was
followed by random shots, a a scare tactic in cases
where the public’s attention needed to be diverted
by scaring them.
When
the Revolution triumphed and hundreds of the
dictator’s killers and torturers were put on
trial, young Luis filed charges against Carlos’
murderer, Orlando Marrero.
But
Marrero had fled to Miami as many others had done.
Orlando
heard the news of Carlos Bastidas Argüello’s
murder at the Sierra Maestra command headquarters;
Carlos was the last journalist to be murdered by the
dictatorship. His footprints were still fresh on the
mountain ranges leading to the Central Command and
his voice still seemed to echo over the microphone
of Radio Rebelde, the station founded one week
before his meeting with the revolutionaries. Seven
months later, the Rebel Army descended triumphantly
from the mountains, ending the bloodiest
dictatorship that had existed up until then in the
Americas.
NEWS
IN SYLLABLES
Edmundo
Bastidas was at home in his student residence in the
United States, when the telephone rang and the
operator, in English, announced the arrival of a
cable from Ecuador. Three months earlier, he had met
with his brother in Chicago and had discussed at
great length Carlos’ decision to complete his tour
of the "Line of Fire," as he termed the
group of Latin American and Caribbean countries
dominated by military dictatorships.
The
operator, who couldn’t speak Spanish, began to
spell out the message that had just arrived for
Edmundo. Letter by letter, without understanding the
terrible meaning that the combination of words
formed, the young Ecuadoran learnt of his brother’s
death.
Even
today, when recalling that moment, his eyes fill
with tears. Edmundo is visibly moved and it would
seem that time stood still at that moment when he
received the saddest news of his 70 years.
"From that point, my life changed; we were two
brothers, I was two years older. After his death, I
took the decision to live for the day, without
thinking about tomorrow. I was like that for a long
while whilst I was studying. Once I’d finished, it
took me quite a while to go back to Ecuador."
Edmundo
has visited Cuba several times. He did so in 1957
when Havana was the favorite haunt of Americans for
all types of enjoyment. He returned in 1959 to
commemorate the anniversary of his brother’s
death. Carlos’ remains were placed in the
Reporters’ Association mausoleum but in 1998, at
the request of the Union of Journalists of Cuba
(UPEC), they were moved to the mausoleum of the
Veterans of the Independence Struggle.
In the
last decade his visits to the island have been more
frequent. Two weeks ago, Edmundo attended a tribute
to the memory of his brother at the UPEC
headquarters. On this occasion, Carlos was
posthumously awarded the Félix Elmuza distinction,
the highest decoration given by the UPEC.
"I
feel a part of you all. It’s a part of my brother,
his remains are here, the memory of him is here. One
of the things that my father asked me during the
last moments of his life was that whilst I was able
to I should ensure that my brother’s remains do
not leave Cuba."
Alongside
Cubans, Edmundo followed Carlos’s footsteps into
the Sierra Maestra and back into history.
"Atahualpa Recio was the pseudonym that he used
for his Radio Rebelde broadcasts," he told me.
"Atahualpa like the Inca emperor who was
murdered by the Spanish. My brother urged the Cuban
people to follow Fidel and bring down one of the
worst dictatorships in America."
"I
don’t know how Carlos managed to get in contact
with the rebels in Santiago de Cuba. But he managed
it. He stayed for a few days with a woman who was
involved in liaison work with them, until being
taken up into the mountains. Up at the Central
Command he talked a lot with Dr. Fidel Castro and
also met Camilo and Che."
His
aim was to tell the world about the anti-Batista
insurgency from the very entrails of the Revolution.
As a born journalist, wherever there was a problem
he wanted to be there, recalls Edmundo. He was a
reporter with Associated Press and also with the
Ecuadoran dailies El Telégrafo and El
Tiempo.
The
Ecuadoran press immediately published the news of
what had happened to Carlos Bastidas; several
articles and editorials criticizing the Batista
regime were published. "There was a strong
reaction to what had occurred. At that time, the
conservative Camilo Ponce Enríquez was in power and
Congress publicly acknowledged the rebels in arms in
the Sierra Maestra. This was how the Ecuadoran
people became aware of the Cuban situation," he
affirmed.
Edmundo
also practiced journalism. He was a correspondent
for the U.S. daily La Nación (which no
longer exists) and for Vistazo magazine, one
of the most important in Ecuador. He went on to work
for El Telégrafo, El Universo and El
Comercio in his own country.
"Journalism
is the most noble profession that exists. Respect
for one and all is your obligation; if a journalist
doesn’t comply with this, to simply tell the truth
– which can be crude or flattering but it is the
truth – you create problems. The journalist has a
universal obligation to guide. If the information
isn’t truthful, constructive, it is a double-edged
sword, it’s dangerous, a weapon that can do both
good and harm. It’s like a scalpel in the hands of
a surgeon: you can save life or destroy it."
It was
this conviction that, in his brief professional
life, made Carlos stand out.
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