Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0100/01006.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 19KB | 317 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01006}
$Pretitle{352}
$Title{Cuba
Chapter 5B.   The Origins of the Revolutionary Armed Forces}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James D. Rudolf}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{military
armed
forces
cuban
army
cuba
government
far
pcc
officers}
$Date{1986}
$Log{}
Country:     Cuba
Book:        Cuba, A Country Study
Author:      James D. Rudolf
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Chapter 5B.   The Origins of the Revolutionary Armed Forces

     The attack on Santiago de Cuba's Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, led
by Fidel Castro, a lawyer and former University of Havana student leader and
"action group" member, represented the first organized armed revolt against
Batista. It was also the first military action by those who would provide the
core leadership for the Rebel Army and, after its victory, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias-FAR). Of the approximately 165
rebels who participated in simultaneous attacks on the army's Moncada
Barracks-the country's second largest military post-and on the smaller
installation in the nearby city of Bayamo, at least half were killed, most
after being captured and often brutally tortured by Cuban troops or members of
Batista's feared Military Intelligence Service. Only 48 rebels managed to
evade capture. Of the 100 or so believed captured, only Fidel Castro, his
brother Raul, and 30 others survived long enough to be brought to trial three
months later.

     After their release from prison on the Isle of Pines in May 1955 under
Batista's general political amnesty, many of the attack's participants, plus
others affiliated with the university student movement, joined Castro in the
reorganization of what came to be called the 26th of July Movement (Movimiento
26 de Julio-M-26-7). Two months later many of the same supporters departed
with Castro for guerrilla training in Mexico.

     When the 82 guerrillas returned to Cuba in December 1956, they were
unaware that an insurrection by the urban wing of the M-26-7 in Santiago de
Cuba had been put down the month before. The approach of the yacht Granma,
which transported the new Rebel Army, was detected and followed by Cuban naval
patrols and air reconnaissance. After the rebels landed on the eastern end of
the island, army units mobilized to repel the invasion and killed all but
between 12 and 20 of the rebels, who took refuge in the Sierra Maestra. After
regrouping, the guerrillas launched their first offensive action against a
Rural Guard outpost in January 1957. Two years later the Rebel Army would
triumphantly enter Havana (see Fidel Castro and the Overthrow of Batista, ch.
1).

     Batista's demise was owing as much to his failing support within the
armed forces as to the failure of the once powerful military institution
effectively to combat the guerrillas. Repression, corruption, and violence
characterized political life and led some sectors of the military to withdraw
their support from the dictator. At the same time that the rebels found
support in rural Cuba and among the disenchanted and victimized urban middle
class, Batista's armed forces were crumbling from within. Even before the
Granma landing, Batista had been confronted with two coup attempts during
1956. The September 5, 1957, revolt at the Cayo Loco naval installation in
Cienfuegos by some 400 young officers and sailors allied with members of
M-26-7 represented the largest challenge the regime had thus far confronted.
Although the uprising was successfully quashed by 2,000 army troops, an
estimated 100 survivors fled to the Sierra de Escambray in central Cuba and
opened a second front.

     Massive assaults waged by army troops against the elusive guerrillas'
hit-and-run tactics proved fruitless and harmful to troop morale. During the
major campaign begun in May 1958-involving 12,000 to 13,000 troops from all
three services against the 500 or so guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra-the
military began to show indications that it was losing its will to fight.
Paralleling the final days of the Machado dictatorship, the armed forces began
to sense not only the absence of popular support for Batista but also growing
antimilitary sentiment among the general population. An arms embargo imposed
in March 1958 as a symbol of United States disapproval over the use in a civil
war of MDAP funds and materiel provided for hemispheric defense contributed
to the deterioration of morale.

     The Rebel Army carefully disavowed harboring antimilitary sentiments and
said so repeatedly in broadcasts over Radio Rebelde, the clandestine radio
network. Some troops openly defected to the guerrillas, who were believed to
treat their prisoners well, often releasing them after a short detention. Both
desertions and defections increased as the war went on. Pilots refused orders
to bomb civilian areas in the Sierra Maestra, often dropping their bombs on
uninhabited locales; some were arrested for insubordination while others
sought asylum in Miami. By autumn 1958 Batista recorded that his officers in
the field were surrendering their entire units to the guerrilla forces "with
surprising frequency." As the Cuban armed forces lost personnel to the Rebel
Army, the guerrillas often gained their weapons as well.

     By the end of the year Batista's vain attempt at appeasing the United
States by holding elections has failed. The demoralizing impact of the
continuing lack of United States support for Batista's war against the
guerrillas was finally interpreted by the officer corps as a sign that
Batista must go. Had the final battle of Santa Clara, in central Cuba, in
December not resulted in the complete collapse of the armed forces fighting
structure, Batista would have been overthrown within days or weeks by his own
officers, who were already plotting among themselves with the Rebel Army
against him. On New Year's Eve 1958 Batista met quietly with his chiefs of
staff at Camp Columbia, named his successor-ironically, a general who was
conspiring with Castro-and left the country the next day.

     After Batista's departure, all pretense of withholding absolute victory
from the Rebel Army was soon abandoned. Even though the general named to the
national command by Batista resisted surrendering to the guerrillas, army
units throughout the country refused to continue fighting after learning the
dictator had left. With the end at hand, many top army and police officials
looted the treasury and fled the island; others less fortunate, many of whom
had been responsible for the torture and murder of innocent civilians,
remained to face revolutionary justice.

     In mid-January 1959 the provisional revolutionary government suspended
the law regulating the structure of the old military, permitting it legally to
reorganize the new armed forces according to its needs. The constitution,
which had prohibited capital punishment, was amended to allow for the
execution of Batista's collaborators judged guilty of "war crimes." The often
televised executions by firing squad of former Batista-era officials were
supported by the majority of Cubans, who were eager to avenge the
dictatorship's excesses, but the United States government viewed them with
alarm and used them as a standard by which it judged the civility of the new
government. However, Castro, the de facto leader of the revolutionary
government, eventually recognized that the bloodletting could not continue if
the leadership wished to end the spasmodic violence that had wracked the
country for most of the past decade. After the retributive executions were
halted, efforts to consolidate the revolutionary government's power began in
earnest.

Constitutional Provisions and Treaty Obligations

     Article 64 of the 1976 Constitution of the Republic of Cuba establishes
that the defense of the "socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the
supreme duty of every Cuban citizen." Military service, incorporated under
Article 64, is regulated by law. Treason against the nation i