Enrique Otero Fernández, AKA Gallego Otero, was a popular scientist who contributed to one of the branches of Public Health, Natural Medicine, a family tradition that he developed tirelessly, for which he received several awards and decorations from different entities and personalities.
With a childhood that he always remembered as terrible, he began to work at the age of ten and during his youth he worked in the fields for lunch and six pesos a week to contribute to his family’s support.
Otero Fernandez joined the revolutionary process in 1958 and after January 1959 he was a founder of the militias, the National Police, the State Security Organs, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and the People’s Powers; he participated in the fight against bandits in the Escambray, and in the first Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, he was linked to that organization in Cumanayagua, Las Villas and Cienfuegos
For years, at the request of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, Gallego Otero dedicate his time to tending an agro-ecological and agro-biological farm, located in the mountain of the Guamuhaya massif, in the municipality of Cumanayagua, and for his meritorious work he received several decorations which stand out the Order of Playa Girón, the medals Combatiente de la Lucha Clandestina, the Fight Against Bandits and Distinguished Service of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and others
His natural wisdom and the positive results of the work carried out by Gallego Otero led the National Institute of Ecology and Systematics to grant him the status of Popular Scientist, so we evoke his valuable work on June 4, the 98th anniversary of his birth.
