Camagüey Front, bastion of the guerrilla fight in the Agramontine region

On November 18, 1958, the Camagüey Front was created, a revolutionary armed organization created with the objective of directing the actions of the clandestine movement and multiplying the revolutionary fight against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista; it was founded in October 1958 by Commander Victor Mora with military operations base in the Agramonte region.

The creation of this guerrilla front, which obtained the name of the Mambi leader Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz, was part of the strategy established by the high command of the rebel forces with the objective of extending their military power to all regions of Cuba.

The Front was composed of three guerrilla columns, two of the Rebel Army, the 13 Ignacio Agramonte, of Commander Victor Mora and the 11 Candido Gonzalez of Captains Jaime Vega and Orlando Orozco; and together with them one of the Popular Socialist Party named General Jesus Rabi, under the command of Armando Rodriguez.

After the ambush and massacre of Pino Tres, where 32 young men lost their lives, the front established its headquarters in San Miguel del Junco, and achieved the preparation of a network of supplies of food, fuel and medicines, a sanitary service with specialized assistance, the creation of a bivouac where criminals, informers and prisoners of war were kept and a communications system was established with the General Headquarters of the Sierra and the subordinate troops, with the C-13-IA plant.

Among the actions of the guerrillas in this zone stand out the attack to the Manatí post, with the participation of Column 11 and 12 of Lieutenant José Santiago Ercilla, belonging to the Fourth Front; the ambushes of Alfredo Rodríguez Velázquez, with a group of rebels, in Hatuey, on December 5; and that of the airfield, in the central Francisco, used «by the adversary’s liaison and reconnaissance planes (…) During the passage of the invading columns of Camilo and Che (…) it served as a base of operations against them (…)» as described in the book Camagüey Front. Clandestinity and armed struggle.

In this work, elaborated by a collective of authors, it is also described that other important actions developed by the combatants of the Camagüey Front were the combat of San Miguel del Junco and the skirmish of kilometer 6 of the Francisco-Elia embankment, the latter considered, in the aforementioned title as «a forceful response to the setback suffered by Column 11, in Pino Tres».

With the decisive collaboration of the clandestine combatants and the peasantry, the forces of the Camagüey Front fulfilled all the missions assigned by the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz; by December 31, 1958 almost all the garrisons of the region were in the hands of the rebels, and immediately the talks for the surrender of the regiment began, a fact that was consummated on the morning of January 2.

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Acerca de Martha Martínez Duliet

Licenciada en Educación en la especialidad de Historia y Ciencias Sociales en la Universidad de Camagüey. Labora como periodista en Radio Florida desde el año 1993 desempeñándose actualmente como editora del sitio digital de esta emisora. Contactos: Twitter: @MDuliet Facebook: Martha Martínez Duliet Blog personal: soyfloridana@wordpress.com

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