June 30, 1957: a day of combat and remembrance

Cuban youth, always at the forefront of its time, commemorates together with the people the 66th anniversary of the death, on June 30, 1957, of Josue Pais Garcia, Floro Vistel Somodevilla and Salvador Pascual Salcedo, massacred by henchmen of the Batista tyranny in the heroic city of Santiago de Cuba, by then already the heart of the urban armed struggle in unstoppable march within the nation.

It was a brutal assassination, which once again mourned the country, the cause of the loss of those three sons of Cuba, but also the grateful memory remembers it as an honorable fall in combat.

They were members of the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement participating, that day, in actions of sabotage to an electoral rally with which agents of the tyrant Fulgencio Batista were trying to give an image of civility and citizen tranquility that the island had not enjoyed for a long time.

That same year, for example, when the Rebel Army was growing and strengthening in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, hired assassins of the Batista regime had massacred Jose Antonio Echeverria, President of the Federation of University Students (FEU) and the Student Directorate on the painful day of March 13, and had murdered the youth of Humboldt 7 on April 20, in Havana, just to mention a few notorious savage crimes.

However, the Rebel Army, on May 28, had fought the first victorious combat in the enclave of El Uvero, the same that would mark the coming of age of that force, according to Commander Ernesto Che Guevara.

The hope for Cuba's freedom was beginning to be drawn on the horizon, in the midst of barbaric acts such as these.

With a guerrilla struggle led by the young lawyer Fidel Castro, initiated after the expedition of the Granma yacht in December 1956, the nation once again felt emotionally on a state of war, with the support of the active youth belligerence of the M-26-7, which also made itself felt in the clandestinity, giving encouragement and adding followers throughout the territory in cities such as Santiago de Cuba, Havana and Manzanillo.

Other forces and sectors were joining and were called to grow.

Josue Pais, only 19 years old, participated in a very prominent way in the revolutionary actions in his patriotic hometown.

On June 30, 1957, the younger brother of the unforgettable Frank Pais, Chief of Action and Sabotage of the Movement, was taking part along with other young people in the attempt to frustrate Batista's electoral move, aimed at perpetuating himself in power with blood and fire, but with an inconceivable attempt to make up for the horror he was unleashing everywhere.

Josue was waiting for Frank's orders, the day of the event we remember, while listening to the radio with his comrades in action the progress of the act they were to sabotage.

They were hiding in a house near the site, because since dawn the city and the area of Cespedes Park, the scene of the Batista fantochada, had been taken over by army forces, stationed on the corners. A tense and gloomy air sifted the atmosphere.

Frank Pais could not be exposed either, although he did not stop working underground, because he was already being viciously persecuted and he had practically only a month more to live than his brother, since he was murdered in the street also on July 30 of that year.

When he did not receive the agreed signal in time, Josue decided to go out with his two comrades to start the mission of making small explosions and acts of repudiation in other parts of the city.

They leave in a car, but at an intersection on Marti Street, they are intercepted by the heavy patrol. The first to be shot and killed on the spot were Floro and Salvador.

Josue, already wounded, but not mortally, managed to get out of the car. The notorious assassin Jose Salas Cañizares, upon seeing him, gave the false order, perhaps for publicity purposes, to take him to the hospital. But once he was in the car, he was shot in the head, without any delay.

Neither the so-called Masferrer Tigers, in charge of the intensification of repression and crime in the east of the country, led by the gangster Rolando Masferrer, nor the army were able to silence the impetus of the City in Red that was Santiago.

Nor did they reduce the support bastion of Manzanillo and other localities of the untamed region. The confrontation with tyranny was beginning to take shape and was unstoppable.

The combativity of that fateful day, magnifies the memory of the three heroes, remembered by their brothers forever. And more importantly, they became an inspirational force, more than tears.