Thirty years after the murder of Carlos Mu
By
Raúl Álzaga Manresa Read Spanish Version
Last
Tuesday we marked the 30th anniversary of Carlos Muñiz Varela’s
assassination.
We
met him in late 1973, thanks to Ricardo Fraga del Valle, a young
university student who had left Cuba during the middle part of the
decade of the 1960s, who introduced him to me. At that time, we were
developing (along with comrades in the United States) a project to
launch a magazine that might serve as a vehicle to channel our
political concerns regarding the topic of Cuba and as a forum of
expression and presence in the Cuban exile community. In addition, we
hoped it might allow us to organize support groups in U.S. and Puerto
Rican cities.
Carlos
was an active and militant participant in the on-campus independence
movement and in the labor union at the University of Puerto Rico.
When
I met him and we talked about our incipient project (even though the
first issue hadn’t even come out yet) his reaction was one of
enthusiasm and willing participation, a result of his experiences in
organizing at an early age. He was barely 20; Ricardo was 18, and I
was 24.
For
two years, we immersed ourselves in the study of history, politics
and the economy of our native country, Cuba. During those years, we
attended hundreds of study periods, with discipline and consistency,
along with a dozen other young Cubans who lived in Puerto Rico. They
were part of the initial nucleus of Areíto Magazine and, later, of
the Antonio Maceo Brigade. Carlos’ voracity for reading and his
facility for debate and counterpoint made him an outstanding
participant in those study circles.
All
those years, we made sure that Areíto Magazine remained alive,
through the contribution of articles and interviews or via the
financial route. Each support group in the various cities had to meet
a financial quota for each issue of the magazine.
I
remember an occasion when, unable to meet an assigned quota, Carlos
proposed going to a casino in a local hotel to try our luck and raise
the $200 we needed. The idea provoked a heated discussion about moral
and ideological issues. Finally, it was decided to use $20 from the
magazine’s funds; in case the money were lost, Carlos and I would
replace it from our own wallets.
Remember
that at that time our wages were about $400 a month; so, $20 was a
big amount for those of us who were married, with children. But we
went on our first mission at the first hotel we came across. We began
by losing, but, just when pessimism seized us, we began to win until
we exceeded our quota and made about $220. It was a major
accomplishment.
Then
we began to prepare for the trip by the Brigade, which at first was
called the "Encounter of Cuban Youths"; after arriving in
Cuba in December 1977, it became the "Antonio Maceo Brigade."
Carlos traveled to Cuba in September 1977, four months before the
brigade’s arrival. In that trip, he went as a journalist for Areíto
Magazine, to interview a well-known counterrevolutionary chief named
Reynol González, who was about to be liberated. There, Carlos met
with comrades from the ICAP who would look after us at the Julio
Antonio Mella Camp.
In
that brigade, Carlos was assigned to lead the sub-brigade that we
mistakenly felt to be the most troublesome of the three sub-brigades
in the group. His organizational experience and political training
allowed him to carry out that task. In time, that sub-brigade
produced the best comrades I had, men who went on to develop
important political projects.
Later
came the Youth Festival and the Student Festival in summer of 1978
and our encounter with Raúl Castro (along with Carlos and Ricardo
Fraga), which marked so strongly our way of seeing the Cuban
revolutionary process.
At
the "Dialogue with the Cuban Community Abroad" (Nov.-Dec.
1978), Carlos was not present, not because he wasn’t qualified to
attend but because, months earlier, he had prepared the first group
of exiled Cubans who would visit their relatives in Cuba, if the
meetings for that purpose turned out all right.
His
assassins justified their crime saying he attended that encounter. He
never did.
In
late March 1979, the "National Committee of the Antonio Maceo
Brigade" met in New York. There, we planned the brigade’s next
trip, scheduled for summer of ’79. We never expected that it would
bear his name — the Second Contingent Carlos Muñiz Varela.
At
that reunion, which lasted several days, we faced the organizational
dilemma of conceptualizing the group in charge of organizing the
Brigade, which had been formed and structured since January 1979. It
was a long day, and nobody came up with a solution to the problem. At
one point, Carlos stood up and, as if enlightened, said: "The
Antonio Maceo Brigade is an organization with an established
structure and membership. The contingents, or travel groups, [the
word ‘contingent’ was used thereafter] will be the lode for the
recruitment of new members. To travel in a contingent does not mean
you belong to the Brigade."
To
many of us, his words were the most brilliant statement we had heard
in a long time. Unknowingly, he contributed his organizational skills
to the other incipient project we were building.
On
April 17, 1979, Carlos and I left Cuba after trying to solve some
differences in organization, concept and style with the economic
enterprise in Cuba that organized the trips for the Cuban Community
Abroad.
His
sudden death surprised us all. Our naiveté, combined with our
fearlessness, betrayed us. On April 28, 1979, the three of us who
began the political process in Puerto Rico (Ricardo Fraga, Carlos
Muñiz and I) spent practically the entire day together, something we
hadn’t done for a long time. We said good-bye to one another for the
last time at about 5:30 that afternoon. Barely half an hour later, an
assassin’s bullet ripped through Carlos’ head.
The
assassins did not stop with his murder. They continued to kill,
setting off bombs and conspiring to kill for a long time.
It
was a moment of truth, the moment that separates the children from
the men, the romantics from the idealists, and the cowards from the
brave. Many comrades of ours in the United States and Puerto Rico did
not allow themselves to be intimidated and grew in the face of
adversity, becoming true leaders of a political process that, with
time and not necessarily thanks to us, has become a mass movement on
the edge of becoming a majority movement.
Today
we remember Fidel’s visionary words when he met with us in January
1978. At that meeting, reacting to the concern some of us expressed
about returning to the homeland, he said something like this: "We
have no problem welcoming you. But I do suggest that you return to
your cities and meditate about it. I think that if you organize
yourselves and grow, you may become a threat to those who today
threaten you."
The
terrorists and all the American presidents that took office after
Carlos’ assassination could not halt the flow of travel to Cuba.
Then, in 2001, George W. Bush came to the presidency and, in 2004,
towards the end of his first term, decided to accomplish via legal
means what the terrorists had failed to do in the 1980s — to reduce
to the lowest possible level the exchanges between Cuban relatives,
even to redefine the concept of "family." No other Hispanic
or minority group in the United States has ever experienced such a
prohibition.
Today,
30 years after Carlos’ assassination, we can say that both attempts
— the one in 1979, through terror and death, and the one in 2004,
through "state terrorism" — have failed.
We
shall continue to work so Carlos’ death will not go unpunished and
the entire truth is known. Today, in Carlos’ memory, his comrades
raise the flags of struggle and victory.
Raúl
Álzaga Manresa is a founder of Areíto Magazine. He
lives in Puerto Rico.
San
Juan, Puerto Rico
April
2009
