Demetrio Montseny Villa

His father, of Catalan origin, was a carpenter and his mother was a laundress at a sanatorium that the Catalans had in that city. He studied in public school through the ninth grade. He was unable to complete the tenth grade to enter the Institute of Secondary Education due to his father's death. For several years he was a pharmacy messenger, earning a salary of five pesos monthly and worked at a bicycle rental agency. At eighteen years old he dedicated himself to selling insurance and working as a traveling salesman on commission for a laboratory that manufactured pharmaceutical products.

In 1941, he arranged to enter the Guantánamo-Occidente railroads, but was unsuccessful. One had to be the child of an employee to obtain a position. Finally, in 1944, he was able to enter the railroads as a Temporary Circumstantial Retranquero and not in the locomotive workshops as he desired. Later, after passing an exam, he moved to the Stations department as an assistant and later as a Relevant Station agent.

From a very early age he manifested various political concerns that led him to join the most progressive elements of the locality; he first joined the National Revolutionary Movement and later the Oriental Revolutionary Action movement, from where he opposed the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Already in the midst of the insurrectional period, during a historic visit by Frank País to this city to organize the July 26 Movement, Demetrio became part of the first cell as chief of action and sabotage, and participated in several armed actions, directing uprisings in Yateras and Guantánamo and organizing worker cells.

In early November 1956, Frank summoned him to Santiago and informed him of an upcoming trip to Guantánamo to retrieve some hidden weapons: three 3006 rifles, two .44 caliber and several automatic shotguns. These were picked up by Frank in a car driven by Luis Felipe Rosell, which were camouflaged behind the back seat and covered with flowers purchased in Guantánamo, for a flower shop that Rosell had in Santiago de Cuba. On the 28th he was sent for by Frank to Santiago to participate in a meeting where the Chiefs of Action and Sabotage from different municipalities in the eastern province were present and they informed him that Fidel had already left Mexico and would surely land in the East when the Granma landing occurred, he collaborated in the delivery of weapons and fuel. Managing to organize within the American Naval Base in Guantánamo, Action and Collection cells, with great effectiveness and a Military Intelligence network.

Through various means they managed to remove twelve 61mm mortars, one .30 machine gun (air-cooled), seven Garand 3006 rifles, four Springfield 3006 and six .12 caliber shotguns, used by the warehouse custodians, which had an eighteen-inch barrel and an air-cooling system. They also learned of valuable information, including documents and photos of the tyranny's planes loading projectiles and bombs that they dropped indiscriminately in the mountains. In [[1957 he was wounded by the explosion of an arsenal of weapons and explosives that they had on Aguilera Street which they called the bomb-making laboratory, when he recovered they took him to the Guantánamo Vivac. They opened judicial proceedings against him and transferred him bound to Santiago de Cuba in a truck under the watch of a corporal and two soldiers.

In light of this situation, Vilma Espín arranged for lawyer Juan Escalona, who was connected to the Movement, to take charge of his defense. In early October they achieved his conditional release, with the commitment to report every Monday at eight in the morning to the Court. In those days he made contact with René Ramos Latour who advised him to set up a bomb factory in Santiago. In January 1958 Latour proposed to him that since he had been operating in Santiago for three months it was considered that he was already burned out, so it was necessary to organize a group to go to the Sierra Cristal mountains. The first mission would be to take the barracks of the mining facility in Nicaro (Nickel Processing Co.), a North American industrial entity, in order to seize the weapons they had. On the night of February 23rd at midnight, taking advantage of the shift change, they entered in three automobiles. They seized seven brand new Garand rifles, three Springfields and an M-1.

His active participation in action and sabotage activities made him one of the revolutionaries most persecuted by the regime in this territory, with grave danger to his life, so he was ordered to join the Rebel Army, but first attacked the Nicaro Mines, in the municipality of Mayarí, where he seized various weapons and war supplies and formed a platoon.

He joined the Second Eastern Front in March 1958, under the orders of Commander Raúl Castro Ruz, and due to his bravery, discipline and clear intelligence, in October of that same year he was appointed chief of Column 20, which bears the name of an old comrade in struggle, "Gustavo Fraga", and two months later he was promoted to Commander.

He participated in numerous combats, including those at central Soledad, Río Frío, Aguacate, Aguada and Caimanera. After the revolutionary triumph he held various positions in the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), as chief of the Sierra Division in Escambray, chief of the Border Brigade, military attaché at Cuban embassies in Czechoslovakia and in the Soviet Union.

For seven years he was Chief of the External Relations Directorate of MINFAR; then substitute Chief of the Eastern Army and subsequently presided over the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution in the province of Santiago de Cuba.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959
He served as:
Military Chief of the Guantánamo Plaza.
Executive Assistant to Che at La Cabaña.
Chief of the Military District in the province of Las Villas.
Chief of the Tactical Forces of the East.

For his outstanding service to the Homeland, he was promoted in 1996 to the rank of Brigade General, and he died on June 27, 2011, at the age of 85. His remains were deposited in the Pantheon of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, in the Colón Necropolis, in Havana.