Haydeé Santamaría Cuadrado

Cuban revolutionary. Fighter in the assault on the Moncada barracks and in the uprising in Santiago de Cuba, on November 30, 1956. Member of the National Leadership of the Revolutionary Movement 26 of July (MR 26-7). Director of the Casa de las Américas.

She was born in the bunkhouse of the Constancia Sugar Mill—now "Abel Santamaría Cuadrado"—in Encrucijada, province of Las Villas (current Villa Clara). Her parents, Joaquina Cuadrado Alonso and Benigno Santamaría Fernández, were Spanish. As head of the carpentry workshop at the sugar factory, her father enjoyed a certain economic stability.

She attended a school in the bunkhouse and, after completing her primary studies, prepared to enter the School of Nursing, which she was unable to achieve.

At the beginning of the 1950s, she moved with her brother Abel Santamaría Cuadrado to Havana in search of work opportunities, where they lived in an apartment at no. 164 on Calle 25 between P and O, in El Vedado, which currently houses the "Abel Santamaría" Museum.

Attracted by the denunciations made by Eduardo Chibás Ribas about Cuban political reality, and by his motto "Shame against money," she soon joined the Youth of the Cuban People's Party (Orthodoxos). She participated in activities against the coup d'état of March 10, 1952, headed by Fulgencio Batista. She worked on the publication of the clandestine newspaper Somos los mismos, a mimeographed organ published by the initial group that met with the brothers in the apartment, which included Jesús Montané and Raúl Gómez García.

The apartment became a site of conspiracy, where activities were planned, projects discussed, and diverse documents studied. Haydeé Santamaría was part of the group that, under the direction of lawyer Fidel Castro Ruz, prepared and carried out the assault on the "Moncada" and "Carlos Manuel de Céspedes" barracks in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, respectively, on July 26, 1953.

She distinguished herself in creating essential conditions at Granja Siboney, on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba, which would be the meeting place for fighters before the assaults. She demanded to participate in the assault on the Moncada barracks, so she was assigned, along with fighter Melba Hernández, to serve as a nurse, with doctor Mario Muñoz Monroy, at Saturnino Lora Hospital, just steps from the barracks, where she would provide care to potential wounded from the armed confrontation.

Detained and imprisoned along with Melba Hernández, she suffered hearing the torture and learning of the murders of her comrades in the action, among them her brother and her fiancé, Boris Luis Santa Coloma.

Her participation in the trial of the Moncadistas was of extraordinary importance, as she was one of the survivors of the massacres committed against the assailants, which was reflected in her statement. She was sentenced along with Melba Hernández, in case 37 of 1953, to seven months imprisonment in Guanajay prison, in the province of Havana.

Haydée, along with Melba Hernández, was taken from Columbia airport to the National Women's Prison of Guanajay. In a Military Intelligence Service (SIM) vehicle, heavily escorted, they were taken to the penal facility.

She was assigned to Block A, where the female inmates with the best conduct records were held, as ordered by the court that considered her a political prisoner. In a small storage room on the ground floor, next to the kitchen, she was given the cell that she would share with Melba Hernández. In the improvised cell, four spaces were set up for them: one for a bedroom, one for a kitchen, another for a dining room, and one last where the bathroom was installed.

During her confinement, she was authorized on some occasions to receive friends and was permitted to have all the books she wished, but she was kept incommunicado the entire time, with only Melba Hernández's company, and could only get sun in the patio on days when her family visited her. In general terms, she was treated in a humane and courteous manner during her entire stay at the National Women's Prison of Guanajay.

Haydée, along with Melba, were released on February 20, 1954. Waiting for her outside the prison to take her to Havana were her parents and her brother Aldo, Juan Manuel Martínez Tinguao, Luis Conte Agüero, Melba Hernández's parents, and the revolutionaries from Guanajay, Ángel Eros, Pedro Esperón, and Evelio Prieto, who would later be part of the commando that assaulted the Presidential Palace on March 13, 1957. The first act that both Haydée and Melba performed was to bring floral offerings to the tomb of the Orthodox leader Eduardo Chibás.

After being released, she and Melba Hernández devoted themselves to the clandestine distribution of the pamphlet Message to the People of Cuba Who Suffer, in which Fidel Castro explained to Cubans how their brothers had been savagely massacred in the actions of July 26, 1953. She also had the mission of reorganizing the dispersed forces of the movement in the western provinces and the responsibility of editing and distributing Fidel Castro's defense argument during his trial, a document later called "History Will Absolve Me."

She participated in a meeting on July 12, 1955, on Factoría Street No. 62, in Havana, in which the Revolutionary Movement 26 of July was created, of whose National Leadership she was a member. When Fidel Castro moved to Mexico to organize the Granma yacht expedition, Haydeé Santamaría went underground, under the name María.

At the end of 1956, while waiting for the expeditioners, she traveled to Santiago de Cuba, where she met with Frank País, Armando Hart Dávalos, and Vilma Espín to finalize the details of the support group for the landing. She participated in the actions of the uprising of November 30, 1956, in that eastern city.

She traveled to the Sierra Maestra more than once to establish contacts with the command of the rebels, and in May 1958 was assigned to fundraising and organizing support from Cuban exiles in the United States. She directed the office of the Movement 26 of July in Miami, a city in the state of Florida.

When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, she returned from abroad and collaborated in the Ministry of Education, which was headed by her husband, Armando Hart Dávalos.

On May 26, 1959, she was appointed Director of the Casa de las Américas. From that position, she promoted new creators, particularly poets and young musicians who formed the Nueva Trova Movement.

Under her direction, the Casa de las Américas became a center for cultural promotion and research with national and international reach, which contributed to preventing cultural isolation at a time when foreign powers sought to suffocate the Cuban Revolution.

Haydeé Santamaría joined the executive of the Federation of Cuban Women in 1961. She was a member of the National Leadership of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. She was also a founding member of the Central Committee of the new Communist Party of Cuba, established on October 3, 1965, based on the unity of various political organizations.

She carried out missions entrusted to her by the country's leadership abroad. In 1966, she participated as an invited guest at the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and visited the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, where she met with President Ho Chi Minh.

To strengthen communication and relations between Cuba and Latin America, Haydeé Santamaría carried out important tasks. In 1967, she presided over the Conference of the Latin American Organization of Solidarity (OLAS), held in Havana to coordinate the insurrectional struggle throughout the continent.

In talks and meetings at work centers and universities, she recounted much of her experience from the assault on the Moncada barracks, and as a revolutionary woman and guerrilla fighter.

In 1975, she was elected deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power for the province of Villa Clara, and member of the Council of State.

In 1959, she founded Casa de las Américas, the most important cultural entity in the region, which she chaired until her death, and to which great writers from Latin America and the Caribbean were attracted, such as Pablo Neruda, Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Benedetti, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Zalamea, Eduardo Galeano, and Juan Gelman, among many others. With Haydée Santamaría, Latin American writers and artists discovered a common home, a "free territory" in which they could give their best. She created the Casa de las Américas Literary Prize. Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, and Noel Nicola, among other troubadours, regard Haydée as one of their idols, because she knew how to represent the just and serene essence of the Cuban Revolution.

Haydeé Santamaría died by suicide in Havana on July 28, 1980. Her remains rest in the Pantheon of the Martyrs in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.

Source: EnCaribe.org