Mario Alberto Muñoz Monroy

Combat physician. Martyr of the events of July 26, 1953.

He was born in Colón, Matanzas. Son of Marcelino Muñoz Urra, a native of Roque (Colón), photographer, and Catalina Monroy Artiles, a native of Colón. Marcelino lived with his family in a bohío. To support himself he worked in the fields planting plantains and pineapples and making charcoal. The first three children of the marriage died young. Then Mario was born.

Although he had little formal knowledge, he was enterprising. He found a way to set up a fruit stand in Colón. One day, a Catalan friend who was an itinerant photographer taught him photography technique and he, enthusiastically, decided to become a photographer. This changed the family's destiny, as he established a studio in the most central location of Colón, at Martí Street No. 85, facing Libertad Park, to which he gave the name Foto Muñoz.

Mario studied primary education at the José de la Luz y Caballero public school in Colón, with the prestigious Heriberta Martínez Martínez as his teacher. He began secondary education at the José Martí school, owned by Professor José Antonio Silva, also of Colón, affiliated with the Institute of Secondary Education of Matanzas.

This school was relocated by its owner to Matanzas. The young man then continued his high school studies at the Institute in that city, starting from the third year. He completed his fourth and final year at Instituto No.1 in La Habana (academic year 1933-1934), and graduated in Sciences and Letters on August 28, 1934.

During his high school studies, the student body, mainly university students, was in open rebellion against the dictatorial regime of President Gerardo Machado, the clawed donkey, as revolutionary poet Rubén Martínez Villena called him. Mario Muñoz also had his first political concerns and collaborated with the University Directorate (DEU) distributing in Colón the publications Alma Mater and Cuba Libre.

The Cuban people overthrew the tyranny of Machado in 1933. Muñoz entered the University of La Habana on December 24, 1934, to study medicine. He soon won the appreciation of his classmates, who affectionately called him grandfather, for despite his youth, he had gray hair. He obtained the degree of Bachelor in Sciences and Letters at age 21 from the Institute of Secondary Education of La Habana on August 28, 1934. He entered the University of La Habana, where he enrolled in the Medical degree program, in the academic year 1934-1935, on December 24.

The moment of his entry into the University was one of great political, economic, and social crisis in Cuba, as the student body was in open rebellion against the tyrant Machado.

In March 1935, a general strike took place in Cuba that spread to numerous cities in the country, due to popular discontent and as a rejection of the Mendieta government, sustained by Batista.

Both Guiteras and the Communist Party of Cuba had warned that this would fail if it was not accompanied by armed action, but the Authentic Party decided to carry it out, resulting in a heavy toll of blood and fierce repression.

Muñoz joined in and collaborated with the working class and students by stopping buses on the central highway at the entrance to Colón, to explain to transport workers the reasons for the strike and the objectives it pursued, thereby successfully adding not a few of them to the movement.

He was one of the leaders of the historic strike of March 1935. In 1942, having returned to his studies, he finally completed his degree thesis on February 5 of that year. He did so with distinction, graduating on March 16.

He immediately began to practice his well-earned profession in his native city, where he came to be respected by all. He did not stop thinking that the true revolution had not yet been made. He was appointed physician of the House of Relief of Colón during the Grau government and exercised the position for the benefit of the population, who admired him and held him in great affection.

But he resigned his position indignantly when "authentic" politicians proposed that he use his position as official physician for vote-gathering. In the confrontation of his ideology with the prevailing politics, the clean and generous man triumphed, a man who would later join the Centennial Generation.

He resigned again when, appointed radiologist of the Colón Hospital during the Prio government, his unbending honesty clashed with the opportunism of the rulers of the moment. He then joined the Orthodox Party; and after Eduardo Chibás died, in attempting to keep that great political group united, he understood that its then top leaders were not revolutionaries and he waited for Cuba's moment.

There are abundant anecdotes about Mario Muñoz as a physician, for his humanism and love of the people, such as this one. A great flood occurred in Colón and many humble and helpless people were in serious danger in the low areas of the city. Faced with the critical situation, he undertook to house them in the Casino Español.

The keys to that society—made up of wealthy Spanish merchants—were not to be found; but he did not give up: aided by some soldiers whom he urged on, he broke the lock of the establishment and sheltered the people there.

In 1948, when appointed president of the Liceo de Colón, he undertook a campaign to clean up and create social services for the destitute population. He had eradicated gambling from that society since the time he was treasurer.

Dr. Mario Muñoz was a lover of radio broadcasting, which in those times was beginning to develop. He became a radio enthusiast and conducted transmissions on long and short wave. On several occasions he consulted through his station with seriously ill patients, free of charge, including the case of a friend he had in Costa Rica. His station was CoCNMM.

His relatives preserved it and later donated it to the Museum of the Cuban Revolution as a historical relic. Studious and active, he learned to pilot a small airplane that he had purchased with economic help from his father and that would later be confiscated by Batista's Army.

When Batista carried out the coup d'état on March 10, 1952, Dr. Mario Muñoz Monroy prepared himself for struggle and found in Fidel Castro the leader capable of initiating the revolution and taking it to victory. His house was a center of conspiracy, where the conspirators gathered.

Fidel, Abel, Haydee Santamaría, Boris Luis Santa Coloma, Julio Reyes Cairo, and Mario Martínez Arará attended the meetings. The physician, a radio transmission enthusiast, put his knowledge at the service of the cause and built several stations for Fidel; he collaborated in everything with his companions of the Centennial Generation.

Mario worked hard in the preparations for the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in Bayamo, and due to his abilities Fidel included him among the members of the movement's leadership, forming part of the Civil Committee.

He was the only physician in the group and would be the physician of the attack. His impatience was such that Fidel had to ask him with a smile, on more than one occasion, to wait until everything was ready. And finally the longed-for moment arrived. Without doubt, so as not to alarm his father, he told him he was going to Güines for a public act against Batista. He was going to assault the Moncada, the prelude to a new era.

The third car that left Siboney was Mario Muñoz's, which would complete the group headed by Abel to take the civil hospital "Saturnino Lora" in support of the taking of post #3 of the Moncada Barracks.

In Muñoz's automobile were carried the records with the anthems and marches, as well as the documents that were to be used later in taking the radio station.

During the battle, Dr. Mario Muñoz remained in the hospital attending to the wounded with the help of the two young women, going through all the hospital wards and combat areas, especially in the zones where Abel fought. When it seemed all was lost, Muñoz removed the pocket where his name was printed and Dr. Chamat advised him that he should not have done so because that identification could save his life. The nurses put surgical tape with Dr. Muñoz's name on him, but this was torn off by one of the soldiers when they detained him. He was taken by the soldiers along with Haydee Santamaría and Melba Hernández as detainees.

On the way to the Moncada Barracks, before reaching post 4, Mario Muñoz was brutally beaten and murdered from behind, falling on the sidewalk of an interior street of the Moncada in the presence of the two women, lying in a pool of blood.

The soldiers did not respect his condition as a physician and set upon the brave doctor with rifle butts right there in the hospital. Melba Hernández, witness to his death, has recounted:

They murdered Mario on the small interior street of the barracks. Mario was a few meters ahead of us. We saw Mario's discussion with the soldiers and suddenly, the shot. Mario falls. Then we both passed by him, we leaned over to see if he was still alive and if anything could be done. But I don't think so, I don't think anything could be done. I think he died instantaneously.

The selfless combat physician died on July 26, 1953, exactly 41 years after his birth. As the culmination of his sacrifice for the Cuban Revolution, the soldiers set about searching his house and his clinic in the city of Colón. They seized a radio station from him.

In his native city, his family and friends were unaware that he had left for the assault on the Moncada Barracks in the city of Santiago de Cuba.

His father recounted shortly before his death: He told me he was going to Güines for a public act against Batista. I did not think he was going to assault the Moncada. I would have gone despite my years; his death has been fruitful; his cause is one worth dying for.

As Fidel Castro expressed in his allegation History Will Absolve Me, these words fit well in the heroic life of this physician: My companions, furthermore, are neither forgotten nor dead; they live today more than ever and their killers will see terrified as from their heroic corpses the victorious specter of their ideas rises.

Source: EcuRed, Virtual University of Health, Cuba.