Melba Hernández Rodríguez del Rey

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Melba Hernández Rodríguez del Rey was a Cuban lawyer, politician, and diplomat. She was ambassador to Vietnam and Cambodia.

Hernández was the only daughter of a mulatto couple who resided in a modern apartment on the third floor of a building on Jovellar Street in El Vedado (a neighborhood near the center of Havana). Her mother, María Elena Rodríguez del Rey - Castellón, and her father, Manuel Hernández Vidaurreta, had been underground combatants during the Cuban War of Independence, and they instilled in her revolutionary activism.

She completed her primary education at the public school in Cruces, where her principal, Corina Rodríguez, had been a messenger for the mambí general Higinio Esquerra, one of the leaders of the War of Independence.

In 1943 she graduated as a lawyer from the Faculty of Law at the University of Havana. Later she obtained a degree in Social Sciences from the same university. Hernández worked as a lawyer in customs during the Government of Carlos Prío Socarrás.

I had studied Law. It was not a "profitable" career for me. The few cases I handled were not the ones that brought the greatest profits, although they were the ones that allowed my principles. My "clients" were exploited peasants, a girl who went from prostitution to jail; laid-off workers. I still remember a case I handled defending the workers of the Ómnibus Aliados.

She was active in the Orthodox Party, created by politician Eduardo Chibás, who committed suicide in 1951.

She was born on July 28, 1921, in Cruces, former province of Las Villas. Doctor of Law and degree holder in Social Sciences. She was active in the Orthodox Party.

She actively participated in the struggles against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista and from 1952 was part of the revolutionary Movement of July 26, led by Fidel Castro. She was part of a group of 162 men and 2 women—the other was Haydée Santamaría—involved in the assault on the Moncada barracks (in the heart of Santiago de Cuba) on July 26, 1953.

They were with the group of Abel Santamaría, who were to take the Saturnino Lora provincial hospital. All were arrested and tortured. To frighten and demoralize them—in order to make them betray those who had assaulted the barracks—they showed her and Haydée Santamaría the eye that had been torn from Abel Santamaría (Haydée's brother) moments before, and the crushed testicles of Boris Luis Santa Coloma (Haydée's boyfriend) before executing them with a gunshot. They deduced that both heroes had not spoken, so they resolved not to either.

During the Moncada trial, despite having practiced law for a decade, Hernández chose not to defend herself—just as Fidel Castro did—and was represented by Jorge Paglieri Cardero. She was sentenced to 6 years in prison at Guanajay prison. Melba, along with Haydée Santamaría, was taken from the airfield of the Military Camp of Columbia (in Marianao, 7 km from downtown Havana) in a heavily escorted vehicle of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) and taken to the National Prison for Women, in Guanajay, 60 km from Havana.

They were assigned to Block A, where the inmates with better conduct were located. A tribunal considered her a political prisoner and sentenced her to seven months in prison. In a small warehouse next to the kitchen on the ground floor, a cell was set up for her that she would share with Haydée. In that improvised cell, four spaces were arranged: one for a bedroom, one for a kitchen, another for a dining room, and a last one where the bathroom was installed.

During her confinement she was authorized on some occasions to receive friends and was allowed to have all the books she wished, but she was kept incommunicado the entire time, with only Haydée's company, and could only take sun in the yard on days when her family visited her. In general terms, she was treated humanely during all the time she spent in the National Prison for Women in Guanajay.

Melba, along with Haydée, were released on February 20, 1954. Waiting for her outside the Prison to take her to Havana were her parents, Haydée's parents and her brother Aldo Santamaría, Juan Manuel Martínez Tinguao, Luis Conte Agüero, 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 Melba and Haydée did was to take a floral offering to the tomb of Orthodox leader Eduardo Chibás (1907-1951).

Almost immediately after her release, she participated in the printing and distribution of the manifesto A Cuba que sufre, in which Fidel Castro and his prison companions demonstrated their irrevocable decision to continue the struggle against the regime of Fulgencio Batista. It was also Melba, along with Haydée Santamaría and Lidia Castro, who compiled and organized the notes that Fidel Castro managed to smuggle out of prison, written in lemon juice, in which he reconstructed his argument in the Moncada trial, which would later become known as History Will Absolve Me.

In a letter dated June 18, 1954, Castro entrusted Melba and Haydée with making the greatest effort and concentrating resources in printing History Will Absolve Me. Peso by peso they managed to accumulate several hundred pesos to publish the manuscript. In this task they were supported by accountant José Valmaña Mujica, who was in charge of organizing all the clandestine printing work.

With a small part of the money raised and following Castro's directions, Melba left for Mexico to make contact with the group of Moncada barracks assailants who were there in exile. Melba's arrival with economic aid relieved the precarious economic situation they were suffering. During the trip, Melba was able to verify the recruitment and infiltration work that priísta elements were carrying out within the exiles of the Movement of July 26. The revolutionary obtained a photostatic copy of a letter in which former president Carlos Prío Socarrás described members of the movement as dangerous elements and directed their infiltration.

She was part of the National Leadership of the Movement of July 26. In Mexico she participated in the preparations for the expedition of the ship Granma and saw off the combatants at the port of Tuxpan (Veracruz).

She returned to Cuba. On July 26, 1954, after her return to Cuba, she led a demonstration along with Haydée in the Colón cemetery that was attacked by the police forces of the dictatorship.

Later she joined the Rebel Army at the Third Front Mario Muñoz.

With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, she was a founder of the Communist Party of Cuba and a member of its Central Committee.

She carried out numerous tasks, one of the most important being her work as a representative of Cuban people's solidarity with Third World brothers. She was appointed director of the National Prison for Women, in Guanajay (where she had been imprisoned for six months).

Later she was declared a "Heroine of the Moncada." At the beginning of the sixties she was in charge of women's prisons in Cuba.

During the United States invasion of Vietnam, she founded and presided over the Cuban Committee of Solidarity with Vietnam from its creation, which later extended its work to Cambodia and Laos.

She was vice president of the Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of Peoples, and member of the presidium of the World Council for Peace.

After Vietnam's triumph against the United States, Fidel Castro appointed Melba Hernández as ambassador of Cuba to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and to Cambodia and secretary general of the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Between 1976 and 1986 and from 1993 she was a deputy in the National Assembly of Popular Power representing the municipality of Diez de Octubre (in the province of Havana). From 1986 she was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

She was distinguished as a Heroine of the Republic of Cuba.
In 2006 she was awarded the title of honorary doctor from the Institute of Higher International Relations (Havana).

Catalan anthropologist and feminist activist Isabel Holgado Fernández analyzes the perception that official discourse has of Melba Hernández as a woman:
In an article published by Granma in May 1968, commemorating the Day of Cuban Mothers, Melba Hernández was mentioned as "mother of generations of revolutionaries." The author completely "forgot" that this woman was one of the most decisive people in the revolutionary triumph. Can you imagine the same description substituting the name Melba Hernández with that of Fidel Castro, "father of generations of revolutionaries"?

Melba died of diabetes mellitus on March 9, 2014. She was married to Jesús Montané Oropesa.