Néstor Demetrio Calixto López Cuba

Cuban revolutionary fighter. He participated in guerrilla warfare in the Sierra Maestra. He led the tank squadron that participated in the overthrow of mercenary forces at Playa Girón. He fulfilled several internationalist missions in Africa and Latin America. He held various positions in the leadership of the Revolution. He is considered an Illustrious Patriot of the municipality of Báguanos.

He was born in the neighborhood of Palmarito de Tacámara in the province of Oriente, from a middle peasant family, where he spent his childhood and part of his youth.

Son of Néstor López Hernández and Rosa Cuba Mora, who had 11 children and one with another woman, whom Rosa adopted.

At school he reached the sixth grade. At age 16 his father told him: "That school is in town, and peasants in town become corrupted, you take your machete and your hoe and dedicate yourself to helping me here in the field." Néstor senior had assigned tools to each son; they had to work by obligation, that was a law. For several years Néstor did so, cut sugarcane and worked as a cartman and truck driver, hauling cane to the Báguanos sugar mill, he was between 17 and 19 years old.

In 1957 he joined a cell of the revolutionary movement July 26, which led the struggle in Cuba to overthrow the dictatorship prevailing in the country. One of the most important tasks of the cell was to raise funds for the Rebel Army, which directed by Fidel Castro and based in the Sierra Maestra, had begun to wage a revolutionary war.

In May 1958 as the regime's repression intensified, López Cuba and a group of his comrades went to the mountains to join the Rebel Army, where they joined the Second Eastern Front "Frank País", directed by Commander Raúl Castro Ruz.

Newly incorporated, he was sent to Loma Capellal, where fighting was taking place, in Commander Casillas' column, participating in several battles both in the mountains and on the plains, including Janata, San Luis on two occasions (road to Palma Soriano), Cueto, Los Palacios, among others. He ended the war in "C" Company Roberto Estévez Ruiz, belonging to column 17, directed by Commander Antonio Enrique Lussón, at the head of his company was the now General of the Army Abelardo Colomé Ibarra (Furry).

On January 1, 1959, Triumph of the Cuban Revolution, found him surrounding the Holguín regiment, achieving its surrender. In this way he headed to Havana as part of the caravan of freedom, directed by Fidel Castro, participating in the triumphal entry to the capital and in the act held on the night of January 8 at the Columbia Camp, and from there he was assigned to Managua Camp. Already in that unit he begins his life as a Tank Operator, taking the first courses and concluding with the rank of sergeant.

That same year he married young Daysi Salazar. From this union were born Odalis López Salazar and Néstor Sergio López Salazar.

In October 1960 the first Soviet tanks began to arrive in Cuba. Immediately an intensive course was organized to learn how to operate them; what they learned in the morning with Soviet instructors they had to teach in the best of their abilities to the rest of the comrades in the afternoon.

In December 1960 he was promoted to the rank of 2nd lieutenant. In this way he became the first chief of the Rebel Army's tank battalion. Upon completing the training course, counterrevolutionaries organized by the CIA launched the invasion of the Bay of Pigs.

The morning of April 17, 1961, López Cuba, who still did not know about the attack, received orders to depart immediately for Matanzas at the head of the tank contingent. When he reached his destination he was surprised to find himself facing the Commander in Chief, who told him of the invasion at Playa Girón and ordered the unit into combat.

With four tanks in operation, the squadron advanced accompanied by a unit of foot militiamen. They fought fierce battles and helped contain the initial advance of the invaders, who were defeated in 72 hours by the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the National Revolutionary Militias.

In the combat actions he was struck by fire from an enemy machine gun. His comrades took him to the field hospital, from where they planned to evacuate him to Matanzas to operate on him and remove the projectile lodged in his arm. Upon hearing the other wounded speak of the advance of revolutionary troops at Playa Girón, he left his hospital bed and returned to the battlefield.

He was present during the final assault against the invading forces, wetting the tank treads in the sands of the beach. He encounters the Commander in Chief, who gives him the mission to prepare a T-34 tank and a SAU-100 to fire on the mercenary ship Houston. The Commander fires on the ship and it sinks, thus eliminating the last enemy stronghold that was resisting, until Fidel himself notices that López Cuba was suffering from fevers and chills, ordering his evacuation.

After the battle he was promoted to the rank of captain, and was appointed chief of the armored forces and tasked with organizing the first forces of this type in the FAR.

In January 1962 he was sent to the USSR to take the first officer course in tank specialty. Over the course of the years he took several training courses in Cuba, and attended the Voroshilov academy of the Soviet Union.

In October 1973 he went to carry out a mission to Syria, at the head of a tank battalion which later became an entire regiment. That year Syrian and Egyptian forces had gone to war against the Israeli army to try to recover the Golan Heights, the territory occupied by the Israelis and the Sinai Desert. Although the Cuban mission did not participate in combat, it organized the fortification of Syrian defenses and helped dissuade the Israelis from further aggression. The unit remained in Syria until February 1975, then returning to Cuba, where he was promoted to the rank of Commander.

Shortly after his return he joined the first Cuban internationalists who arrived in the People's Republic of Angola, in late 1975 in response to an urgent request for aid from the government that had recently gained independence to combat a South African invasion.

Upon arriving in Angola he was at the head of a tank battalion, which was later expanded to a regiment. When they advanced toward Nova Lisboa and subsequently to the south, he was appointed head of the column that had been directed by Raúl Díaz Argüelles. He participated in different battles, most of the time in the bush, advancing south in tank formation.

In March he reached the border with Namibia; his column was the first to make contact with the South Africans.

By October 1976 he was already back in Havana.

Following the victory of the Nicaraguan revolution in July 1979, Papi López as his close friends called him, headed the Cuban military mission in Nicaragua, in response to the new Sandinista government.

The mission consisted of helping and advising the army for the defense of its national sovereignty against mercenary forces supported by Washington known as the contras. The hard and difficult mission lasted three years, fulfilling the objective entrusted.

Upon returning to Cuba he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and was appointed chief of the Political Division of the FAR, subsequently he was promoted to the rank of General of Division for the achievements obtained in his military career.

In 1996, at the first national conference of the ACRC, he was elected unanimously as its executive vice president. He was also a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and a deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power.

After having a brilliant military career and holding various positions in the Revolutionary Armed Forces and fulfilling glorious pages of history in Cuba and other parts of the world, he died on October 15, 1999 at the age of 61 after fighting hard for life against leptospirosis.

His remains rest in the Pantheon of the Fallen for the Defense in the Second Eastern Front "Frank País García".

In January 2004 he is proposed as an illustrious patriot of the municipality of Báguano, being approved by all instances of the Party and the Government.