Pedro Martínez Pírez Passes Away, a Fundamental Voice

November 29, 2024

Cuban journalism suffered on November 27 the loss of one of its most prestigious professionals. Pedro Martínez Pírez, a distinguished journalist, diplomat, and associate professor at the University of Havana, passed away at the age of 87. He was one of the fundamental voices of Cuban Radio and recipient of the José Martí National Journalism Prize.

The death of great men invites us to examine their lives, and his, full of glorious history, far from being captured in a few lines, stirs today in all those who knew him, enjoyed his work, and shared with him the achievements of a profession that he loved and to which he dedicated himself body and soul.

He was born in Villa Clara, in a home illuminated by poetry, which came to him from his father, poet Enrique Martínez, a man endowed with noble thoughts and patriotic ideals. For this reason, from a very young age, he fought through the spoken word, and as part of the 26th of July Movement, against the Batistiano tyranny, and was until his last breath a defender of the Cuban Revolution.

Upon the triumph's consolidation, he enrolled in Commercial Sciences at the Central University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas. Revolutionary diplomacy would choose him to carry it out in Ecuador and in Chile. It was in this context that his journalistic vocation was born, which he would practice in those lands in various media outlets (Mañana and El Siglo).

It was during this time that he established ties with the Radio Habana Cuba station, to which he dedicated all his talent. He founded and directed the Revista Oclae and published work in various press media. He was a war correspondent in Angola, where he also worked as a Journalism professor and as an advisor to the newspaper Jornal.

His colleagues in radio and television could see him only as a master, with all the mastery and knowledge of a profession from which he felt himself a soldier.

The Cubaperiodistas website today republishes an interview conducted with him in 2018 that appeared on the same portal on August 16, 2019. Later it would be included in the pages of the book Anatomías del periodismo cubano: una malla de hipervínculos, by journalist Flor de Paz, in which moving revelations from colleagues who hold the José Martí National Prize for Lifetime Achievement are gathered.

In those confessions, Martínez Pírez recalls having interviewed great personalities, among them, the Commander in Chief:

–How many times did you interview Fidel?, the journalist asks him.

–Fidel also interviewed me. Because Fidel always asked, what do you think? The first time I interviewed him was at a moment when he was going to exercise his right to vote at a polling station in the El Vedado neighborhood; then in New York, on October 12, 1979, after his historic speech at the Plenary Session of the UN General Assembly, when he spoke as President of Cuba and of the Non-Aligned Movement; in Seville, on July 26, 1992; in New Delhi, during the VII Summit of the Non-Aligned; and on television.

To close the interview, in which one can read, like in a book, the existence of Martínez Pírez, he is asked about the happiest day of his life: "March 14, 2017, when I was made an Illustrious Son of my city, Santa Clara, at the foot of the monument to Che, by José Delarra."

Those words say much about the man who now takes his leave. To love the city in which one was born and to honor the heroes is a way of being great, as he knew how to be.