Cuban Generals Enrique Acevedo and Armando Quiñonez Die

June 25, 2022

Two Cuban generals died this Thursday in Havana: Enrique Acevedo González and Armando Quiñonez Machado, from causes that have not been revealed.

Acevedo, Brigadier General of the Reserve, was 79 years old.

According to the Granma newspaper, he entered the Rebel Army in 1957, at age 14, under the orders of Che Guevara first and then Fidel Castro.

After the triumph of the revolution, he held different responsibilities in the FAR, such as Chief of Staff and Chief of Infantry Division in the Central and Western Armies, Provincial Chief of Staff of Havana City, Chief of Combat Preparation Section in the Western Army, and being part of the FAR Inspection Body, among others.

He was the brother of Rogelio Acevedo, a General of Division also deceased, who for more than 20 years was president of the Institute of Civil Aeronautics of Cuba (IACC), until in 2010 he was removed from the position by Raúl Castro himself.

Enrique Acevedo also dedicated himself to literature and was a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

His best-known work was the novel Descamisado, which narrates the experiences of him and his brother during the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, from before joining the guerrilla and until the triumph of 1959.

The novel was adapted for television in 1999, in a series called Memorias de un abuelo, which was shown in the now-defunct Aventuras time slot.

His body will be displayed this Friday at the funeral home on Calzada and K, in the capital. He will be buried in the FAR pantheon in the Necrópolis de Colón, in a ceremony with military honors.

As for Armando Quiñonez Machado, also a Brigadier General of the Reserve, he was 78 years old.

According to the state agency Prensa Latina, he was born in 1944 in Cienfuegos and joined the struggle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista as a member of the Movement of July 26.

In 1959 he joined the Association of Rebel Youth and in 1964 he entered the FAR, where he held multiple positions until he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1993. He participated in the wars in Angola, Ethiopia and Nicaragua.

His body was waked at the Calzada and K Funeral Home before being cremated on the morning of this Friday, and his ashes deposited in a military ceremony, in the Pantheon of the Ministry of the Interior of the Colón Cemetery.