October 12. Frustration and executions.

By: Pedro Corzo - 13/10/2026

Guest columnist.
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I write out of a need to say what I think and share my experiences, to suggest to those who in good faith embrace disruptive proposals that they properly inform themselves about the promoters of magical solutions; that they thoroughly investigate who the people are who promote expedited procedures, radical changes that supposedly will satisfy everyone, a valid suggestion, both for the saviors of the right or the left.

Testimonies like the one I present below demonstrate how a country's citizens can lose their rights and property, while being plunged into spiritual and material misery by those who use their theatrical skills to manipulate resentment and envy, proclaiming a false impartiality and an unjust justice. These deceivers have numerous resources at their disposal, the greatest being the folly and animosity of their followers.

We Cubans had many warnings. We neither listened nor wanted to see. My country wasn't brought down by some curse, but by a criminal who knew how to manipulate the worst of our society, placing them in a situation where they could destroy everything they had coveted without having worked for it.

For those of us who were young in October 1960 and have survived these almost seven decades, these days are unforgettable; they were a watershed moment in our lives and the end of a pipe dream. It's true that many were never devotees of the tyrant, but the rifle fire we didn't hear awakened even the most dormant among us, spurred on by a profound sense of justice.

Those days are indelibly etched in our memories; it is a memory that will always shake us until we have managed to vindicate the crimes of the Castros, among which, for the people of Villa Clara, those first executions at the painfully remembered farm of "La Campana", Escambray, occupy a top place.

It happened on the 12th of this month. Five patriots were executed: Porfirio Ramírez Ruiz, president of the Federation of University Students of Las Villas (FEU) and captain in the Rebel Army; Plinio Prieto Ruiz, commander in the Rebel Army; Sinesio Walsh Río, peasant and captain in the Rebel Army; and José Palomino Colón and Ángel Rodríguez del Sol, both agricultural workers.

The trial of these men was a spectacle reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum and the crimes committed against Christians. No evidence was needed, nor were reliable witnesses, and no verdict was reached. It was all Fidel Castro's will, using a commander named Félix Torres as his loyal lapdog—the very man who carried out those vile murders and who had devastated the Escambray region with a disastrous agricultural plan that affected all the peasants, particularly the poorest.

That trial reiterated what many had observed in previous trials during the Castro revolution. More than a hundred people were prosecuted, and individuals with no connection whatsoever were grouped together in the same case. Of course, they never received adequate legal representation because the judicial process was an essential part of the intimidation and repression campaign being implemented, which most of the population remained unaware of.

Those who were to be executed, I reiterate, were never sentenced in the sham trial. Father Olegario Cifuentes accompanied them on the bus that took them to the execution wall at the La Campana estate. Witnesses from that time affirm that when the bus transporting the condemned men passed through the city of Manicaragua, one of them shouted firmly and without a hint of fear, "They're taking us to La Campana to be shot."

Father Olegario spoke with them, asked them to confess, and offered to deliver a message to their families. Plinio Prieto gave him a brief letter for his wife and children and, before dying, said with the fortitude that characterized his entire life:

“I have faith in God and in men.”

The death of these patriots did not intimidate those whose convictions committed them to freedom and citizens' rights; on the contrary, the sacrifice of these five patriots who took up arms against the Fidelista utopia spread to every corner of the country, with the Escambray region being the most fertile and the main stage of the Cubans' struggle against totalitarianism.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».