Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo´s Final Statement

Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, was born in Madrid in 1934. He arrived in Cuba as a child after the Spanish Civil War with his exiled family. He was nightclub owner, singer, Comandante in the revolution that overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista, counterrevolutionary, Cuban prisoner, exiled Cuban and Cuban dissident. He was always brave.

What follows is my rough translation of a document that he gave to his daughter to be published after his death. It was published in Spanish in El Pais on October 26, 2012.

The Cuban Revolution Is Depleted by Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo

The year of 1959 witnessed an event that seemed destined for poetry: the Cuban Revolution. From that revolution, scattered over the island and around the world today, are the painful remnants of a shipwreck. In 2003, I returned to Cuba. Enemy for a time of the Cuban state and officially perceived as such, I worked peacefully to open a space for political dialogue. For years, from exile and on occasional visits to Cuba, we had engaged in dialogue with the Cuban government with a view toward a political opening. With the country in tatters, without the help of the former communist sphere, there was no choice but for Cuba to change.

In meetings that were brief but substantive, I said this to Fidel Castro . However, since my surprise arrival in Cuba, I have not been given an identity card, nor I have been given the political space that had been discussed. It is true that my presence was tolerated, but this has occurred under the eye of an Orwellian state that has kept a close watch on my activities.

In the time I've spent here, some of the Cuban officials who shared (with me and other activists linked to Cambio Cubano) their concerns for the problems that plague our people and the urgency for creating the necessary political opening, have been removed from office. At times, our conversations seemed to be encouraged by the top leadership of the country, but political dialogue that would lead to major change was always postponed.

Today, without losing my faith in the Cuban people, I denounce the enterprise, once full of generosity and lyricism that promised to put Cuba at the forefront of progressive thought, which has exhausted its potential as a viable project.

I share this reality with the best of the Cuban people, whether in government, in their impoverished homes or in exile, and I take responsibility for this excursion [the Cuban Revolution] while I reaffirm my commitment to its founding ideas, which inspired widespread admiration among both Cuban and international sectors. I make this statement as my health fades and I have received a [terminal] medical diagnosis. I take responsibility for this battle and am not fazed by the fact that some may describe it as a failure. Fidel Castro´s desire to remain in power has been greater than the faith in a possible renewal of Cuba´s best projects since time immemorial.

What Cuba do I see today from my sickbed? It is a desolate Cuba where the ethical character that was evident in 1959 no longer exists. The citizenry has lost its self-awareness: it resists without expressing it and the youth have made the hope for escape their immoderate obsession. Large numbers of ordinary people know that this revolution has no moral purpose. The Cuban is losing his essence. He survives in a simulation and within the strange phenomenon of double speak. The structures are irrational. The denationalization of the economy rests precariously on an absurd and unbalanced formula that excludes leadership and national initiative.

The government that proclaimed to be of the people and for the people bet against creativity and national spontaneity; unionism is a glaring absence.

I have had the chance to attempt the arduous work of opposition in this country. I have been steadfast in my independent position and my commitment to distancing myself from any project linked to other governments. But the Cuban government has been tenacious in its painstaking work to make the opposition invisible, the opposition which is prevented from mobilizing and is not allowed to participate in the important areas of media or legislation.

How does one compensate for 50 years of nonsensical acts against a country´s citizens? How does one make up for so much damage to community and citizenship? How do you combat the consequences of all these mistakes?

The Cuban government leaves no doubt of its inability to create progress. As a result, Cubans wander the streets diminished, worried, sad and bankrupt. In the minds of those who cling to power at all costs, these are the model citizens, perfect candidates for slavery. The Constitution does not work. The legal system is a joke. There is not even the illusion of a division of powers. Civil society is, as with progress, a dream that has been deferred for half a century.

Does a desperate mother seeking milk for her child on the black market mock justice? More than 60 years ago, with a free press as witness, Fidel Castro addressed a magistrate during [Fulgencio Batista´s] dictatorship and said that if he was accused of using revolutionary force, that grievance, his contempt for the law, and the official complaint against him should all be dismissed because the existing [Batista] government was the product of an illegal coup. That unassailable and true logic could be applied today by the opposition to tell a Cuban government that its crude use of absolute power and the consolidation of that power in perpetuity is intolerable. One could well use Fidel´s approach before that magistrate to say that no one can make themselves an eternal custodian of a country nor put forward a meticulous project to abolish reality and paralyze progress.

It also occurs to me to ask, where is the original original direction of the (revolutionary) process for which my brother Charles died or when will the anxiety of feeling that the future has been mortgaged, end. Throughout 50 years of political dexterity and police control the Cuban has been a true hero of subsistence in a dialectical labyrinth. He has handled the disappointment and loss, the divisions and fatigue. What´s new in telling this government that this Cuban approaches his destiny with uncertainty?

According to doctors, my diagnosis is irreversible. I feel that every day of my brief destiny will be more opaque and, at the same time, more true. I don´t fear my diagnosis , which appears as a path that I will walk calmly and with hope for the future of Cuba, a land of unequaled men and women. Let me say, that I reaffirm the ideas that my generous parents encouraged in me and my brothers; I neither distance myself from nor waiver in my commitment to social democracy, an encompassing viewpoint that is, increasingly, the starting point for an inclusive vision of history; the chances of success of any political vision magnify or shrink in accordance with its generosity and sense of collective commitment, the capacity for concord among its proponents.

If I offended anyone, if ghosts of different contentions tempted me to be less than generous, I ask for benevolence, as today I let go of the thoughts of those who judged me hastily. I think I have served Cuba in its differents stages, putting its interests above the errors of my authenticity, any lack of vision on my part or any stubbornness along the way. During the revolution, I think I have been a voice for humanism, perhaps best expressed in my opposition to the executions. My childhood during the Spanish Civil War prepared me to try at least to master my passions. I am not among those who let go of the dream when it became the worst nightmare.

Some might interpret this document as pessimistic. However, this is not my intent; there is no anger in it, just an echo of the tough losses of the Cuban people, of whom I became one when I was a child as a member of a family of Spanish Republican exiles . My optimism is based on the earthy power of this island, in the infinite tenderness of Cuban women, in the power of innovation of its most humble people. The Cuban nation´s legacy of durability will resist all the cyclones of history and all the dictators. Varela is more than a symbol. Maceo is more a guide than an admirable warrior. Marti is not a metaphor.

Luck will come. When the last errant Cuban returns to his island. When the last child born in Madrid, Miami or Puerto Rico is acknowledged on the island. When the wounds heal and the pain goes away, people will celebrate their new happiness cautiously and will guard against shiny magicians and messianic projects. Because, no matter how, luck will arrive: thin, quiet and fragile as a jubilant butterfly, a sign to these poor people who deserve better. I know there will be a butterfly that will alight in the shadows. I would have liked to tell you that I had given more; perhaps you will have understood that I could only give my life, and that I had the privilege to be part of this island and its people.

Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, 1934 - 2012

Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo died this morning in a Havana hospital of an apparent heart attack, according to an AP report.

When I met Menoyo in 2001, I discovered a man of quiet but steely conviction, a man who, after an entire life forged in struggle and a great deal of violence, had chosen peace as the best approach to achieving...peace. For this, he was often vilified in Miami.

Menoyo, a pragmatic social democrat, was caught between Cuban and Cuban-American extremes.  From the political limbo of this radical middleground, his voice went unheard and unheeded far too often.

I will write more about Menoyo soon.

Morgan in Colombia: Semana magazine

This past weekend, the magazine Semana in Bogotá, Colombia published this, Spanish-language article about William Morgan.

The reporter asked me if Morgan had been with the CIA. I said, "No," and I compared the facile slander of identifying someone as a CIA agent in Cuba with calling someone a communist in the US.

One protects one´s interests by identifying and discrediting "enemies" and, at the same time, truncates discussion. The question becomes, "Is he, or isn´t he?" rather than, "What did he really stand for?"

William Morgan Makes The New Yorker

Suddenly, William Morgan is a hot topic. David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z, has just published an article about Morgan in The New Yorker. Read it here.

I will blog about the article when I have had a chance to read it closely.

The Miami Herald Interview, Unabridged

A few weeks ago, a reporter from The Miami Herald asked me a series of questions about William Morgan, an American-born, rebel-hero-turned-traitor-to-the-revolution who was executed by the revolutionary government in Cuba in March 1961. You can read the complete story of Morgan´s life and death (on paper or Kindle)  in my book, The Americano: Fighting with Castro for Cuba´s Freedom. I linked to The Miami Herald articles in my previous blog post.

The primary reason that Morgan is still in the press is that the Cuban woman to whom he was married when he died, Olga Goodwin, has been leading the effort to have his remains, which were buried in a traitor´s grave, repatriated to the United States. Goodwin is remarried and, interestingly, lives in Toledo, Ohio, Morgan´s hometown.

This is far from a simple case. My answers to the reporter´s questions give some sense of the complexity, the politics and the historical context.

(Reading my answers over, I am tempted to make some slight adjustments or additions to what I said. But I have decided not to, wanting to stay true to the answers I gave in the moment the were asked. If people have questions, I will answer them in future blog posts.)

Reporter: Obviously, this isn't just anyone's remains. Would you agree?

Aran Shetterly: I would agree that the case of William Morgan is not a normal circumstance. However, I don´t think that, for the most part, what is going on with Morgan´s remains is about current tensions or divisions between Cuba and the US. It is about things that happened more than fifty years ago. Remember that a year-and-a-half before Morgan was executed in 1961, the United States had revoked William Morgan´s citizenship and Fidel Castro had called Morgan a “Cuban.” Morgan was tried, not as a foreign instigator, but as a high-ranking, rebel soldier who had betrayed the Cuban revolution. Since his death, he has been labeled, officially, a Cuban traitor on the island.While Morgan´s US citizenship has since been recognized in the US, it wouldn´t surprise me at all if there were internal conflicts in Cuba about how to handle this situation.


R: What are the politics of William Morgan today in Cuba, Aran?  Is there a possibility these politics are playing out in the quest for the remains?

AS: My sense is that the politics involved aren´t so much about the United States but have more to do with controlling the historical record inside Cuba.  At high levels, both the US and Cuba have had moments of real openness when discussing the past. Look at the dialogue that has taken place around the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. Why should William Morgan´s case be so stuck?

First, I would say that Cuba probably doesn´t want to reopen Morgan´s case to public debate.  I think it is safe to say that they didn´t have a strong case for executing him. Put him in jail for starting to organize against them, fine. But, he didn´t have blood on his hands.

Second, people who are classified as traitors become one dimensional in Cuba. The Cuban government doesn´t make much room for dissent, even in the historical record. When I was there researching my book, if people were willing to talk about Morgan at all, they whispered. Officials closed their office doors or, in more than one case, took me outside to speak. It is risky in Cuba to talk about people who have challenged the revolution, people who are considered traitors.

If Cuba were to allow Morgan´s remains to come back to theUS it might open a can of worms there. They would have to explain why a traitor´s remains were being dignified in this manner. What if they had to  speak about a traitor not just as an enemy, but as a whole person, as someone who had believed in the revolution and changed his mind for specific reasons?  It might challenge the binary “you are either with us or against” way of thinking.

Morgan was very popular in Cuba. He was charismatic. And politically and culturally he couldn´t have been more different than Che Guevara, whom the Cubans have been told to emulate for nearly three generations. For whatever reason, the old guard still seems to think Morgan´s memory represents a threat even though most young Cubans have never heard of him. 


R: I know the exile community has taken up a collection, raising $2,500 to help defray the costs if and when the Cuban gives up the bones. Do you think the fact that they are involved could hurt efforts?

AS: Having the Cuban exile community claim Morgan as a martyr to their cause doesn´t help. It is an uncomfortable fit. Morgan claimed to the end that he was not against the revolution, but was against communism. He described himself in general terms as a social democrat.

Take the experiences in Miami of Morgan´s Cuban friends and fellow rebels of the Second National Front of the Escambray, people like Max Lesnik, Ramiro Lorenzo, Bibe Vazquez. Though they are exiles themselves, they have not been embraced by the larger Miami exile community. Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo decided to return to Cuba. Roger Redondo moved to Costa Rica rather than live the day-to-day political tensions in Miami. Morgan shared a vision of Cuba´s future with these men, not with most of the people who left in 1959 and 1960.

Finally, I think it is worth considering one more, much simpler, possibility: Are we sure that the Cubans know where Morgan´s remains are? Maybe they have been lost and admitting this would be more embarrassing than allowing Olga´s pain and the murky ambiguity of the situation to drag on.

AS Quoted in The Miami Herald

I was quoted a few days ago in a sidebar article in The Miami Herald about the effort to have William Morgan´s remains repatriated to the United States. As is usually the case, my lengthy answers were reduced to a couple of soundbites. (Not a complaint, just a fact.) In a subsequent post, I will publish my full answers to the questions that were asked by The Miami Herald reporter.

The lead article to the sidebar was about the discovery of a hard copy of the final letter that William Morgan wrote to his mother just before he was executed. The content of the letter was published in newspapers at the time, so there is nothing new there. However, in a dramatic if minor twist, it turns out the paper copy of the letter itself has been tucked away among the belongings of former UPI reporter, Henry Ramont.

For those who aren´t familiar with it, my book The Americano: Fighting with Castro for Cuba´s Freedom is about the life and death of William Morgan who fought with the Rebels in Cuba against the dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Morgan was one of two non-Cuban majors in the Rebel Army. The other was the famous -- and infamous -- Che Guevara.

It is a story about a man´s courage to reinvent himself in another country and about the international politics and intrigue that got him killed. Click here to read a pretty good review of the book by reporter and writer Richard Cummings.

Shanghaied by David Paul Collins: A Review

This is the first part of a two part discussion of David Paul Collins´ book, Shanghaied. This post looks at the book and its story. The second will examine the author´s strategy for publishing and marketing the book.

Shanghaied: The Book

When we meet him, fifteen-year-old Jack Sligo is a boy preparing to slip away from his Boston Irish home in the wee hours of a 1956 summer morning. He climbs out a window, leaving behind a sheltering, middleclass bubble to chase his dream of a glamorous jaunt around the world as deckhand on a cruise ship.

Sligo does end up on a ship, but, as the title suggests, not under his own power. After hitchhiking from Boston to Mobile, Alabama, he is drugged and kidnapped from a seedy sailors´ bar. He awakens the next day on a ship that has already set sail for South America. Merchant ships, like prisons, are confined communities of individuals who don´t always get to choose their own bunkmates or watch mates. Collins leads us deep into a world where young Sligo learns that for a boat to function, the seamen must rely on -- if not fully trust -- one another.

Sligo´s sense of race, religion, family, friendship, work and manhood are all challenged and expanded on the SS Iron Prince whose crew list reads like a phonebook from Queens, New York: There are Filipinos, Cayman Islanders, Eastern Europeans, a German, a Norwegian, a Jamaican, a Brazilian, and a man from the island of Dominica. The boat´s complicated provenance reflects this diversity and contributes to the plot: German officers, US owned, flying under a Liberian flag.

Just three months have elapsed when the book ends, but by then Sligo is a young man, with a new, life-altering sense of the world. In between, we, the readers, live a ripping yarn that carries us from Boston to New York to Mobile to Venezuela and back, with a few unexpected stops along the way. Shanghaied reads like a blockbuster movie script, full of scoundrels and heroes, sensitively rendered by this first-time author.

Collins does a number of things very well in Shanghaied. First among them is his ability to keep an unbroken focus on the first person narrative of the boy, avoiding any temptation of omniscient narration. This close-in POV technique ratchets up the story´s dramatic tension. We, the impotent observers, squirm as we read, unable to protect the boy from the lurking threats and suspect motives that we see, but the more innocent Sligo cannot.

Another of Collins´ intelligent decisions was to write short, tight chapters that set a torrid pace. The book´s 72 chapters average about four-and-a-half pages. Each one ends with forward movement, making it almost impossible to put the book down.

Despite the rush of the honed plot, there are moments of poetry. One of my favorites is a beautifully written, existential conversation that Sligo has with Chips, the ship´s carpenter, about human existence, religion and God´s presence in their lives. Another, when Sligo goes on a transcendental bender in fiery bowels of the ship, brings to mind the famous below-decks blubber-rendering scene in Moby Dick, where Melville strove to render blubber into poetry.

When I clicked away from the final page (I read the book on my Kindle), there was a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. Not only did Sligo mature over the course of the book, but so did Collins´ writing in this impressive maiden voyage.

I´m betting there will be a sequel to Shanghaied.  If there is, I look forward to shipping out with Jack Sligo on a new adventure.