June 14, 1957.p. 8.
Pinar del Rio Acts contrary to Its Conforming Past
in Supporting Rebels
By Herbert L. Matthews
Special to
The New York Times
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba, June 13 – Pinar del Rio on the whole seems to share the demonstrated feelings of the other parts of Cuba against the regime of President Fulgencio Batista.
This provincial capital at the western end of the island has a population of only 39,000 and its pulse is easier to take than is that of Havana, Cuba’s huge capital.
Pinareños, as the inhabitants are called, want the Americans and perhaps even more their fellow Cubans, to know how they feel.
Outward manifestations here are calmer, more conservative, less actively revolutionary, and less prone to violence, sabotage and demonstrations of protest than elsewhere, but the sentiments seem to be the same.For those who know Cuba, this is extraordinary.
Pinar del Rio has a historic tradition of conformity.It was known as the “black province” during the wars of independence against Spain, when Oriente Province on the eastern side of the island was aflame with revolt.During the bitterly fought rebellion to overthrow the dictatorship of President Gerardo Machado in the late Nineteen Twenties and early Thirties, Pinar del Rio was quiet.
A good indication of how things have changed is the fact that eight youths from Pinar del Rio were killed in an attack on the Presidential Palace in Havana March 13.The father of a 24-year-old youth who died said to me:
“I had the tragedy, or perhaps I should say the fortune, of giving my son in this struggle for liberty.He used to say to me: ‘Father, you are old, you do not understand, but we young ones will die rather than accept tyranny.’”Now, says the father, he understands.
A delegation that said it represented the youth of the area sent this correspondent a letter that read in part:
“We greatly regret our inability to see you personally, but the police of Dictator Batista prevent us from going to you, for we are persecuted and beaten constantly up to the limit of endangering our lives.You can be absolutely sure we represent the majority of Pinar del Rio’s youth oppressed by the regime that tyrannizes over us.”
Conrado Padron Rodriguez, the provincial governor with whom I held a long talk, is generally liked and respected.He is a typical of the big tobacco planters of this region who desperately want to see a peaceful solution of Cuba’s present revolutionary ferment.
Yet they have had to face a constant series of token bombings and they have seen a majority of the civic organizations of the city come out in protest against the regime and in favor of the rebellious city of Santiago de Cuba.
The youth of Pinar del Rio appear to be overwhelmingly in favor of Fidel Castro, a rebel leader who is successfully maintaining his position in the Sierra Maestra of Oriente Province.
The Piñareños believe that Bishop Evelio Diaz Cia sympathizes with their struggle for democracy.
Monseigneur Diaz Cia issued two weeks ago a “prayer for peace in Cuba” that received the blessing of Archbishop Enrique Perez Serantes of Santiago de Cuba and was read from the pulpits of all Roman Catholic churches last Sunday.It was essentially a plea to stop the bloodshed and strife, but it was noted for its profoundly emotional expression of Cuban patriotism and for one sentence that is heard on all sides in Cuba today—“Man does not live by bread alone.”
This expression is often so heard today because Cuba is living through very prosperous times.
However, here as elsewhere in Cuba, one finds that, while there is much prosperity, there is also much dire poverty.The wealth is distributed very unevenly in Cuba and there is a permanently high pool of unemployed.
Moreover, youngsters coming of age find it difficult to get jobs, which is one reason for their almost universal attitude of revolt against the Batista regime.
HAVANA, June 13 – The Federation of Radio Broadcasting Stations of Cuba protested today against “continuous aggressions of Minister of Communications Ramon Vasconcelos against radio and television.”