BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA

The death of revolutionary combatant Abel Santamaría appears as a particularly grim chapter of official Cuban history, but a new book that took 31 years to research and write challenges the Cuban government's version of events.

Captured during the raid on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953, Santamaría reportedly was tortured by the soldiers, who plucked out his eyes and showed them to his sister, Haydée, who also was captured during the failed attack.

In his book, The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution, Cuban-American Professor Antonio de la Cova challenges the versions of torture that have proliferated until today, including the bloody episode of Abel's eyes.

''The torture of the captured rebels is one of the myths of Moncada,'' de la Cova told El Nuevo Herald.

NO EVIDENCE FOUND

"The first 35 prisoners were executed at once, between 8 and 11 o'clock that morning, and the doctors and funeral home attendants I interviewed said that no bodies showed signs of mutilation.''

The researcher said he interviewed doctors Eric Juan Pita and Rolando Pérez Sáinz de la Peña, who were at the military hospital in Santiago de Cuba, and Manuel Bartolomé, owner of the funeral home that picked up the rebels' bodies. All agreed that the corpses showed no signs of torture.

This is the first study about the events at Moncada -- the only attack on an army barracks in Cuba -- that includes the testimony of people who fought on both sides. Both sides in the conflict were guilty of ''excesses and malice,'' he said.

According to de la Cova's research, Cuba's military intelligence service photographed all the slain rebels, a rifle by the side of each.

When the revolutionary forces seized power in 1959 and took over the intelligence service's archives, they must have obtained Santamaría's photograph, de la Cova believes. Santamaría was Castro's second-in-command.

''A photograph of the dead Abel has never been published,'' de la Cova said. "I challenge the Cuban government to publish that photo and all the death certificates written by the forensic doctors.''

The circumstances and protagonists of the historic event are studied in the 400-page book, published by the University of South Carolina Press.

De la Cova, who emigrated to the United States in 1961, backed his research with 115 interviews with people who participated in the event: 14 raiders, 47 soldiers and policemen and 54 civilians, politicians, defense lawyers and others. The bibliography includes 132 books and documents published in Cuba.

'I FOUND THE TRUTH'

''By comparing the versions of the rebels, I found the truth of what happened there,'' said the 56-year-old professor of Latin American studies at the University of Indiana.

De la Cova will be at several activities today and Monday discussing his book.
 

MEET THE AUTHOR

History professor Antonio de la Cova will discuss his book The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution, at 3 p.m. today at Casa del Preso, 1140 S.W. 13th Ave., Miami. He will be at Books & Books in Coral Gables at 7 tonight. The author also will participate in a panel discussion at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.