New York Times
February 21, 1958. p. 8.
Homes, Warehouses,
Plant Machinery Are Destroyed—Raided Train Runs Wild
By R. Hart Phillips
Special to The New York
Times
HAVANA, Feb. 20—Property damage and loss of life mounted in Cuba today as youthful revolutionists continued their sabotage and terrorist activities throughout al the provinces.
In Santiago, eight masked youths dynamited and burned the warehouse of Cuban Air Products, which manufactures bottled gas for industrial, commercial and household use. The damage is estimated at $100,000.
The warehouses of various commercial concerns in other districts of the province were burned. The rebels destroyed all the machinery and equipment of the rice plantation of Francisco Saumell at Canabacoa, Oriente Province, causing a loss of about $50,000.
At Guantanamo, Oriente Province, a group of youths raided a train, ordered the crew out and then let the train run wild. The train collided with some empty coaches in Guantanamo station, destroying several of them and derailing a locomotive. A locomotive and five cars were derailed on another section of the line.
The report from Guantanamo also said that four bodies had been found near the city hanging from trees. The bodies have not been identified.
In the province of Camaguey some houses and commercial property were burned, several bombs were exploded, and railway and electric power lines were sabotaged.
An encounter between Government troops and the rebels is reported to have occurred on the farm of Segundo Borges, Governor of Las Villas Province. The farm is situated near the Sancti Spirits mountains.
The rebel group is said to number about 200 Havana University students and others.
The opposition Nationalist Revolutionary party last night withdrew from participation in the Cuban elections scheduled for June 1. This small party, headed by its founder José Pardo Llada, a prominent radio commentator, said it was impossible to hold elections under the present conditions.
Meanwhile the blanket increase of minimum wage scales in Cuba by Government decree has angered commerce and industry.
The decree, which goes into effect March 1, increases the minimum wage of commercial, industrial and agricultural workers in the island. In Havana and its suburb the minimum wage is increased from $60 a month, in effect for many years, to $85 and in the rest of the island to $75.
Workers have hailed the increases as an offset to the rising cost of living throughout the island.
Declaring that the measure is “demagogic and unworkable,” the Employers Association of Havana said many small merchants would be forced to close their doors.