Eloy Gutiérrez-Menoyo, Fought for Democracy, Dies at 77

[Dom]

Let us pay homage to Eloy Gutiérrez-Menoyo by casting our votes on
Nov. 6. It is an absolute disgrace that the U.S. has the lowest voter
participation of any democracy. About 50% of voting-age people are not
even registered to vote. Among registered voters, the turnout was
about 63% in 2008. In 2010 the turnout was significantly less, and
this was one of the key factors that allowed Tea Party political hacks
to be so successful.
===========

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/americas/eloy-gutierrez-menoyo-cuban-dissident-dies-at-77.html

Eloy Gutiérrez-Menoyo, Cuban Dissident, Dies at 77

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: October 26, 2012

Eloy Gutiérrez-Menoyo, who went from fighting beside Fidel Castro as a
rebel commander to spending 22 years in prison for trying to topple
him, died on Friday in Havana, where he had lived his last years as a
tolerated dissident. He was 77.

The cause was a heart attack, his wife, Flor Ester Torres Sanabria,
told The Associated Press.

On Dec. 8, 1934, Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo was born into a Spanish family
dedicated to fighting for freedom: his oldest brother died fighting
fascists in Spain's civil war. The family moved from Madrid to Cuba in
1945. In 1957, another brother died in a failed attack against the
Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista. Eloy soon joined the fight against
Batista, assembling an army in Cuba's mountains almost as large as Mr.
Castro's own force.

After Batista fled on Jan. 1, 1959, Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo and his
troops arrived in Havana on Jan. 3, days before Mr. Castro led his own
army into the city. Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo was not offered a post in the
Castro government, and later said he had not wanted one. He retained
the rank of major, the highest in Cuba at the time. His army was
absorbed into Mr. Castro's.

But disturbed with Mr. Castro's turn toward leftist dictatorship, Mr.
Gutiérrez-Menoyo and a dozen military and civilian supporters fled by
boat to the United States in January 1961. He settled in Miami and
formed an organization to overthrow Mr. Castro, naming it Alpha 66. It
was not involved in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, and
it grew to become one of the largest anti-Castro exile groups.

In October 1964, Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo led a cadre of men into the
Cuban mountains to establish a secure base from which to expand to
fight the Communist state, just as Mr. Castro had done to fight the
Batista government. He told interviewers that the mission was financed
by other exiles, not by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo and his men were captured by government troops.
Blindfolded, he was taken on a 90-minute plane ride, and when the
blindfold was removed he found himself facing Mr. Castro, who was
sitting behind a desk surrounded by his top aides.

"You realize, of course, that we are going to shoot you," he quoted
Mr. Castro as saying in a 1987 account in The New York Times
Magazine.

Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo told Mr. Castro of his family's revolutionary
past and said he would accept death. Mr. Castro said he would also
kill his men but would spare them if Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo would go on
television and affirm that no Cubans wanted to overthrow their
government. He accepted the deal and later, after a 30-minute trial,
was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

As an inmate, Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo refused to work or wear a prison
uniform, saying the requirements violated international law covering
the treatment of political prisoners. For his refusal he was beaten so
badly that he became blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. He spent
time in six prisons over 22 years before being released in 1986,
largely through the efforts of Prime Minister Felipe González of
Spain.

Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo returned to Miami in 1993 and set up an
organization to encourage peaceful dialogue between the Cuban
government and antigovernment exiles. He called it Cambio Cubano
(Cuban Change).

He said he was determined not to be embittered.

"When you spend entire years in solitary, you learn that human beings
have a lot of inner resources," he told The Times in an interview in
1993. "When you are subjected to a policy of savagery and barbarism,
you come to the conclusion that you have to reject those methods, that
you have to be the first to set hatred aside, otherwise it will
destroy you."

In 1995, Mr. Castro agreed to Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo's repeated requests
for a meeting. They had a three-hour exchange in Havana, during which
Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo pressed Mr. Castro to allow Cambio Cubano to
function as an opposition party in Cuba.

That never happened, but Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo was allowed to return to
Cuba repeatedly and, in 2003, to settle there. He did not succeed in
opening an office for his organization, but he did meet with Cuban
moderates.

"Cuba cannot continue to corner itself, trying to convince the world
that there is democracy, when a one-party system will never be a
democracy," he said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Gutiérrez-Menoyo is survived by three
sons and a daughter, The A.P. said.

When they met in 1995, he and Mr. Castro had not seen each other since
Mr. Castro had threatened to shoot him three decades earlier. Mr.
Castro's first words to him, he recalled, were, "You've let your hair
grow long."