A difficult search led me in the footsteps of this man from Camagüey, since only his name appears in a bookstore, a special school and a street in the town where he grew up.
The anniversary of his birth is approaching and with the best wishes of doing him justice, I began my search. Very little appears on the internet sites, the bookstore was closed and some miners I know; they knew very little about the revolutionary and founder of the July 26 Movement in this city: Antonio Suárez Domínguez.
The source
Thanks to the writer and friend Alejandro González Bermúdez, always ready to help me with the knowledge of local history, I got on the right direction to arrive at this sad biography, so little publicized, because hardly anyone knows even his second surname.
The Revolutionary
Some time ago I wrote about the combatant Víctor Hernández and with great pain and feeling, he remembered the murder of the three young men who woke up massacred by soldiers of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, on Independencia Street on December 16th, 1958, there a plaque honors them.
One of those three companions was Antonio Suárez, a young man with a desire to stop the crimes of that bloody regime.
Although he was born in the City of Waterpots, on August 29th, Suárez went to live in the town of Minas when he was still very young. In October 1952 he made contact with groups of Camagüey people who were organizing to fight against the regime, and from then on he was known in hiding as The farmer of Minas.
Participation in historical events
When the July 26th Movement was formed in Camagüey, Antonio Suárez Domínguez joined them.
His conspiratorial activity made him the target of the persecutions of the tyrant’s henchmen; he is captured in the city of Camagüey itself on June 29th, 1958.
According to some writings of the time, The farmer of Minas receives the careful “attention” of government forces and after being mistreated and threatened with death, he was released the following month.
But for men like Antonio Suárez Domínguez, threats against his life meant nothing, so he continued his activities to end the dictatorship.
A sad ending
Antonio was captured again by the repressive forces, less than six months after the first arrest. He was assassinated on December 16th and his body was found together with the combatants Juan Félix Quintanilla Jústiz and José Ramón Sánchez Artiles, on Independencia Street, near Maceo Square.
In front of the plaque that marks the place where their perpetrators threw their lifeless bodies, each anniversary the pioneers sing the notes of the National Anthem and then, to commemorate the work of those men, they place a rose next to the plaque.
Reminiscences
After reviewing the memories about that son of Camagüey, so little disclosed, I hope that when visiting the bookstore located on Maceo Street or when walking the street that bears his name, my chronicle will help you so that you can remember that the The farmer of Minas paid with his blood our freedom.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
