Jesús Suárez Gayol. Cuban internationalist fighter, member of the 26 of July Movement and one of the men of the Che guerrilla in Bolivia, known as the Rubio. He was born on May 24, 1936 in the Manatí, province of Las Tunas, Cuba. He was the son of Asturian emigrants. In the city of Camagüey he was a student leader. It organizes strikes and rallies against the Batista regime, delivers speeches, denounces the government authorities and the police for the torture.

Several times he was beaten in the Batistian dungeons, from which he left with more desires to fight against the cruel dictatorship. In 1955 he is the founder of Movimiento 26 de Julio (M-26-7) in Camagüey. By order of the same organizes actions of combat in the province of Pinar del Rio, set afire a radio station of where it suffers burns in the feet. The sicarios persecuted him without rest to kill him for such actions.

Due to the repression and the clandestine use several pseudonyms: Fury, Dionysus, Felix, Armando, until he is transferred to Las Villas, commanded by Commander Che, who shortly after he is promoted to the position of captain.

With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Suárez Gayol faces other tasks. He directs several sugar companies in Cuba, among which stands out the Central Sugar Mill Braulio Coroneaux (former Ingenio Macagua, the first sugar mill nationalized by the Revolution).

When he was summoned by Che to travel to Bolivia, he was Deputy Minister of Industry. On April 10, 1967, at dawn, Che ordered an ambush with eight combatants from the rear, reinforced with three other guerrillas of the vanguard. At dawn, 15 soldiers went in the direction of the posted.

In his diary, Ernesto Guevara pointed out: «” … midmorning the Negro arrived very agitated to warn that 15 soldiers were coming downstream (…) Soon the first news arrived, with an unpleasant balance: El Rubio, Jesús Suárez Gayol, he was mortally wounded, and when he arrived, he arrived at our camp, a bullet in the head (…) the shooting lasted a few seconds (…) next to a wounded soldier they found the already dying Rubio, his garand was stuck and a grenade with a loose fuze, but without exploding, was at his side. “» Jesús Suárez Gayol was consistent with the statement that served as the final paragraph to the letter he addressed to his mother Mrs. Aurora Gayol: «” When you are a revolutionary Real feels the need to serve the Revolution from the most difficult places, in the vanguard positions. “»

Translated into English by Laura Evelyn Villamar De Armas