On November 14th, 1924, the prominent revolutionary Rafael Guerras Vives, better known as “Guerrita”, was born in Camagüey. His parents were able to give him a good education and he entered the Champagnat School at the age of seven, where he attended primary school until the 3rd year of high school. In Havana he enrolled in the School of Pharmacy in the academic year 1953-1954, but that career was not to his liking and the following year he enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering and Sugar Chemical Expert. The relationship with the students of the Institute from Camagüey during the two years he spent in that center, specifically in 1952, the year of the coup d’état, would influence his future actions, where he participated in multiple activities and for the first time got in contact with different revolutionary groups.
At the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Havana, he became involved with Álvaro Barba and Fructuoso Rodríguez, young people who were already fighting and organizing the way to overthrow the tyranny. Guerrita, as he was known since high school in the city of Camagüey, becomes a revolutionary asset, to the point of having to assume the position of clandestine combatant in the country’s capital. By then, he already had an extensive record that caused him to be booked by the repressive forces of the tyrant.
On the night of August 2nd, 1958, he was seen for the last time by some of his companions. A group of hitmen who were after his head arrested him on Infanta Street between San Rafael and San José Street. The news of Guerrita’s arrest made his comrades feel nervous, as he had a lot of information about the activities of the leaders of the Student Directory, but obviously, Guerrita did not said a single word. At dawn on August 4th, the neighbors of Virtudes No. 619 felt at 5:00 a.m. some strange noises in the corridor of the stairs that led to the 2nd floor, a car stopped, pulled out a body and ran it over the steps. It was the lifeless body of Rafael Guerras Vives.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
