On Sunday, March 2nd, 1958, a revolutionary command, led by Noel Fernández Pérez, a 22-year-old young man and made up of Rolando and Osvaldo Marrero, Chichí Varona, José Quesada, Roberto Coello, José Antonio Morfa, Gladys Castañeda and Alfredo Arana, entered the Camagüey Courthouse located on Cisneros Street, on the corner of Hermanos Agüero Street; building where the files of the cases were kept and trials were held; outsmarting the surveillance of the police that was numerous in the center of the city.

They entered hooded around 2 pm through the door located on Hermanos Agüeros Street. The revolutionaries took hostage Pedro Rodríguez González, son of a bailiff, and other employees who were in the place at the time of the events, being guarded by a member of the command. The rest of the companions continued as planned. They set fire to more than 8,000 file cases, as well as part of the files of the Court. They managed to escape without being arrested.

The main objective, burning the case files of 47 political prisoners, was not fulfilled, because the files were in another location, the president’s table. This action, although it did not achieve the destruction of those documents, was something that shocked the public and demonstrated to the tyranny the spirit of struggle and the development achieved by the July 26th Movement in Camagüey and highlighted Noel as one of the most important assets of the Movement in the territory.

Before leaving the place, the head of the command told the detainees, in Las Clavellinas, 1988: The M-26-7 continues its fight!, slogan that was part of all the sabotage actions carried out against the dictatorship. The press release of the newspaper El Camagüeyano, 1958, stated:

The secretariat of the Camagüey Court seemed to have suffered the effects of an intense bombardment, which was followed by fires in different places […] The firefighters had to expose themselves to the constant explosions of hunting cartridges and capsules of revolvers and rifles that were in the closet of the Emergency Court archive […]

That same day, members of the command made up of Rolando Marrero, Roberto Coello, José Morfa and San Mateo, burned a local bus in the Boves neighborhood. The sabotage actions intensified, demonstrating the leadership capacity of young members of the M-26-7.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García