On April 10th, 1967, the Cuban internationalist fighter Jesús Suárez Gayol, a member of the July 26th Movement and one of Che’s guerrilla men in Bolivia, known as El Rubio, died in Bolivia.

He was born on May 24th, 1936 in Manatí, Las Tunas province, the son of Austrian emigrants. Jesus had an explosive character and jumped indignantly when an injustice was committed in his presence. In the school term of 1951-1952, he completed the first year of high school and joined the Secondary Education Institute, standing out from his classmates and becoming head of the classroom, then the grade and finally the campus.

Revolutionary path

He was one of the founders of the July 26th Movement (M-26-7) in Camagüey. He organizes strikes and rallies against the Batista regime, makes speeches, denounces the government and police authorities for torture. He was several times in Batista’s dungeons, from which he left with more desire to fight against the cruel dictatorship.

In 1955 he is the founder of the July 26th Movement (M-26-7) in Camagüey. One of the events that marked Gayol’s life was the Assault on the Moncada Barracks, and he sees in the figure of Fidel Castro and in the armed struggle the way to achieve true independence.

In March 1957 he became a clandestine fighter in the Cuban capital where he was taken prisoner. After multiple efforts, Aurora Gayol, the young man’s mother, manages to snatch him from Batista’s henchmen and ships him to the United States to save his life, because in Cuba everyone who was in favor of the revolutionaries in those years was repressed with violence, torture and even death.

Following the orders of (M-26-7) he organizes combat actions in the province of Pinar del Río, sets fire to a radio station from which he suffers burns on his feet, being persecuted by the guards of the tyranny without rest, to kill him for such actions.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Jesús Suárez has to fulfill several tasks. One of them is directing several sugar companies, among which the Braulio Coroneaux sugar mill stands out.

When he is summoned by Che to travel to Bolivia, he held the position of Vice Minister of Sugar; The joy of that eternal soldier of the Revolution was immense when he received the message from Ernesto Guevara.

A farewell that makes it eternal

On December 2nd, 1966, he wrote his mother, Aurora Gayol, the farewell letter in which he expresses his joy at the possibility he had of helping other peoples achieve independence. He later joined the guerrilla detachment on the banks of the Ñacahuasú, where he fulfilled every order during almost four months of guerrilla activities. In the early morning of April 10th, 1967, Che orders an ambush with 8 fighters from the rear, reinforced with 3 other guerrillas from the vanguard. In the book “El Diario del Che en Bolivia”, it is told how the events of such a painful death occurred…

«”…At mid-morning El Negro arrived very agitated to report that 15 soldiers were coming down the river (…) Soon the first news arrived, with an unpleasant outcome: El Rubio, Jesús Suárez Gayol, was mortally wounded. He arrived at our camp dead, shot in the head.

One of the survivors of those events clarified that the soldiers’ first contact was with El Rubio, because he was in a bad position, and he was an easy target for the enemy. Two days later, Che gathered the entire guerrilla column to highlight the facets of the fallen fighter: And to signify that the first blood spilled was Cuban.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García