I always heard my railway family say that for the union it is very important to honor the memory of the heroes, and pay eternal tribute to the colleagues who have fallen in the defense of the country.

Therefore, as the date that marks the birth of the first Camagüey martyr who fell in the clandestine struggles against the Batista dictatorship, Mario Aróstegui Recio, approaches, I believe it is appropriate to point out that the three busts that commemorate the young man murdered at only 26 years old, were an initiative of the railway workers of this city.

The details

To compile the details about the foundry and location of the three identical obelisks dedicated to the revolutionary, I spoke with Ricardo González, member of the Technical Department of the Railway Workshops and a kind of passionate historian, with everything that involves the presence of the railroad workers in the history of the territory.

With great pride he remembers that the young people of the 80s of the last century, in the workshops, took the initiative to forge the busts. For this, they assisted specialists from Santiago and finally, they placed the first one in 1984, at the headquarters itself.

The second was located in 1990 near the site where his massacred body appeared, on the bridge over the Mabay River, which leads from Bayamo to Manzanillo.

A pause in his voice tells me that he is excited, because he remembers that when melting the pedestal on which they placed the bust, all the participants wrote down their names on a sheet of paper and, in a solemn gesture, melted it with the cement, leaving thus a personal tribute to their partner.

The third bust had two destinations, the first in the park that bears his name at the entrance to República Street, at the intersection with Van Horne, and then it was relocated by the Historian’s Office to the Mario Aróstegui Recio sports complex, located in La Vigía neighborhood.

There, every September 30th in a modest act of remembrance, the students of the nearby school are made aware of who this Camagüey native was, the first martyr of the clandestine struggle against Batista; who dedicated himself at the age of 27 to fight for a Cuba free of abuse and oppression.

Other notes of interest

I continue talking with Ricardo, this railwayman with more than 50 years in the union, who retired and in less than two months he was back, because his life is linked to the railway and its history; which he tries to reconstruct with his research.

He says that, from a very young age, he began to visit the older railroad workers to seek information on any specialty and there he discovered his passion for history.

Thanks to his beautiful inclination, today we managed to dust off facts related to the tribute to Mario Aróstegui, who was also a railway worker. Mario had a union badge with number 9278 and provided his services in the loading zone, known as the express, in 1943.

Knowing that the three busts that commemorate the young man from Camagüey were the work of the Camagüey railway workshops is an honor for that brotherhood, which as Ricardo sums up well in a Martí thought: “the ability to be heroes is measured by the respect paid to those who have been.” (September 30th, 2023)

Photos courtesy of the interviewee

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García