Cúpula del Capitolio en La Habana
• Santos católicos que celebran su día el 29 de marzo:
- En el Almanaque Cubano de 1921:
Santos Eustasio, abad y Bertoldo, carmelita y confesor
- En el Almanaque Campesino de 1946:
Santos Eustasio, abad y Bertoldo, carmelita, confesor
El 29 de marzo en la Historia de Cuba
• 1909 -
- De la Iglesia Católica en Cuba: Se constituye en La Habana la Orden de los Caballeros de Colón, una de las primeras organizaciones seglares de la Iglesia en Cuba.
• 1897 -
- En San Cristóbal cayeron prisioneros de los españoles el general Rius Rivera, su ayudante Secundino Terry y el coronel Federico Bacallao, muriendo en el camino el ayudante Terry, gravemente herido, y siendo los dos jefes conducidos a La Habana.
• 1896 -
- Las fuerzas cubanas al mando del coronel Vidal Ducasse asaltaron La Palma, Consolación del Norte, incendiando algunas viviendas. El ataque lo dirigió personalmente Antonio Maceo, que tuvo que recurrir a la artillería para tomar la iglesia, en que estaba atrincherada la tropa española.
• 1668 -
- Henry Morgan en Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey).
Emeterio S. Santovenia en “Un Día Como Hoy” de la Editorial Trópico, 1946, páginas 183-184 nos describe los acontecimientos del 29 de marzo de 1668 en la Historia de Cuba:
“A mediados del mes de marzo de 1668 el famoso filibustero inglés Henry John Morgan, fijando como punto de reunión Isla de Pinos, concentró en aguas cubanas una flota compuesta de doce velas y unos setecientos naturales de Inglaterra y Francia. Se situó así en las inmediaciones del territorio de La Habana. Alimentó la idea de marchar hacia la capital de la Isla. Llegó a planear el procedimiento que creía más conveniente para asaltar La Habana: desembarcar en Batabanó y continuar por tierra hasta la villa asentada junto al Puerto de Carenas. Debió de ser aconsejado en sentido contrario a tales proyectos. Acabó por desistir de su ejecución, riesgosa sin duda ante las condiciones de defensa de la plaza.
“Morgan no podía alejarse de Cuba sin dejar huellas de su rapacidad. Abandonó el pensamiento de atacar La Habana, pero fijó su intención en la villa de Puerto Príncipe, cabecera ya de una comarca de bastante esplendor económico. Se encaminó hacia allá. El 28 de marzo, al amanecer, comenzó a realizar el alijo de su nutrida expedición en la albufera de Santa María. Hubiera sorprendido alevosamente a los habitantes de Puerto Príncipe de no haber logrado el prisionero a quien obligaba a servir de práctico fugarse y correr a la población amenazada y avisar de la proximidad de tamaño golpe de gente armada y dispuesta a perpetrar todo género de depredaciones.
“El alcalde de Puerto Príncipe, hombre animoso y resuelto, dispuso la defensa de la plaza. Hizo retirar a muchas familias con sus esclavos, dinero y alhajas, reunió cuantas armas de todas clases había en la localidad, las puso en manos del vecindario y se colocó a la cabeza de unos setecientos infantes y unos cien jinetes en jacas y aun en mulas, según la expresión de un narrador de aquellos sucesos. Todo el día 28 fue invertido laboriosamente por ambos bandos: los moradores de Puerto Príncipe se aprestaban a la resistencia de la manera apuntada y Morgan y los suyos salvaban la distancia entre la albufera de Santa María y Puerto Príncipe. Al romper el alba del 29 de marzo de 1668 unos y otros se hallaron frente a frente.
“La lucha pudo culminar en el triunfo de los principeños, que se defendían abnegadamente, ya en las entradas de la población, ya desde lo interior de sus casas. Pero Morgan se cuidó de precipitar el fin de la brega. La heroica resistencia de los asaltados lo exacerbó. Y el soberbio y despiadado filibustero se apresuró a participarles que, si no se rendían a discreción, se dispusiesen a morir, presa de las llamas dentro de los edificios. El sometimiento de los principeños, anonadados en presencia de una amenaza que no hubiera tardado en traducirse en espantosa realidad, no se hizo esperar. Los filibusteros encerraron a los vencidos en las dos iglesias allí existentes, se entregaron al despojo de cuanto encontraron, exigieron rescates onerosos y, en la imposibilidad de hacer éstos efectivos, terminaron por llevarse, previa conveniente salazón, quinientas reses. En las filas de los principeños cayeron con el Alcalde más de cien combatientes.”
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HEROES ASESINADOS POR EL REGIMEN CASTRISTA
SOUTH CIRCUIT Presents
FACTS ABOUT CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA EXECUTED IN THE FIRING SQUADS OF COMMUNIST CUBA
Howard F. Anderson
Anderson was an American born citizen, and although the law dictated a jail sentence in his case he was executed
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Howard Anderson was an American with a desire to progress and one day he moved to Cuba looking for new horizons. When he noticed the hospitality of the people, and the economic opportunities, he moved to Cuba with his family in 1948.
In a few years he showed ability and tenacity. Anderson became a prosperous businessman working with several gasoline distributors and selling Jeep automobiles. Anderson family became part of the Cuban society. Like many other foreigners residing in Cuba he felt in love with the tropical beauty of the island.
The Communists destroyed the life of the Andersons and many other families when they took over Cuba on January 1,1959. The firing squads and the summary trials created panic as well as the confiscations of property with no indemnity. The confiscation of property was grand larceny. They tried to justify it saying they were creating socialism. Nobody was safe from the sinister State Security organisms that administered tortures, disappearances of arrested subjects, assassinations and hundred of thousands of political prisoners. With all the means of propagation in the hands of the state there was no public expression of complaint. Even the smallest businesses were impounded. The Marxists were following plans and schemes tested in other places. Terror and tightening of the control intensified in the first year.
For the Anderson family, terror arrived on March 16, 1961. On that date the state security police arrested Howard Anderson. They gave him a summary trial on April 17, 1961.
In less than 4 hours of trial without a defense lawyer, as was the custom, he was sentenced to capital punishment for transporting weapons. The Communist law recommended 7 years in jail for that crime. In less than 48 hours on April 19, the Marxists satisfied their hate against the United States of America executing Anderson in the firing squad. Howard F. Anderson had no previous criminal record. He had always been a hard worker and a decent citizen. He died at 41 years of age.
In his trial where several Cubans were also condemned to capital punishment the district attorney could not prove that Anderson or the organization Civic Action they associated to Anderson had transported arms to Cuba.
Before execution they extracted blood from Anderson to be used with the wounded in Bay of Pigs invasion. Rest in peace.
*****
THE MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Sun, Dec. 03, 2006
BY BONNIE ANDERSON*
It is deeply wrenching to witness a week of lavish celebrations honoring Fidel Castro's birth when most likely every day, somewhere in the world, anguished families quietly mourn the death of a loved one at the hands of this heartless, evil man.
That Fidel, himself, may be dying is not much comfort to me. I believe in justice and while he will be judged by God when he dies, he has yet to be judged on Earth for his crimes against humanity.
My father, Howard F. Anderson, was only one of 20,000 people tortured and executed by Fidel Castro. Before my Dad's execution by firing squad, he had most of his blood drained from his body to be used for transfusions for the revolutionary troops. Other political prisoners who watched the execution from their cells told me years later that my father refused a blindfold. And he whistled as the bullets tore into his body. One of the few memories I have, since I was only 5 years old at the time, was that my Dad whistled when he was angry.
With the ''ready, aim, fire'' order, I, too, was wounded forever more. This ruthless dictator robbed me of a lifetime with my father, a lifetime of fatherly advice, a lifetime of memories.
So no, I don't want to see him die this way, of natural causes, or at this time. I have always hoped the world would recognize him for what he is and that Fidel Castro would be judged, convicted and sentenced for his crimes against humanity in an international court of law.
A death from old age is far, far too lenient a punishment for a man who has killed so many people, destroyed the lives of literally millions. As a journalist, I refrain from generalities. But I do believe there are few Cubans on the island and even fewer Cuban exiles who have not had a family member either executed or imprisoned by this megalomaniac.
What I fail to understand is why there seems to be little national compassion for the pain that Cuban exiles have experienced. Americans show compassion for cancer survivors, for DUI and rape victims, for people suffering from depression, physical and mental abuse. We show compassion for famine victims in Africa; as an NBC news correspondent, I broke stories about genocide in Ethiopia, and the world -- but especially the United States -- responded with millions of dollars of money, but most important, with compassion.
Organizations have sprung up to defend and champion the victims of all these issues, and rightly so. There is public acceptance that these people have suffered and have been wronged. It is morally right.
So why, I ask, are Cuban exiles not afforded the same support and compassion? I was a CNN network executive when the Elián González issue was a major story. I was horrified by the coverage by my network and all others. It pained me deeply to see sound-bites by people who said about the Cuban-Americans in this country, ''Why don't they just get over it? It happened so long ago.'' I spoke up to my superiors at CNN. And I'm no longer there.
What I told them was this: Would anyone dare tell a Holocaust survivor, or the sons, daughters and grandchildren of the Holocaust to ''just forget about it'' because it happened so long ago? Of course not. Castro did not kill as many as Hitler did, and I would never diminish the horror and huge dimensions of the Holocaust, but Castro was -- and is -- our Hitler in Latin America.
BORN IN CUBA
Despite my Anglo name, I was born in Cuba. My mother was born there. Her parents are buried there. My father was buried there until Castro was so ticked off by an article I wrote in 1978 as a Miami Herald reporter that he had my father's remains dug up and thrown out.
I am most proud of being Cuban American. And I want the rest of the world to understand our pain. It is part of our daily lives, no matter where we live. It is the ache of losing a country, but it is more than that, too. It is a loss we feel in our blood and in our bones. It is also clearly an emotional demise in many ways -- a void in our pasts which continues to the present and will continue through the future. You can't make up for years of lost family experiences -- normal, human experiences that most other people enjoy. These are memories that have been stolen for all time.
For myself, I have only two memories of my father and what saddens me is that I can't be absolutely certain that they truly are recollections or whether I've simply grasped onto scenes from the few home movies we managed to smuggle out of Cuba and morphed them into memories. When I think of this, it provokes a deep, dark cutting sadness in me.
Cuban exiles can't expect others who have not experienced what we have to actually know our pain and understand our passion for wanting to address the wrongs done us. Rape victims can't expect that. Neither can the parents of children who have been killed by drunk drivers, or family members who have lost loved ones in the current Iraq conflict. Or family members of the victims of Columbine, or 9/11. The people who survived the genocide in Ethiopia and in so many other places can't expect anyone to truly know their pain.
Our pain is part of our spirit. The most we can hope for is compassion.
The day that Castro's illness was first reported, I woke up very early and was watching CBS. On their early morning shows, they repeatedly said that ''Castro is considered a ruthless dictator by some in Miami.'' I fired off an e-mail to CBS President Sean McManus. What I wrote, in short, was this: If a man who murdered 20,000 people, imprisoned for decades hundreds of thousands of others, caused countless hundreds of thousands to flee the country (many losing their lives in desperate attempts to reach freedom on flimsy rafts) and has repressed a nation for nearly five decades -- denying them the most basic of human rights -- is not considered a ruthless dictator by all, who the hell is?
I haven't heard back from him. I don't expect I will. In fact, I suspect he, and other network executives, will continue to cozy up to the Cuban government (whoever leads it) in order to make sure that when Castro dies, their networks have access to the coverage. That's the way it is in the corporate news world.
But I have faith in my fellow American citizens. And I know, in my heart and spirit, that when the truth is known, those of us who have suffered at the hands of Fidel Castro will finally receive the compassion we are due.
IN MOURNING
While Fidel is celebrating a birthday, my brothers, sister and I are mourning the death not only of our father but also of our mother, Dorothy Stauber Anderson McCarthy, who died less than two months ago. She was 39 years old when Fidel made her a widow. She struggled to raise us and give us a new life, and she was most successful. But her greatest triumph was to instill a sense of right and honor in us, to teach us strength and morality.
A month after her death, a New York judge ruled that we should receive millions of dollars of the frozen Cuban assets held in this country because of Fidel Castro's murder of my father. It is a very welcome decision but very bittersweet. Fidel Castro is alive and he knows he has been tried, convicted and sentenced to pay for his heinous act. But the fact that my mother isn't alive to see this final measure of justice is a soul-deep wound that I will live with for the rest of my life.
I weep for her. I weep for us, and I weep for all who have been the victims of Fidel Castro.
Happy Birthday? Please.
* Bonnie M. Anderson is a 27-year veteran of print, radio, Internet and television journalism in English and in Spanish. She has worked on camera for local, national and international news organizations, including two decades with NBC News and CNN. Anderson won seven Emmy Awards, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has been nominated for the María Coors Cabot Lifetime Achievement Award, which is sponsored by Columbia University. Capt. Anderson is now following a family tradition and is running a charter fishing operation out of Culebra, Puerto Rico.
POR: GUIJE CUBA Y SOUTH CIRCUIT
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