The Double Life of Fidel Castro (28 page)

At that moment in the trial I realized that, two years earlier, Fidel had not gone to visit a stock of rum and cigars—indeed, why would a chief of state waste three hours going to see something so banal and uninteresting?—but rather a stock of white powder waiting to be sent to Florida. For, as was his custom, the Commander in Chief, wary of his subordinates and cautious in the extreme, wanted to check everything himself, down to the smallest details, to reassure himself that the best arrangements had been made to hide the contraband merchandise.

All that explains the harshness of the verdicts of
Causas no. 1
and
no. 2
. At the end of these parodies of justice, General Ochoa, his aide-de-camp Capt. Jorge Martínez (both members of MINFAR), Col. Tony de la Guardia, and his subordinate Maj. Amado Padrón (both from MININT) were condemned to death on July 4, 1989, for having organized the transport of six tons of cocaine from the Medellín cartel to the United States, receiving $3.4 million in exchange. Three weeks later, José Abrantes received a sentence of twenty years of imprisonment and the other defendants lesser sentences of imprisonment. The greatest purge ever organized within the ministry then ensued, with almost every senior MININT officer being fired and replaced.

There is not the shadow of a doubt that Fidel, and nobody else, made the decision to send Ochoa to the firing squad and Abrantes to prison for twenty years—where after just two years of detention in 1991 he would suffer a fatal heart attack, despite his perfect state of health, in circumstances that were, to say the least, suspicious. By getting rid of these two, the
Líder Máximo
eliminated two men who knew too much, people with whom he had discussed the ultra-sensitive topic of drug trafficking. With Ochoa and Abrantes dead, the chain of command was broken and along with it, every natural link likely to connect him to that shady business.

One might express surprise that during these trials, broadcast on television, officers as courageous as the four defendants under the shadow of the death sentence did not at any moment rebel and scream the truth to the world. That would be to underestimate Fidel’s Machiavellianism and the way in which the Cuban system manipulates people. It was obvious that the accused had secretly been given the message that given the services they had rendered in the past, the Revolution would show its gratitude to them: it would not abandon their children and even if the court was asking for the ultimate sentence, it would be well-intentioned toward them and toward their family. . . . Which virtually amounted to promising these men that they would be spared, not executed—as long as they admitted their mistakes and declared that, yes, they deserved the death penalty. Which they did . . . because men in their position could not do anything else.

However, on July 9—that is, five days after their sentence— Fidel summoned the Council of State in order to “lock down” the Ochoa trial, thereby involving all the leaders of the highest government authorities, composed of twenty-nine members, civilian and military, ministers, members of the Communist Party, presidents of mass organizations, and so on. They were to ratify the court’s decision or, on the contrary, reprieve the accused and commute the death penalty. Each of them had to give an individual pronouncement; they all confirmed the sentence. Vilma Espín, turning her back on the friendship she and her husband, Raúl Castro, had had with Ochoa and his wife, uttered the terrible phrase: “Let the sentence be confirmed and carried out!” On Thursday, July 13, one month, almost to the day, after their arrest, around two in the morning, the four condemned men were executed by firing squad.

There followed the most painful episode of my career. Fidel had asked that the execution of Ochoa and the three other condemned men be filmed. And so, two days later, on a Saturday, a chauffeur arrived at the residence in Punto Cero, where I was, to deliver a brown envelope containing a Betamax cassette video. The head of the escort José Delgado (who had replaced Domingo Mainet two years earlier) said to me, “Take that to Dalia, she is waiting for you: it’s a film for
El Jefe
.” I immediately took the envelope to the
Compañera
, not imagining for a moment that it could be the video of Ochoa’s death and even less that Fidel, like Dracula, would want to watch such a bloodthirsty “show.” Thirty minutes went by and Dalia came back holding the cassette: “The
Jefe
told me that
los compañeros
should watch this video,” she said to me, giving me what was effectively an order. I therefore relayed her message to the head of the escort who, in his turn, gathered everyone together, fifteen or so people including the chauffeurs and Fidel’s personal doctor, Eugenio Selman. Then somebody put the cassette in the VCR.

The video had no sound, which made the scenes we began to watch even more unreal. First, we saw vehicles arriving in a quarry at night, lit by projectors: later I found out it was the airfield at Baracoa, reserved for government leaders, west of Havana, where several years earlier I had twice watched a cargo of clandestine arms being loaded on board a plane, en route for Nicaragua, in the presence of Fidel and Raúl.

I have often been asked how Ochoa faced death. The answer is clear and unambiguous: with exceptional dignity. As he got out of the car, he walked straight. When one of his torturers proposed to put a band over his eyes, he shook his head in a sign of refusal. And when he was facing the firing squad, he looked death square in the face. Despite the absence of sound, the whole excerpt shows his courage. To his executioners, who cannot be seen in the footage, he said something that one could not hear but which one could guess. His chest pushed out and his chin raised, he probably shouted something like “Go on, you don’t frighten me!” An instant later, he crumpled beneath the bullets of seven gunmen.

The four men were executed in several minutes. They obviously did not all have Ochoa’s proud courage. However, Tony de la Guardia, who also had a remarkable career behind him (after having been member of the escort of President Allende in Chile, he had taken part in the Angola campaign, in the taking of Somoza’s bunker in Nicaragua, and in hundreds of secret missions), was undeniably courageous. Less so than Ochoa, but courageous all the same. One could see his suffering and his resignation—but at no moment in the last minutes of his life did he crumple.

The sight of my two other colleagues was harder to bear. On the walk between the vehicles and the firing squad, Captain Martínez and Major Padrón collapsed several times, the guards each time having to pick them up. One could see that they were crying and begging. Urine stains could be seen on their trousers. It was pathetic and very hard to watch; one had to have a strong stomach. A heavy silence fell over the room and nobody dared speak. I would have preferred not to relate this episode—and I have absolutely no desire to make the least judgment of those underlings who, in essence, were taking the flak for Fidel. The obligation to tell the truth requires me to do so, however. Everyone needs to know what the
Comandante
was capable of to keep his power: not just of killing but also of humiliating and reducing to nothing men who had served him devotedly.

After Ochoa’s death, Raúl Castro plunged into the worst bout of alcoholism of his life. Not only had he been unable to save his friend’s skin but, in addition, he had had to publicly validate the execution of this “hero of the Republic of Cuba,” just as the other members of the Council of State and the military general staff had been obliged to do. Unable to resolve the conflict of having taken part in the execution of his friend, he turned to vodka, which had long been his favorite drink.

There was doubtless another factor involved: having watched the elimination of his counterpart Abrantes (sentenced to twenty years in prison), Raúl could logically fear that he, too, would be hounded from his position of defense minister. If Abrantes, who was Tony’s boss in the hierarchy, had been punished, was it not logical that he himself, Ochoa’s boss, would suffer the same fate?

The government number two was dead drunk so often that the ministers and the generals could not have failed to see it. His wife, Vilma, was worried and confided in the head of Raúl’s escort, Colonel Fonseca, explaining the situation to him. Vilma feared that Raúl’s depression would lead to suicidal impulses. Fonseca spoke about it to his counterpart, José Delgado, the new head of Fidel’s escort—my boss, in other words. And the
Comandante
decided to go and lecture his younger brother.

One Sunday morning we set off for La Rinconada, the house of Raúl and Vilma situated less than a mile away from that of Fidel and Dalia. We went in by the back door of the garden, where Raúl greeted us wearing a white
guayábera
, the traditional Cuban shirt, and canvas trousers. Then the minister of defense made off toward a wooden
karbay
on the grounds, in a little clearing surrounded by vegetation. When we had got to this shelter, typical of Native Caribbean culture, Fidel gestured to me not to follow him farther, so while the two Castros sat down on a bench, I went to wait slightly to one side—but from where I was, I could hear all of their conversation. They, on the other hand, did not see me because I was hidden by shrubs. That was when I heard Fidel admonishing his brother, launching into a long, moralistic tirade.

“How can you descend so low? You’re giving the worst possible example to your family and your escort,” began the
Comandante
. “If what’s worrying you is that what happened to Abrantes will happen to you, let me tell you that Abrantes
no es mi hermano
[is not my brother]! You and I have been united since we were children, for better and for worse. So, no, you are not going to experience Abrantes’s fate, unless . . . you persist with this deplorable behavior. Listen, I’m talking to you as a brother. Swear to me that you will come out of this lamentable state and I promise you nothing will happen to you. I will even give a speech reminding people that you are a leader with integrity and I will explain that you have suffered a lot because of Ochoa’s crime, which disappointed you enormously. And if there are people who think you are mixed up in all that business, they are nothing but
hijos de puta
!”

And, sure enough, shortly afterward Fidel spoke out in praise of Raúl, applauding his integrity and his devotion to the Revolution. Raúl, for his part, carried on drinking vodka, but in far more reasonable quantities.

As for me, I was like thousands of soldiers: I forced myself to stifle the doubts that the Ochoa Affair had created in me.

For me, the 1990s began with a series of successes, in direct contrast to the country’s general situation. Deserted by the Soviet Union, whose dissolution was officially pronounced on December 8, 1991, and isolated on the international scene, Cuba was effectively collapsing into the worst economic crisis of its existence. In an attempted response, Fidel decreed the Special Period in Time of Peace, which consisted principally of developing tourism and allowing individuals to open
paladares
(home restaurants) so as to earn the money vital for saving the Revolution. But it was not enough, as the
balseros
crisis would prove: in 1994, thirty thousand Cubans abandoned their “native ships” to escape on board
balsas
(makeshift rafts) en route for Miami, at the risk of feeding the sharks that patrolled in the Straits of Florida.

As for me, I was more than ever devoted to serving Fidel. Promoted to head of
la avanzada
, I was now responsible for preparing for all his trips within the country or abroad—like, for example, the trip to attend the inauguration of President Fernando Collor de Mello in Brasília, Brazil, in 1990; to the Ibero-American summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, in July 1991; or else to Spain the following summer. What is more, I was considered the best shot in Cuba since I had won the national twenty-five-meter (just over twenty-seven yards) pistol shooting competition, which had further boosted my status within the escort and beyond. In short, focused on my work, I had chosen to forget the Ochoa Affair, which, through an immense purge on every level, had profoundly destabilized the MININT, now directed by Gen. Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, also known as Furry. Solely focused on my professional success, I also managed to disregard the deteriorating atmosphere within the escort, no longer the same since that idiot José Delgado had replaced Domingo Mainet as head.

However, the wind turned suddenly during 1994. To start with, my daughter, Aliette, married a Venezuelan and went to live with him in Caracas. Then, my younger brother, who was working as a chef at the Council of State and who had therefore served Fidel at table several times, decided to try his chance on a
balsa
and became another exile to Florida, where he settled after his perilous journey.

Two members of my family abroad: that was enough to turn me into a suspect. The head of the escort, Colonel Delgado, summoned me to ask if I knew that my brother had intended to leave Cuba. I replied no—which was not true. Delgado then informed me that with a
balsero
brother and a daughter outside the country, I could not keep my job: in fact, I understood that Fidel himself had personally fired me from the escort. Initially, however, there was a possibility of my staying within MININT, as my knowledge and experience were sufficiently valuable for the ministry to continue to use them.