Jesus Montane Oropesa

At the American Central School, on Isla de Pinos, the American school where he studied, was where Jesús Montané Oropesa left perhaps his first mark as a young patriot who in a few years would reach another rung as a revolutionary: fellow students of his, especially Dora Rives They have told how Chucho led a group that defended the Cuban flag.

In that North American private school, only the flag of the United States was raised and he and the classmates that he brought together, insisted with the director that the national flag also be raised.

Montané boldly led the campaign and finally the director of the school decided to also place our flag of the country.

Jesús Montané —later a Moncada assailant— was far from thinking that he would be part of the founding nucleus of the clandestine revolutionary movement organized by the young lawyer Fidel Castro Ruz, in the year of the centenary of José Martí, for the armed action of July 26, 1953. At that time, Jesús Montané was already a

man

established in an administrative position at the General Motors automobile company in Havana, and his closest friend in the complex of import agencies located on Calle 23 and Infanta, was Abel Santamaría, a Pontiac worker, both had orthodox affiliation.

They met before the cunning coup d'état of March 10, 1952 perpetrated by General Batista against the constitutional government of President Carlos Prío Socarras.

I heard Montané tell him, after Moncada, that he and Abel used to go to a bar-café called "Detroit", near work, on Humboldt street, to talk about politics and that on March 10th they met there. They went to the University expecting weapons to appear to combat the "early bird", but they felt frustrated because they did not appear.

The meetings began to take on a new look.

Other friends soon joined, such as Raúl Gómez García, from a group of orthodox from Santos Suárez, and the first step they took was to take out a one-page clandestine newspaper, on an old mimeograph.

They titled it

He left in the first half of April 1952 on three occasions, at most, until they made contact with Fidel:

Carlos Manuel de Cèspedes Order, conferred by the Council of State on Jesus Monmtane Oropesa.

Juan Almeida imposes it on him.

Photo:Liborio, April 15, 1998.

It happened on May Day of that same year (1952) in an act held in the Colón Cemetery in honor of Carlos Rodríguez, a young worker who had been murdered by the Police.

Fidel was not a stranger to Montané, nor to Abel, since they were members of the same Party and had seen each other at Prado 109, the location of the political organization founded by Dr. Eduardo Chibás.

As for Montané, a year before, he had facilitated Fidel's purchase of a car at reasonable installments.

It was in the Colón Cemetery where Dr. Fidel Castro proposed the first mission they would do together, after the ceremony in memory of Carlos Rodríguez.

This was to go with Abel to visit, in the municipality of Colón, an orthodox doctor fond of radio, Dr. Mario Muñoz Monroy, to whom he would entrust two radio transmission plants to operate clandestinely from Havana.

After a month they already had the plants, although they were of a very limited spectrum, very soon one was detected by the police and they discarded that means of propaganda.

As for the newspaper

, Fidel proposed, and they did so, that it was better to join efforts and make another one under the name of

,

which he considered a better, more combative title.

Montané signed with a pseudonym, as he and his colleagues had done before in

.

Fidel wrote, also under a pseudonym, in

The newspaper would be directed by Raúl Gómez García, under the editorial guidance of the young lawyer Fidel Castro.

Clandestine work intensifies and Montané will be among the members of the Civil Committee of the revolutionary movement, known as the centenary generation, due to the fact that he was born in the year of the Apostle's centenary.

Under the direction of Fidel Castro, that Committee was made up of: Abel Santamaría Cuadrado, Oscar Alcalde Valls, Mario Muñoz Monroy and Jesús Montané Oropesa.

The Military Committee, also directed by Fidel, included Abel Santamaría, Pedro Miret Prieto, Ernesto Tizol Aguilera, José Luis Tasende de las Muñecas and Renato Guitar Rosell.

Chucho Montané, as everyone called him, was also in charge of finances, with Oscar Alcalde and another colleague.

As Montané declared in the Moncada trial, the collection among the compañeros who made up a clandestine contingent of just over a thousand young people gathered around 22,000 pesos.

But he did not say, although Fidel did underline it later, that the greatest economic contribution was that of Montané himself, who gave the amount of his savings and vacations, just over four thousand pesos.

He was among the most prepared in the shooting practice, as well as in the political studies that were carried out in the apartment of Abel and his sister Haydée Santamaría (25 and O), strategically located and with the advantage that the building had two elevators and two entrances and exits: one for O and the other for 25. Today the apartment is a museum that bears the name of Abel Santamaría.

On July 26, after the withdrawal of post three when the surprise assault failed, Montané followed Fidel and other comrades to Siboney and from there to the mountains around Gran Piedra, during the week of the resistance, until the detention.

This is a brief portrait of Montané del Moncada, but his revolutionary record was extensive: Prison on the Isla de Pinos, preparation for the Granma expedition in Mexico;

disembarkation of the Granma, again a trial (Cause 67) for November 30 and expedition members who "miraculously" were not killed when they were arrested, days after the disembarkation.

Again the prison and after the triumphant Revolution the numerous tasks of high responsibility in the Government and the Party.

One day I heard him say at a ceremony held at the National Library: "The happiest moments of my life have been those prior to the assault on the Moncada and the landing of the Granma."

Of a jovial character, without diminishing his responsible attitude, he was always accessible and enjoyed popular contact.

He used to visit the Granma newspaper, considering himself a journalist as a pioneer of the clandestine press with Son los mismos and El accusador.

Regarding this, on Journalist's Day in 1971, he gave a speech about the profession.

He said: Our journalism is and will be more and more political journalism, to the same extent that we make journalism more and more enjoyable and attractive.

I think this is a very important aspect that we should highlight.

It would be appropriate here to remind Martí once again, 'beauty must be taken care of as well as freedom, because the truths themselves travel faster on well-cared for roads'.

(Taken from Granma)