It is December 24, 1958. All Cuba celebrates Christmas Eve and the humanitarian feelings present in the Liberation Army propitiate a truce for the troops of the dictatorship in Maffo, surrounded in the BANFAIC ships.
It is impressive to recall how during the final days of the liberation war against the tyrant Fulgencio Batista, on that December 24, the rebel soldiers fraternized with their adversaries, exchanged cigarettes and sincerely evaluated the unnecessary bloodshed among Cubans.
The relatives of the besieged soldiers were allowed to personally bring the dinner offered by the rebel leadership. Lieutenant Bella Acosta, from the Marianas platoon of the Rebel Army, recalls that the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro ordered the food to be delivered first to the soldiers of the opposing army and then to the rebel combatants, which was carried out to the letter.
Relatives and friends of the encircled soldiers offered them new elements about the lack of ethics and morals of the dictatorship’s high military chiefs who, from Havana, demanded that they not surrender in BANFAIC but did not care about the critical state of their troops in eastern Cuba.
Many years later, in an interview granted to the Nicaraguan Commander of the Revolution Tomás Borge, Fidel confessed that December 24, 1958 was a very special day for him and his mother Lina Ruz, since both were reunited in the family home in Biran after more than two years without seeing each other:
(…) It was 25 months that the war lasted, together with the troops without separating me one day. Well, I was separated only one day, on December 24, 1958, when I went to see my mother who was in Biran. We had almost all the territory under our control, I went with two jeeps, 12 or 14 men, some machine guns, it was the only day that I went to do something personal (…).
(…) I went to see her and came back, I traveled all night, spent the day and came back at night (…).
In what seemed a happy coincidence, on December 24, the dictatorship’s command made a proposal to the Commander in Chief. Fidel comments on the matter:
“On December 24 we were informed of General Cantillo’s desire to have an interview with us, we accepted the interview. I confess to you that, given the course of events, the formidable progress of our military operations, I had very little desire to talk about military movements; but I understood that it was a duty, that we men who have a responsibility cannot allow ourselves to be carried away by passions, and I thought that if the triumph could be achieved with the least possible bloodshed, my duty was to attend to the proposals made to me by the military”.
That night, Jorge Enrique Mendoza, journalist of Radio Rebelde, read an editorial illustrating the noble sentiments defended by the combatants of the Rebel Army during the liberation war:
“Tonight, December 24, the Rebel Army is allowing all the mothers, wives, children and other relatives of the soldiers of the dictatorship besieged in the different barracks in the East, to penetrate them so that together with the kiss coming from the heart they can put Christmas Eve sweets in their hands.
We, the rebel soldiers, far from our loved ones, do not have Christmas Eve or the kiss of the beloved relative, but in our immense love for Cuba we allow the soldiers of the dictatorship what we cannot enjoy today (…).
But we fight for a better Cuba with all and for the good of all, always carrying in our hands white roses cultivated in our hearts by the apostolic preaching of José Martí (…)
