2023-07-20 14:00:00
Whenever there is talk of July 26, 1953, next to the names of Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, that of Artemisa appears. More combatants came from there for the assault on Moncada than from any other place in Cuba. And among the people of Artemisa of 26, a man stands out with all the merits to carry on his shoulders the honorable rank of Commander of the Revolution and on his chest two hero medals: of the Republic and of Labor that he fills with meaning every day.
With 91 years of age, from his high responsibilities as Deputy Prime Minister, he checks, controls, closely follows some of the most complex activities of the Government. A brief comment from him, a look with a frown or at rest, are enough for you to sense where things are going.
The people familiarly call him Ramirito, simply Ramiro or respectfully Comandante Ramiro. And when his name is said, the legend emerges, although many episodes of it remain stored in the memory of the protagonist who has always fled from the lights, the cameras, the personal interviews, hiding behind a Marti principle: “All the glory in the world fits in a grain of corn.”
Five years ago, I was lucky enough to have a few questions about his life accepted from me. Out of discipline before a superior mandate, he broke a decades-long silence to talk about his home, his neighborhood, his family, Fidel, Moncada, his bosses and fellow fighters, his friends who fell in combat and the commitment to them that survives them.
We talked for about two hours. His valuable testimony, always incomplete because it would be impossible to summarize such a life story in a single text, can be found in the Cubadebate archives under the title: In Person, the Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez: Silently it had to be.
Today I take a brief excerpt from those words of his, which takes us back 70 years ago, when he, without knowing it yet, took his first steps to enter the history of Cuba together with Fidel, Raúl and Che:
“We are a very poor, modest family of origin. Most of the comrades who participated in the Moncada did not come from Artemisa, from the La Matilde neighborhood, where they came from, practically all of them did not.
“We were the whole of the family and closeness, in addition we all coincided at different times in the schools and there we had fraternity at the neighborhood level and we got to know each other: Julio, Rigoberto, Ciro, Emilio, different colleagues who later participated in everything that had to do with the attack on Moncada, from there they left, from that proximity to the neighborhood, from the school. 28 from Artemisa were from the La Matilde neighborhood.
“My mother was a very upright person, very Martí-like and very grassroots, although she was quite skeptical in relation to politics, because she said that politicians simply used others to take us from the step and move up, and then they forgot all the promises and that therefore her children, if she could, were not going to be the step of anyone, of any politician.
“She washed and mended clothes so we could go to school clean, because my mother also said, with great pride, that we were an upright family, poor but upright, with high morals, clean and honest.
“Her name was Ofelia Menéndez, she washed clothes for some people, I went to pick up the clothes and she washed them, ironed them and that was a small income we had. My mother used to say: ‘neither a prostitute, nor anyone’s maid’ and she raised us with great dignity, from an ethical point of view. We all learned from her, the five siblings, three boys and two girls.
“I was the penultimate one, but, I don’t know for what reason, they always treated me at home, everyone as the smallest, because I was the one who was always spoiled. It happened that when my mother gave birth, I had the umbilical cord around my neck and they practically evicted me, they even tried to snatch me from her arms, the doctor and the others, but she simply refused and refused and made do with me, she fed me with an drip, giving me milk drop by drop, until finally, here I am, thanks to my mother’s efforts.”
Ofelia lived to be over 90 years old and was lucky to see him become one of the most respected and legendary heroes of the Cuban Revolution.
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