#Cuba #WeRemember Capitan Tondike

#Cuba 🇨🇺 #WeRemember Today #CubaArchive : Margarito Lanza Flores , better known by his war name "Captain Tondique," was a legendary guerrilla leader operating in the area north of Las Villas, from Sagua La Grande and Corralillo , 1962 against the Castro regime. He was a farmer who never had trouble with the law, or was violent. His story begins when the communists came over to intervene his farm under the so called Agrarian Reform ( one of the lies of the Revolution that left thousands of humble farmers without their property). With a man named Macho Mora, Tondique quickly took up arms and went to the jungle. His guerrilla was one of the most active throughout Cuba. They participated in countless battles and were among the most persecuted. Communists resented that a poor black peasant was one of the main rebels against Castro and his revolution. So they took it out on him, and chased him more than other guerrilla groups in Escambray. On one occasion, Tondique's guerrilla took the Military Camp, La Paloma, the main base of the militias in the north of Las Villas located in the town of Quemado de Guines. One of the guerrilla tactics of Tondique, was walking backward , conversely, to confuse the enemy.
But in February 1962, two government helicopters, tracked down Tondique and his men. There were thousands of men surrounding the farmer guerrilla in a cane field in Quemado de Guines area. The battle lasted two or three days, in which the military cowardly set the field on fire. Tondique and his men dug holes to escape the fire, but could not resist anymore. Injured, burned, without water and ammunition they were captured. That same day, March 2, 1962, with the terrible pain from burns, seen in his mugshot here, Margarito Lanza Flores (Tondique), Macho Mora, and the remaining men were executed by Castro commander Victor Dreke, under a bridge, located on the fields of Quemado de Guines. He was 23 years old. This is one of the war crimes that has not gotten any justice. @cubaarchive #Tondike #Freedom4Cuba