Possibly one of the most surprising first acts of Raúl Castro’s time in office was to put up a massive metal sculpture of Camilo Cienfuegos on the façade of the Ministry of Communications in the Plaza of the Revolution. It was built to match a far older display of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s image on the official headquarters of Cuba’s intelligence forces next door. The reason for Cubans’ surprise had to do with the suspicious circumstances of Camilo Cienfuegos’ “disappearance” after his plane went down in late October 1959: only hours earlier, Fidel Castro had sent Cienfuegos to arrest Comandante Huber Matos for protesting the secret appointment of Communists to officer rank in the Rebel Army. These details matter, for they have haunted older generations for decades. While Fidel served as both judge and prosecutor in the December 1959 trial that sentenced Matos to twenty years in prison, the popular, glamorous and anti-Communist Cienfuegos was never heard from again. For decades, Cubans who lived those days believed that Raúl Castro had ordered his death. Unexpectedly it seemed, Cienfuegos’ would-be assassin had built a monument to his life. Photograph by Dr. Matt Joseph and Dr. Alexis Baldacci.
