April 1967 was a very difficult month for Commander Ernesto "Che" Guevara's guerrilla movement in Bolivia. That month, two of its key figures, Cuban captains Jesús Suárez Gayol and Eliseo Reyes Rodríguez, fell in combat against the dictatorial army, which had strong support from the United States.
Also that month, Bolivian guerrilla fighter Jorge Vázquez Viaña (known as "Loro" or "Bigotes") was killed. After being wounded in combat, he was secretly admitted to the hospital in Choreti, from where he was kidnapped by the army and murdered on April 22, 1967. Earlier, Bolivian fighters Benjamín Coronado Córdova, on February 26, 1967, and Lorgio Vaca Marchetti, on March 16 of the same year, had drowned while crossing the Río Grande during one of the guerrilla's regular movements.
In this article, we will talk about Suárez Gayol, known in the guerrilla movement as El Rubio or Félix. He was born on May 24, 1936, in the town of Manatí, in the Cuban province of Las Tunas, the son of Asturian immigrants. His parents sent him to study in Camagüey, and during this time his father died, prompting his mother to join him there to fill the void left by his absence.
In Camagüey, he was a student leader and in 1955 he founded the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) in that city. He organized strikes and rallies against the Fulgencio Batista regime, gave speeches, and denounced government and police authorities for torture. He was arrested and beaten several times in Batista's prisons, from which he emerged each time with an even stronger desire to fight against the cruel dictatorship.
He enrolled in Architecture at the University of Havana, and from the historic hill, he continued his fight against the tyrant. There, he received his baptism of fire: a stray bullet during a demonstration. In March 1957, he became an underground fighter in the capital, where he was taken prisoner.
After numerous efforts, his mother, Aurora, managed to rescue him from Batista's henchmen and put him on a ship to the United States to save his life. From there, he traveled to Mexico City and returned to Cuba in April 1958 as a member of the El Corojo expedition.
On orders from the 26th of July Movement, he organized combat actions in the province of Pinar del Río, setting fire to a radio station where he suffered burns to his feet. Assassins relentlessly pursued him to kill him for these actions. Due to repression and the need to go underground, he used several pseudonyms: Furia, Dionisio, Félix, Armando, until he was transferred to Las Villas, under the command of Che Guevara, who soon after promoted him to the rank of captain.
When Che summoned him to travel to Bolivia, he was serving as Vice Minister of Industry. The minister, Orlando Borrego, who informed him of the summons, recounts that "his reaction was like that of a child who has been given his most prized toy. He jumped for joy and hugged me."
On December 2, 1966, he wrote his farewell letter to his mother, Aurora Gayol, expressing his joy at the possibility of helping other nations achieve independence. He added: "I know my mother is a revolutionary in every sense of the word, and although she suffers, because that is inevitable, deep down she approves of my decision and is proud of her son (...). When the pain is too much, think of your son who is happy fighting for the revolution, even though it involves certain risks."
On April 10, 1967, at dawn, Che ordered an ambush with eight fighters from the rearguard, reinforced by three more guerrillas from the vanguard. At daybreak, 15 soldiers moved inland toward the positioned guerrillas.
In his Diary, Che noted: "...around mid-morning, Negro arrived in a state of great agitation to warn that 15 soldiers were coming down the river (...) Soon the first news arrived, with a grim outcome: El Rubio, Jesús Suárez Gayol, was mortally wounded. And he arrived dead at our camp, a bullet in the head (...) the shooting lasted a few seconds (...) next to a wounded soldier they found El Rubio already dying, his Garand rifle jammed and a grenade with the fuse loose, but unexploded, lay beside him."
Brigadier General Harry Villegas Tamayo (Pombo), a survivor of those events, specified that the soldiers' first contact was with El Rubio. Two days later, Che gathered the entire guerrilla column to highlight the qualities of the fallen guerrilla "and to emphasize that the first blood spilled was Cuban."