With the blood of the workers and soldiers unloading the French steamship La Coubre still fresh on March 4, 1960, the world heard for the first time the oath of "Homeland or Death!" from Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, with the certainty that Cuba would never cower and the conviction of victory.
He said this 66 years ago at the funeral of a hundred people killed in the two explosions on the French ship, caused by a detonator placed under one of the ammunition crates by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in an attempt to prevent weapons and ammunition from reaching their destination to defend the Revolution.
Faced with the attempt to terrorize the Cuban people and make them abandon the revolutionary path, Fidel Castro's response at the victims' funeral was to resist and fight to the last drop of blood, a sentiment that from that day forward was encapsulated in the cry of "Homeland or Death! We Will Win!"
From different parts of the city, Commander Ernesto "Che" Guevara and other revolutionary leaders rushed to the site of the explosion. It was precisely at the funeral of the victims of this terrorist crime that photographer Alberto Díaz "Korda" captured one of the most iconic images in world photography. Guevara's face met his lens, and that day the image of the Heroic Guerrilla, which travels the world, was born.
Around 3:10 p.m. that Friday, a tremendous explosion rocked Havana, and a mushroom cloud with a black rim rose over the port area on the west side of the bay, where a ship carrying 31 tons of grenades and 44 tons of ammunition to Cuba was being unloaded. With the gigantic mushroom cloud rose pieces of metal, wood, and fragments of shrapnel that rained down on the city within a 500-meter radius.
That was a necessary burden to defend the Revolution, threatened from the very triumph on January 1, 1959 by the United States, which used all its influence and pressure in the world to try to prevent the sale of the weapons, ammunition and supplies that the country needed for its defense.
The first explosion ripped the roof off the ship's holds and destroyed its stern, immediately causing numerous deaths and injuries. But this was merely a prelude to further devastation, as dockworkers, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, and local residents immediately mobilized to provide aid.
Death lurked, and minutes later a second explosion claimed more victims among those who, defying the danger, had shown such human solidarity, raising the death toll to around one hundred, including six crew members, and leaving approximately 400 wounded or injured, dozens of them permanently disabled, along with dozens of widows and more than 80 orphaned children.
Among the leaders who rushed to the scene was Che Guevara, who, as a doctor, began treating the wounded outside the dock. Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro were only about 300 meters from reaching the scene before the second explosion, which could have cost them their lives. The Belgian arms supplier with which the contract was signed faced intense pressure from the United States to prevent it from selling weapons to Cuba. The U.S. Embassy in Belgium unsuccessfully pressured the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs to cancel the signed contracts and halt the arms deliveries.
The cargo had departed from Brussels aboard the Fielle company, which specializes in explosives. It had previously loaded goods in Hamburg, Antwerp, and Le Havre, destined for ports in the United States, Mexico, and Haiti.
The La Coubre was carrying 525 crates of grenades and 938 crates of ammunition to Cuba. Its arrival in Havana was scheduled for March 2nd, and its return to Europe on April 7th with 340 tons of sugar to be loaded at the port itself.
Thorough investigations of all the evidence point to the CIA as being linked to this terrorist act. A detailed investigation by the writer José Luis Méndez Méndez revealed that one of the two lone passengers on that cargo ship was an American journalist named Donald Lee Chapman, who, to travel to his native Nebraska, chose, rejecting other options, a ship loaded with explosives that would only take him to Miami, a city far from his final destination.
On March 9, just five days after the incident, the inaugural meeting of WH 4, led by CIA Colonel J.C. King, was held in the United States. There, the implementation of the Covert Operations Plan was outlined, which would be signed by President Eisenhower on March 17. The entire plan was still in its early stages when the La Coubre massacre occurred.
King was in contact in Miami with the counterrevolutionary leader Rolando Masferrer Rojas, who learned from an American mining engineer about the arrival of ships in Cuba carrying weapons and the ports where they would be unloaded. This interview took place between February 28 and March 10, 1960. It is noteworthy that the State Department has not declassified any documents regarding this event, despite compiling its communications with the U.S. Embassy in Havana during that period. There is a curious gap in communication between February 18 and March 12, 1960. For over 60 years, U.S. authorities have concealed knowledge of this event, which reinforces the hypothesis of their direct involvement.
The slogan born from this horrific crime is shouted today by millions of Cubans, heirs to the legacy of those who, in 1961, inflicted upon the United States, despite terrorist actions, its first major defeat in the Americas.