'It's like I never existed'

Mario Chanes de Armas was a hero of the Cuban revolution, but Castro made sure he's not in any history books.

MIAMI - He was once a hero of the Cuban revolution, but today most of his countrymen have never heard of Mario Chanes de Armas. That's because his deeds at Fidel Castro's side were not just forgotten, but literally erased from the pages of Cuban history.

After the revolution, Chanes de Armas abandoned the movement because he says he opposed Castro's communist path. That not only earned him three decades in prison, but he also was airbrushed from photos that showed him with Castro.

"It's like I never existed," Chanes de Armas, 76, said.

Today, Cuba marks the 50th anniversary of the ill-fated attack on the Moncada barracks that launched the revolution. Analysts say Chanes de Armas' experience is typical of the way Castro has dealt with his domestic rivals and enemies over the years. While the dictator has chosen not to build a personality cult around himself - there are no statues, monuments or streets named after him - Cuba has systematically demolished any reference to those who have gotten in his way.

With a few notorious exceptions, Castro hasn't physically eliminated his enemies. Instead he makes sure they are never heard of again.

Human rights activists say that Castro became a harsher jailer than his predecessor, dictator Fulgencio Batista. Under Batista, political prisoners were held apart from the common prison population. In fact, after Moncada, Castro and other rebels served prison time in one of Cuba's newest jails.

Today's political dissidents, including the 75 who were tried and jailed earlier this year, share wards with some of Cuba's most violent criminals.

"I have no reason to expect that Fidel Castro will show his political prisoners the magnanimity that he himself benefited from 50 years ago, or that he too will give them amnesty," another Moncada prisoner, Gustavo Arcos, 76, wrote from Cuba in the New York Times on Friday. "I hope to be proved wrong. It would be the only fitting way to mark the anniversary."

Castro is expected to speak today at a ceremony in the eastern city of Santiago, where the Moncada attack took place in the early hours of July 26, 1953.

Castro was joined by some 160 rebels, about 80 of whom were killed or captured. Castro was sentenced to 15 years, and Chanes de Armas received 10 years.

Castro and 25 other Moncada rebels were sent to Cuba's model prison on the Isle of Pines, a new jail off the south coast, modeled on the Joliet facility in Illinois.

"I accepted responsibility for my acts. After all, blood was spilled," said Chanes de Armas.

Castro never did. In a famous speech answering the charges against him, Castro declared, "History will absolve me."

Just to be sure, he also rewrote it.

After 22 months in jail, the rebels were given amnesty by Batista. A photograph shows a group of men, led by Castro, leaving the prison administration building carrying suitcases. Among them is Chanes de Armas, to Castro's left. But in the official Cuban photos of that day, Chanes de Armas' image was brushed out.

After his release, Castro decided it was too dangerous to remain in Cuba. To prepare for the next step of the revolution Castro traveled to Mexico. Chanes de Armas followed him. Batista's days were numbered. Despite the failure of the Moncada attack, it had inspired a clandestine urban force known as the "26 July Movement" that led resistance to the regime.

In November 1956, Castro and Chanes de Armas and 80 other revolutionaries tried again to topple Batista and landed by boat on Cuba's southeast coast. They were surprised by Batista's troops. Castro and a handful of men escaped to the mountains. Chanes de Armas fled to Havana, where he adopted a false identity and linked up with the 26 July Movement.

He was arrested again in October 1958 on a smuggling run to the Florida Keys to pick up a load of dynamite.

But two months later Batista fled and the revolution had triumphed. Castro's rebel army marched into Havana, and Chanes de Armas was released from jail.

Despite his elevated status after the revolution, Chanes de Armas turned down offers of an official job. He says he abandoned politics to work in a brewery with his father and brother.

"We had what we always wanted - a free country," he said.

Soon after Chanes de Armas discovered that communists were taking over. "That was never our plan," he said.

He now believes the revolutionary cause for which he fought was hijacked. He says that Castro, not originally a communist, was only able to take power thanks to backing from the Soviet Union.

Back in the 1950s, he said, discussions between Castro and the other conspirators were always focused on democracy.

"I used to meet once a week with Castro for training and tactical sessions," he said. "In those days he wasn't a communist. He adopted that later."

In February 1961 Chanes married his wife, Caridad. But he was already conspiring again, this time against Castro.

In July he was arrested and accused of subversion. A good marksman, Chanes de Armas had been sought out by Castro's opponents as a hit man. But the plot was betrayed before serious plans were laid.

"I was innocent," he said. "There were people I knew who were conspiring to kill him, but I was not involved."

This time his sentence was 30 years. After six months in jail he learned that his wife was pregnant. His son was named Mario, after his father.

Chanes de Armas insisted that his wife forget about him. He instructed her to find another man better able to take care of their son and told her not to bring the boy to visit him.

In jail Chanes de Armas refused to accept the blue prison uniform of common criminals, or a communist rehabilitation program. He led what were known as the "plantados," meaning those who refused to budge. Punished with solitary confinement, they were forced to wear only their underwear.

Chanes de Armas was permitted to attend the funeral of his father in 1971 and his mother in 1979. But when his son died at age 22 in 1984 from glandular fever prison officials told him he could only attend the funeral if he dropped his resistance to prison rules. He refused.

He eventually walked free in July 1991, one day short of the end of his 30-year sentence. He had been jailed three years longer than former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Cuba's state media made almost no mention of his release. A press statement was issued stating that it was no act of mercy and that he had simply done his time.

He then remarried his wife. In 1993 they were allowed to leave Cuba to join Chanes de Armas' four sisters in Miami.

These days he avoids political discussions about the rights and wrongs of the revolution. Instead he does volunteer work on behalf of Cuban political prisoners.

Like Castro - they are both 76 - he watches his health. He notes the Cuban leader hasn't looked too well lately. Indeed, Castro's Moncada speech has been pushed back to 7:30 p.m. to avoid the heat of the day. Castro fainted during a speech two years ago, prompting questions about his health.

Chanes de Armas is philosophical about his misfortunes, saying he bears no bitterness: "I don't have feelings of hatred, or vengeance. Vengeance is for cowards."

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