Mario Chanes de Armas, who fought along side Fidel Castro but then spent 30 years in prison after he criticized Castro for betraying the ideal of the revolution, died Saturday in Miami, according to the Miami Herald.
The Herald reports:
Considered one of the founders of the Revolution, Chanes de Armas survived the Moncada attack, trained in Mexico, came over on the yacht Gramma and lived to greet Castro in Havana on Jan. 9, 1959, when the conquering heroes arrived on top of a U.S. Sherman tank.Instead of joining the revolutionary government, Chanes de Armas chose to his work in a brewery. Two years later, after watching Castro betray their movement, he spoke out against communists and was tried as a counterrevolutionary.''
On July 17, 1961, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, longer than any other Cuban political prisoner. It included six years in solitary confinement.
''I watched men get shot, point blank, beaten with bayonets, arbitrarily pulled out and punished. But we were alone. The world didn't know,'' he told the Miami Herald in a 1999 interview.
Thirty years to the date of his imprisonment, he was released and reunited with his four sisters in Miami.
He later traveled to Washington and met with then President Clinton for 20 minutes. Following the meeting, Clinton issued a statement praising Chanes as ``a living testimony to the unbending will to strive for liberty and dignity.''
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