El Cuate and the yacht Granma

_ Jacinto Granda *

HE bid farewell to Fidel Castro beside the Tuxpan River, as the revolutionary leader boarded the Granma yacht, 55 years ago, but this Mexican remembers the moment clearly, as if it were yesterday.

The farewell occurred at dawn on November 25, that cold and rainy day when the leader of the Revolution left Mexico aboard the Granma, leading an expedition of 82 combatants to reinitiate the struggle in Cuba against the Batista dictatorship.

A few moments before the launch, Fidel told him, "Don't pay any attention if you hear that they've killed me. They've already killed me many times."

They then exchanged an embrace and he accompanied Fidel to the plank they were using to board the yacht.

Finally, very moved, he watched from the dock as his beloved Granma moved slowly down the river toward the sea, until it was out of sight.

Today he is better known as El Cuate, rather than by his given name Antonio del Conde Pontones.

Del Conde played a key role, over an 18-month period, in the preparations for the expedition. He was, most notably, the person who sold the Granma yacht to Fidel.

"I met Fidel in July of 1955. He came to buy something at a gunsmith's shop I had in Mexico City and, from that point on, we worked together on the acquisition of weaponry."

He subsequently helped with different tasks in preparation for the expedition and later in the shipping of weapons and other supplies to the revolutionaries in the Sierra Maestra throughout the war.

He was born January 5, 1926 and today, at 85 years of age, can still be seen about the streets of the Mexican capital, riding his motorcycle.

This interview took place on the banks of the Tuxpan River. "It's the best spot for our conversation," he told me.

Shortly beforehand, he had participated in activities commemorating the 55th anniversary of the Granma launch, celebrated in this port city and attended by representatives of Cuba's diplomatic mission and Cubans resident in Mexico, as well as many local residents.

The Mexico-Cuba Museum is located on the wharf from which the Granma sailed. Visibly moved, El Cuate, inaugurated there a photographic exposition documenting preparations for the expedition, along with the city's mayor, Alberto Silva, and Manuel Aguilera, the Cuban ambassador.

This museum is now his passion, to which he has devoted innumerable hours, ensuring its preservation and development, despite living in Mexico City, a six-hour drive away, over a curving mountain highway.

For the first time, when I asked what moment during the preparations had had the greatest impact on him, I noticed a trace of sadness in del Conde's gaze. "It was in the hotel Mi Ranchito, in Xilotepec de Juárez, on the highway from Mexico City to Tuxpan. I went to see Alejandro [Fidel's pseudonym], just 15 days before the departure.

"That was when he told me I wouldn't be going, that I would be more useful outside of Cuba, rather than as one more soldier in the Sierra.

"The impact was so great that I didn't say a thing at the time. After a year and a half, working on the preparations, I had to stay behind.

"But orders are followed. I devoted myself, from that point on, to working for the Revolution even more diligently."

'Alejandro' himself had given El Cuate this pseudonym, which came to be well known to the Batista dictatorship. A $20,000 reward was offered to anyone who could identify him.

He told the story of seeing the Granma one day on the Tuxpan River and liking it, despite the fact that it was in poor condition. He bought it for $20,000, to be paid in two installments, from the Erikson family, from the United States. He wanted the boat to travel along Mexico's undiscovered coastline, to hunt, one of his interests at the time. He began to repair the yacht, although he found that it was in even worse condition than he had first suspected.

"At one point," he recalled, "I proposed to Fidel going up into the hills around Tuxpan to try out some Remington 30-06 caliber rifles that I had received in the gun shop. After some target practice, we ate in a palm thatched restaurant here in town, which doesn't exist anymore. We went on, but I wanted to take advantage of the visit to see how the reparation of the Granma was going and pay the carpenter who was doing the work for me. I stopped the car by the river and asked Fidel to excuse me while I took care of an errand. As I was standing by the boat, looking over the repairs, I was surprised to see him appear. He asked me about the yacht, and I explained that it was mine, but that it was in very poor condition. He then said to me, 'If you fix this boat for me, I'm going back to Cuba in it.'"

That was the moment, one of those in life that emerge unexpectedly and apparently of little importance at the time, which later take on extraordinary meaning and even change history.

* Prensa Latina chief correspondent in Mexico

GRANMA