Anti-Castro-communist fighter dies in Colombian municipality

Archive photo of Eutimio Calvo Esquivel.

Colombia, Las Tunas. (PI) - After battling a painful illness, Eutimio Calvo Esquivel, known as Balule, died on February 22, 2014, in the municipality of Colombia, Las Tunas province. He began his activism in 1961 with the Revolutionary Recovery Movement (MRR). When Brigade 2506 landed at Girón, he was arrested along with his father and brothers and taken to Guáimaro, where they were held incommunicado for 14 days and threatened with death if the landing succeeded.

In 1979, they tried to frame him for causing the emptying of a sugar hopper, from which the Borbollon neighborhood benefited. After the authorities collected most of the sugar, looking for a scapegoat, he was taken to the Las Tunas provincial police station where he remained without trial for 5 months and then transferred to the Típico prison, where he spent another month. He was subsequently released, and a trial was held to justify the 6 months he had spent in jail for the sugar that all the neighbors, including him, had collected. ( We do not have the case documents ).

In 1981, he was visited by Argelio Batista de la Cruz, a former comrade in the MRR (Revolutionary Revolutionary Movement), who told him he was working with Huber Matos and that there was a possibility of restarting the struggle. He asked Batista de la Cruz to help form some groups of three people. He agreed, and Batista de la Cruz left, maintaining contact later. During the following week, the police arrived and arrested him for provincial instruction. On August 24, 1981, he was tried for the crime of rebellion, case #7 / Art. 104 133 – cy 12, and sentenced to five years of imprisonment. At the trial, Argelio Batista de la Cruz (who turned out to be an agent of the regime's security forces) and a man named Jorge Quesada Ramos testified against him, claiming that he had been the one to contact them. He was confined in Boniato, Santiago de Cuba, where he served his unjust sentence.

Photo from the case file.

On November 14, 1993, while at the home of Rene Infantes Díaz in the Borbollon neighborhood, he stated that Fidel was a son of a bitch, that he had to be poisoned to end hunger and misery in Cuba. He was denounced by Ana María Carbonell Alonso (a teacher), a neighbor of Rene, and was sentenced to 8 months of deprivation of liberty for the crime of contempt, Articles 278 and 279 of the Criminal Procedure Law, and was served in the Típico prison in Las Tunas.

Photo from the case file.

In March 1999, through his cousin Reinaldo Calvo Infantes, who lived in Lawton, Havana, he was contacted by Regis Iglesias, an activist with the Christian Liberation Movement, and they began to support the Varela Project in the Colombia municipality by collecting signatures.

Photo of letter for your participation in the Varela project.

On November 14, 2002, at his farm, Ojo de Agua, in the municipality of Colombia, Las Tunas province, he was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm and tried under Article 211-1, paragraph 3, subparagraph a of the penal code, receiving a two-year suspended sentence of house arrest (known as "from home to work"). In reality, what was seized from him was a homemade shotgun and a cartridge for sport hunting.

Photo from the case file.

In 2009, his son Emiliano Calvo was contacted by Víctor Pérez Nápoles to found the Republican Party of Cuba in the province, with his son becoming the director of the municipality of Colombia and him, the founder of the party in the municipality, in which he remained actively participating until his death.

His son Emiliano Calvo, who suffered from childhood along with his family the grievances and repression against his father, went on to serve as provincial director of the Republican Party of Cuba in the province of Las Tunas, a position he held until September 2013, when he took advantage of the SINA refugee visa and traveled to the USA in a precarious state of health. He is currently under treatment for kidney failure, resides in Colorado Springs, and serves as the logistics delegate abroad for the PRC, from the municipality of Colombia, and as an advisor to the organization for the province of Las Tunas.

One can only imagine the suffering this family endured at the hands of the Castro-communist regime, through its informers and treacherous henchmen, simply for thinking differently from the despots. May the tireless fighter Eutimio Calvo Esquivel rest in peace, and may God grant him eternal rest. Your people will never forget you, Balule.