1. Huber Matos Benitez was a Cuban military leader, political dissident, activist, and writer.
19 Facts About Huber Matos
1. 2.
Huber Matos opposed the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista from its inception in 1952 and fought alongside Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and other members of the 26th of July Movement to overthrow it.
3.
Huber Matos then divided his time between Miami, Florida, and Costa Rica while continuing to protest the policies of the Cuban government.
4.
Huber Matos became a school teacher in Manzanillo, while owning a small rice plantation.
5.
Huber Matos earned a doctorate from the University of Havana in 1944.
6.
Huber Matos developed contacts with President Jose Figueres of Costa Rica who supported Cuban rebel aims and helped Matos obtain weapons and supplies.
7.
On 31 March 1958, Huber Matos flew a five-ton air cargo with ammunition and weapons to Castro's rebels.
8.
Huber Matos led his column during the final assault on Santiago de Cuba that brought the revolutionary movement's military operations to their close.
9.
On 11 January 1959, Huber Matos was appointed Commander of the Army in the province of Camaguey.
10.
In July 1959, Huber Matos denounced the direction the revolution was taking by giving openly anti-communist speeches in Camaguey.
11.
When Castro replaced President Manuel Urrutia with the more radical Osvaldo Dorticos Torrado, Huber Matos tendered his resignation in a letter to Castro.
12.
Cuban Communists later claimed Huber Matos was helping plan a counter-revolution organized by the American Central Intelligence Agency and other Castro opponents, an operation that became the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
13.
Huber Matos served the first six and a half years of his sentence at the Isla de la Juventud prison, where Castro had been imprisoned in 1953, and the remainder in Havana's La Cabana Prison.
14.
Huber Matos served his full term and was released from prison on 21 October 1979.
15.
Huber Matos was released from prison in 1979 at age sixty.
16.
Huber Matos reunited with his wife Maria Luisa Matos and children, who had left Cuba during the 1960s, in Costa Rica.
17.
In 1981 Huber Matos established the organization Cuba Independiente y Democratica which operated several radio stations which gave uncensored news to Cuba.
18.
Huber Matos set up the organization in belief that the overthrow of Castro will come from within the island and that it will be from informed citizens.
19.
Huber Matos served as secretary general for, a Miami-based organization founded in October 1980 in Venezuela.