Talk:War Against the Bandits
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[edit] Escambray Revolt
The War Against the Bandits (Escambray Revolt) was a prolonged rising against Castro, mostly in the middle provinces of Cuba, starting in 1959 and continuing until about 1967. It lasted far longer and involved far more rebels and Castro militia than the original Castro guerrillas and Batista forces in their 1956-1959 war. It was finally suppressed by massive use of militia, numerous executions, arrests and internal deportations to “closed” towns in the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio.
Castro forces tactics consisted of sweeps of several very long lines of militia, a circumstance that caused heavy government losses, but ultimately won the war. Castro employed up to 250,000 troops at one time [1] (see Puebla). Often the rebels broke through but the attrition of this unequal combat for the much small rebel forces (at most 4,000 in total, Puebla) decided the war.
The rebels were mainly country folk, sometimes former Batista forces, or followers of the William Morgan who was former Comandante in the War Against Batista. Morgan himself was executed in 1961 but the war went. In the beginning there was some CIA support; however, this was terminated long before the war ended.
Castro sources include
Puebla, Teté (Brigadier General Cuban Armed Forces) 2003 Marianas in Combat: and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War 1956-58, New York Pathfinder (Paperback) ISBN: 0873489578
Anti-Castro sources include the books of Enrique Ros
