All of Cuba to-day was under the precarious control of Fidel Castro, the 31-year-old rebel whom the Batista Government pictured to its graceless end as a ragamuffin hiding in the scrub hills of Oriente Province.
Castro to-day chose his birthplace, Santiago de Cuba, as provisional capital until such time as he could safely install in the Presidential palace at Havana the man he has proclaimed provisional President.
He is Manuel Urrutia Lleo, a 58-year-old judge unknown to fame until, after 31 years on the bench, he faced last year 150 youths charged with inciting to revolt. He set them free on the brave principle that the Batista Government had left Cubans no other means to defend their constitutional rights.
GENERAL STRIKE
He became a revolutionary hero and to-day he has his reward. His first act was to declare a general strike so as to curb the rioting and to demonstrate, through the patrols of the revolutionary militia, that Castro is indeed the Government in fact.
The Batista Government and most of its lackeys are already in the United States or in one of several Caribbean havens. A plane load of 92 of them landed at Idlewild last night and a Cuban merchant ship sailed for the Dominican Republic, where Batista is safe in the embrace of his former ward and enemy, the dictator Trujillo.
The last act of Batista╒s abortive junta was to tell the Government troops to lay down their arms. They appear to have done so, but Castro broadcast to-day an order to his forces everywhere to go armed and fire on sight at all looters, agitators, and pockets of resistance.
Most Cubans, and certainly the onlooking dictators of Nicaragua, Paraguay, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, find it hard to believe that Batista╒s domain could be conquered by an angry, though wealthy young man, whose first putsch against the island on December 1, 1956, left him with only twelve of the original force of 93 men.
TAKING NO CHANCES
Castro may doubt it too, but he is taking no chances. The mob, which yesterday tooted and rejoiced through the streets, betrayed him in an outbreak of pillage and rioting. This morning the streets of Havana were reported to be empty, except for the Castro patrols, cruising in the cars that were chasing them only two days ago.
But by midday a radio dispatch said that the city was taking on again ╥a dangerously lively air.╙ Units of rebel militia were ordered to the Manzana de Gomez block of buildings, where groups of followers of Senator Rolando Masferrer, a leading Batista supporter, were hiding. Fighting went on for two hours, watched by crowds of spectators.
To-day in Ciudad Trujillo, Batista admitted the absurdity of his rout by an amateur but said that the first men sent to wipe out the rebels were ╥soldiers of the rural guard who were not prepared for guerrilla warfare. When the rebels extended their operations and met the army in open battle they were well armed and their weapons were superior to ours.╙
The last excuse is doubted by Latin American experts and business men who say that up to the end Batista was receiving planes and arms from Big Powers. What doomed him, they agree, was the treachery of his own leaders, widespread desertions in the Army, and the final dash for safety of men bound to him only by bribery.
Late this afternoon one of Castro╒s lieutenants took over the Havana remnants of this faithless army and passed the cue to Castro to begin his triumphal entry into the capital city. If he subdues it without much bloodshed he must quickly repair the heavy damage to the railroads, highways, and sugar farms in three provinces, set the economy flowing again, and keep the people quiet until he can arrange free elections.
Then he must answer the question that confronts all resting heroes who have raised their flags in the capital and put the tyrants to flight: how free dare the elections be? Castro has advertised an elaborate and drastic Socialist programme.
NATIONALISATION
He proposes to nationalise all utilities; to give their working land to tenant farmers, who make up 85 per cent of the farming population; to distribute to the employees of every business in Cuba 30 per cent of the profits; to confiscate all the property of ╥corrupt╙ (i.e. former) Government officials; to modernise the island╒s industries and begin a huge rural housing and electrification project.
In a country where Army officers on the winning side instantly inherit palaces, where there is little experience of parliamentary government, and where the idea of a loyal Opposition is tantamount to treason, Castro may, like others before him, come to demand a rubber stamp and permit only token opposition.
At the moment, though, all is joy and glory. The liberals among the South Americans in the United Nations are toasting the great day and calculating the present arithmetic of tyranny in Latin America. The present score seems to be, as one man put it, ╥four down and four to go.╙
