Jubilation & Revenge

With jubilation and bloody revenge, Cuba's new government stepped off toward its uncharted, uncertain future. Rebel Fidel Castro came to Havana, the age-old smile of the conqueror on his face. He pushed through screaming Havana mobs to Camp Columbia, stronghold of ex-Dictator Fulgencio Batista's army. The march of los barbudos, the bearded rebels who toppled Batista after two dogged years of guerrilla warfare, was complete.

Castro, who promoted an 82-man invasion into a popular rebellion against tyranny, savored every moment of his victory march. He built up the drama by lingering five days on the way from eastern Santiago, where the war began, to Havana. His 6,000-man column, moving in captured tanks, Jeeps, cars, trucks and buses, drew clusters of flag-waving Cubans along every road, was stopped in its tracks by crushing crowds in every city. Castro himself was folksy, eloquent and tireless. "How will we enter Havana?" he asked. "Let me see, we will go along the Malecon and then we will turn up that avenue--what is it called--General something?" The crowd roared "General Batista!" and Castro bent double laughing.

Cheers, Promises. By the time Castro reached the outskirts of Havana, every factory and shop was closed, and the streets, balconies and rooftops were packed with a clapping, shouting crowd. Marmon-Herrington tanks cleared a path for Castro's Jeep. Rebels with outthrust rifles finally forced the way through the throngs to the palace, where Castro got a warm abrazo from his hand-picked President, Manuel Urrutia. "I never did like this palace," Castro told the crowd, "and I know you do not either, but maybe the new government will change our feel ings." Later, at Camp Columbia, where 30,000 people waited, he spoke in his high-pitched voice, promising "peace with liberty, peace with justice, peace with individual rights." A white dove flew up from the crowd and settled on Fidel's right shoulder. After two nights of almost no sleep, he bedded down in the Continental Suite of the Havana Hilton, his rifle tossed on a dresser.

But before any perfect peace set in, the rebels were determined to allow themselves a wave of revenge against the conquered foe. Last week some 28 lesser Batista officials, left behind when the top dogs fled, were convicted in kangaroo courts and shot; another nine were executed without benefit of trial at all. Typical victims: Santiago's Maritime Police Chief Alejandro Garcia Olayon, Santa Clara's Police Chief Cornelio Rojas (see cuts). After one execution drew a crowd of 3,000, the rebels ruled that spectators would henceforth be barred--but allowed to inspect the bodies afterward.

In Matanzas, rebels grabbed one Juliana Munoz Garcia, 42, the mother of two sons. The charge: that for $15 a week she had been a Batista informer, betraying at least two teen-age rebels to killer cops. When she screamed that she had only pointed out the house where the boys lived, the rebels hissed "Chivata!" (little goat that bleats, i.e., stool pigeon). Terrified, she awaited trial.

In all. the rebels held more than 2,000 captives. Urrutia declared that they would be tried by revolutionary courts "in the same manner as war criminals were tried in Germany." About 300 others, Batista supporters, including the former boss of organized labor, Eusebio Mujal, crowded into Havana embassies. Urrutia said that Cuba would respect political asylum and allow the refugees to leave.

Public opinion backed tough measures. Reason: in weed-clogged ditches, in police-station cellars and in shallow, unmarked graves, hundreds of Cuban families were searching for the bodies of their rebel sons, slain by the cops. One abandoned well in the western province of Pinar del Rio yielded 13 decomposing corpses.

Dissension, Confusion. If the victors were united in revenge, they were divided in how to share the glory. The Directorio Revolucionario, a student group backed by onetime President Carlos Prio, which had its own band of guerrillas in the central Cuban mountains, worried that adulation for Castro might turn him into a swellhead dictator. The Directorio insisted on stockpiling guns for itself. Castro grew furious, ordered the students to turn over the arms. Outgunned, they complied.

The new government thereupon set off in confused pursuit of a program. The only clear lines were do-good fervor at home and opposition to dictators abroad. The Communists were freed to operate openly for the first time since 1953; the Communist paper Hoy appeared immediately. Though only 12,000 strong in a population of 6,500,000, the Communists infiltrated some rebel columns during the fighting, rushed into the convenient vacuum in organized labor and grabbed five out of 18 seats on the executive board of the hastily formed rebel labor federation.

In foreign affairs, Castro seemed principally concerned with Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo, who gave refuge to Batista. "Let Trujillo start trouble," he boasted. "We'd like that." Castro, who holds only the title of "delegate of the President to the armed forces," promised a thorough housecleaning of the military.

The professedly democratic rebel movement gave elections a low priority--18 months from now, or perhaps two years. Urrutia vowed that rampant prostitution, a symbol of Batista corruption, would be wiped out. When warned that this might hurt tourism, he answered that Cuba will attract U.S. visitors "by more decent means--sports, for instance." Castro said that the gambling casinos would be reopened, for tourists only, and "the profits will go to the people." The ban on liquor sales stayed in effect until week's end, but reformist zeal could not entirely suppress the Cuban love of life. As tension gradually eased, the shaggy warriors from the hills began leading awed Havana girls to inspect their free (normally $30-a-day) rooms in the Hilton and Nacional Hotels.

Urrutia's Cabinet seemed respectable, well meaning, weak on government experience. Prime Minister Jose Miro Cardona, 56, is dean of the Havana Bar Association. Commerce Minister Raul Cepero Bonilla, 37. set his goal as "an efficient organization, but above all an honest one." Public Works Minister Manuel Ray Rivero. 34, an engineer, was the dapper boss of the Havana rebel underground. He has the most urgent job of all: repairing the shattered roads and bridges to move the $700 million sugar harvest, which starts this month.

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