Cuba: The Underground Surfaces

All week long, torrential rains pounded down on Cuba, endangering the vital sugar harvest already delayed by invasion and subsequent repression. Out went the orders from Castro’s puppet President Osvaldo Dorticós: “Mill workers must voluntarily increase their workday to twelve hours.” And with the crop crisis came the first rumbles of a reviving anti-Castro underground. A $300,000 sugar mill was burned, a bomb wounded a hated Castro military prosecutor, a phosphorous bomb fired a cinema. Havana radio blamed Exile Manolo Ray, who replied that his leftist, but bitterly anti-Communist M.R.P. underground is ready with more of the same. But there is also a brand-new anti-Castro movement operating inside Cuba. It is a union of six organizations that tired of the constant bickering of their exiled leadership in the U.S. Travelers from Cuba reported thousands of new arrests.