Two hundred miles southwest of Havana in south central Cuba lies the Sierra Escambray, an area of precipitous hills pocked with large caves and dominated by two 3,000-ft. peaks. The Escambray is fine country to hide in. Since May 1960, when the first anti-Communist defectors from Fidel Castro's army took refuge there, the number of guerrillas fighting Castro from the Escambray has swelled to some 1 ,000 men. By last week whispered tales seeping out of Cuba told of pitched, no quarter battles in the Escambray and of hospitals overflowing with wounded. The reality was far different: fear, fatigue, hunger and boredom, punctuated occasionally by wild, often accidental fire fights in the wilderness.
In their first few months in the Escambray, the anti-Castro rebels did virtually nothing but lie low. As more and more ex-Castro officers appeared, the senior men took command. Today Captain Evelio Duque, a veteran of Castro's Sierra Maestra fight against former Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Batista, is the rebels' nominal chief. In fact, the Escambray guerrillas are still divided into half a dozen forces with only loose coordination, but since last October they have been getting arms in speedboat forays and airdrops organized by Cuban refugee groups in Miami.
As Castro himself once did, the Escambray rebels generally rely on standard guerrilla tactics: present no solid front, hit where unexpected, and vanish. In response, Castro has resorted to tactics very like those Batista used against him. Castro gradually pulled his regular troops out of the Escambray because they can't be relied on to fight old comrades-in-arms. In place of the regulars, Castro sent in militiamen, who cautiously refrained from going into the brush, and at night retired from the hills for safety.
During the last three weeks, increasing the number of militia around the Escambray to 50,000, Castro has moved all peasants out of the area to deny the rebels a local food source. Establishing three concentric rings of militiamen around the rebel area, he has settled down to starve his enemies out. In an attempted diversionary move, some 200 rebels rose around Baracoa, in the eastern end of the island, but still Castro maintains his pressure on the Escambray.
Though they still have enough weapons and ammunition, the Escambray rebels are running low on food and clothing. The airdrops—now stepped up to two a week —have become the Escambray's last lifeline. But life is tough for the militia, too. Notoriously inept at logistics, Fidel was barely managing to provide his own men with one meal a day.