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Disaffection set in soon after Fidel came to power. When the two revolutionaries insisted on imposing "agrarian reform" on some of the family estates, Ramon, who had worked hard maintaining the property, angrily exploded: "Raul is a dirty little Communist. Some day I am going to kill him." Emma, only mildly involved to begin with, met and married a Mexican, then moved out of the country. Next, the bearded Fidel's antireligious measures infuriated his mother. When Castro declared himself a true Marxist-Leninist, Juanita too threw up her hands in despair.
Angry Scenes. Quietly, she turned her Havana home into an underground refuge. She protected anti-Castro rebels fleeing the police, slipped out bits of intelligence information, and is credited with helping at least 200 people to escape the island. Fidel obviously knew much of what was going on. Yet to arrest the Maximum Leader's own sister would stir a major scandal. His agents kept her under surveillance, but she came and went as she pleased. Last August, after the mother died, there was a violent episode when Fidel decided to expropriate the family land once and for all. Juanita started selling the cattle; Fidel flew into a rage, denounced her as a "counterrevolutionary worm," and rushed to the Oriente farm.
On that occasion, her protector was Raul, who was still fond of her, and warned her in time to flee into hiding in nearby Camagüey province until Fidel simmered down. It was probably Raul who also cleared the way for her final trip to Mexico. Her ruse of making a "visit" was far too flimsy to fool anyone. She took along 21 bags.
Fidel may not have known. "This incident for me is personally very bitter," he told reporters with controlled fury last week, charging that "her statements were written in the United States Embassy in Mexico City." He then ordered the press never to ask him about the matter again.