Escambray rebellion

Escambray rebellion
Part of the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution

Anti-communist insurgents in Cuba circa 1959–1964
Date1959–1965
Location
Escambray Mountains, Cuba
Result Cuban government victory
Belligerents

Insurgents:

Supported by:
CIA (1959–1961)
 Dominican Republic (1960)[1]
Partido Auténtico[2]		  Government of Cuba
Supported by:
 Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Osvaldo Ramírez †
William A. Morgan Executed
Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo (POW)
Sinesio Walsh (POW)[3]		 Cuba Fidel Castro
Cuba Lizardo Proenza
Cuba Raúl Menéndez Tomassevich
Cuba Manuel Fajardo †[4]
Soviet Union Francisco Ciutat de Miguel
Units involved

c. 177 outlawed groups[5]

Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces
National Revolutionary Militia
Department of State Security[6]
Strength
2,000[5]–3,995[7] combatants
6,000+ collaborators[5]		 250,000 (armed forces and militia)[7]
Casualties and losses
2,000–3,000 killed
5,000 captured		 Armed Forces:
500 soldiers killed
1,000+ soldiers wounded
Militia:
3,500 killed
1,000–7,000 total deaths[8]

The Escambray rebellion was an armed conflict from 1959 to 1965 in the Escambray Mountains during which several insurgent groups fought against the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. The military operation against the rebellion was called the Struggle Against Bandits (Spanish: Lucha Contra Bandidos, or LCB) by the Cuban government.[9]

The rebels were a mix of former soldiers of the Batista regime, local farmers, and ex-guerrillas who had fought alongside Castro against Batista during the Cuban Revolution. The end result was the elimination of all insurgents by Cuban government forces in 1965.

  1. ^ Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015, 4th ed. McFarland. p. 637. ISBN 978-0786474707.
  2. ^ Brown (2017), Paragraph 6.
  3. ^ Brown (2017), Paragraph 35.
  4. ^ Brown (2017), Paragraph 36.
  5. ^ a b c Brown (2017), Paragraph 78.
  6. ^ Brown (2017), Paragraph 39.
  7. ^ a b Swanger, p. 243
  8. ^ Joanna Swanger. "Rebel Lands of Cuba: The Campesino Struggles of Oriente and Escambray, 1934–1974." p. 243.
  9. ^ Brown (2017), Paragraph 66.