Basilio Guzman

1937 - 2022

GUZMAN

BASILIO GUZMAN

Basilio Guzman Marrero died April 13, 2022 at age 84, of cancer, two days shy of his 85th birthday. He died at home in Arlington VA under hospice care. He was born in Cuba, in a mountainous rural area of Havana Province on April 15, 1937. As he later described it, his birthplace was so remote and dark at night that after his impoverished share cropper parents turned off their sole oil lamp, the only visible lights were those of fireflies. He was the fourth child of eight who survived to adulthood; another sister died in childhood because his parents could not afford to take her to a doctor.

After the family was kicked off their tenant farm by the finca's new owner when Basilio was aged eight, they moved to Campo Florido, then a prosperous market town near the beach town of Guanabo about 15 or so miles from downtown Havana. He grew tall, strong, energetic, and totally bored with school and, to his mother's dismay, he dropped out before even graduating elementary school. He worked in construction like his father and brothers. In the late 1950s, he got his best job, working on construction projects for Shell Oil.

As a 15 year old, but claiming to be older, Basilio joined the rebellion against the dictator Fulgencio Batista who, in 1952, perpetrated a coup d'etat against the duly elected (albeit corrupt) government of President Carlos Prio. Basilio was a member of the Directorio (student/worker) Party which led the fight against Battista in Havana and other urban areas. Directorio's charismatic leaders were killed by Batista's forces, enabling Fidel Castro to assume leadership of the Cuban Revolution. Most surviving members of Directorio were pro-democracy and anti-communist and were among the first to recognize that Fidel Castro had become Cuba's dictator and intended to make Cuba a client state of the Soviet Union. In 1961, Basilio along with other former anti-Batista members of Directorio joined the counter revolution against Fidel Castro.

In 1962, Basilio was arrested and subsequently spent 22 years as a political prisoner. He was first held in La Cabana, the former Spanish dungeon at the entry to Havana harbor. Later he spent prison time in the forced labor camp on the Isle of Pines, in Combinado del Este Prison on the military base near Havana, and many long years in solitary confinement in a cell with barred windows Boniato, a prison near Santiago de Cuba. Early on, Basilio became a "plantado", the name given to political prisoners who refused to repudiate their opposition to the Castro regime and go to re-education camps and who spent many years dressed only in underwear because they refused to wear the same uniform as common criminal prisoners rather than being recognized as political prisoners.

When Basilio became a political prisoner, his two young daughters were aged 3 and three months. His wife divorced him. He did not see his elder daughter again until she was 15 years old, holding her newly born son in her arms and did not see his younger daughter until he was afforded a brief reunion at the airport when he was about to leave for the U.S. His and other political prisoners' efforts to bring family with them to the U.S. were unsuccessful until over twenty years later he was able to sponsor his younger daughter and her daughter for legal immigration to the U.S.

In 1984, Basilio was among 26 Cuban political prisoners released to the custody of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. All had been held at least two years beyond the completion of their prison sentences. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations called attention to Cuba's lack of international treaty compliance and the Cuban government decided to release Basilio and others whose continued imprisonment violated international law on condition that they accept immediate exile to the U.S. or other countries.

After arriving in the U.S. at age 47, Basilio Guzman worked construction and then started his own small business as a carpenter/home renovator. He retired in 2018 at age 80. After spending his first year in the U.S. in Miami, Basilio moved to Washington, DC in 1985 and then to Arlington VA in 1997. He is survived by his wife Pamela Doty, whom he married in 1987, and three daughters: Aracelys Guzman of Campo Florido, Havana Province, Cuba, Maria Ester Guzman of Miami, Florida, both daughters born in Cuba of his first marriage and Elizabeth Guzman, sole daughter of his second marriage, born in the U.S., who currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. He is also survived by four grandchildren born in Cuba now living in the U.S., seven great grandchildren all but one born in the U.S. and one great, great grandchild born March 26, 2022 who he had the joy of holding in his arms before he died.

Basilio Guzman published a memoir entitled After Dark, in both English and Spanish in 2020. His experiences as a political prisoner in Cuba under the Castro Regime also served as the inspiration for a major character in the movie Plantados, directed by Lilo de Vilaplana, released in 2021. A memorial "celebration of life" will be held in Miami, date yet to be determined.