La Niña de Placetas, An Escambray Legend, Dies in Miami

Zoila Águila Almeida, La Niña del Escambray, appears here with a Thompson machine gun. She was an insurgent until 1964. Her husband was executed and she became a political prisoner. (Photo published in ‘Escambray: La Guerra Olvidada’, by Enrique Encinosa)

The former anti-Castro guerrilla Zoila Águila Almeida, died in exile, a victim of Covid-19, at age 82

In 2018, the author wrote the following article with the hope of receiving news about Zoila Águila Almeida, La Niña de Placetas.

14ymedio, Idolidia Darias, Miami. (Originally written in 2018 and reprinted here in February 2021) — I’m writing with the hope that more people will join in looking for updated information on Zoila Águila Almeida, La Niña de Placetas, or La Niña del Escambray, the woman who played a key role in Cuban history when she bet in favor of armed struggle, the only way to confront the nascent communist dictatorship.

At a very young age, Zoila Águila, a native of Placetas, joined the insurgents who rose up in the Escambray Mountains against communism, and that is why she earned the nickname “La Niña” (The Girl). Those who knew her say that, in the fight against the militia, what she lacked in age, she more than made up in value.

Discredit and false testimonies were techniques used in El Escambray to invalidate the rebels. Fidel Castro called them murderers, thieves, rapists and highway robbers, among other qualifying labels, and the State media immediately repeated the terms. This created feelings of strong rejection against the insurgents by those who didn’t live in El Escambray, or who had close relatives who rebelled, or were in jail for being in the insurgency. Hundreds of Cubans, ignorant of the truth, started to hate them and joined in vilifying them.

She was the only woman to join the armed struggle and spend all her time at the frontline participating in combat

Thus, La Niña de Placetas faced the worst accusation. She was the only woman to join the armed struggle and spent all her time at the frontline participating in combat, first in Porfirio Guillén Amador’s guerrilla group and later in Julio Emilio Carretero’s.

Those who were close to her in the fighting knew her courage and her energy at the time of the encounters with the militia. The way in which she countered the attacks and defended her comrades in struggle became a legend, that is why the regime used all kinds of baseness to sully her and hurt her honor as a woman: her capacity to be a mother, to engender life.

There were no shortage of phrases hinting at relationships with all the guerrilla men. Nothing could be further from the truth, since her husband, Manolo Manso de La Guardia, was with her until the moment they were ambushed at sea, when they were traveling on a ship that was supposed to take the group commanded by Julio Emilio Carretero to the United States.

Because of Alberto Delgado’s betrayal, they were all arrested on March 9, 1964 and the men were executed at La Cabaña in June of that same year (Manolo Manso was among them), while La Niña was sentenced to thirty years in prison. In April, Cheíto León, who had been in command of the insurgents at El Escambray, verified that his compatriots had not arrived in Miami.

León’s suspicions grew, as did those of the insurgent Rubén Cordobés, and they contacted Alberto Delgado on April 28, 1964. The informer was executed.

Pedro Guillén, younger brother of the insurgent Porfirio Guillén — one of the first leaders of the guerrillas at El Escambray who died in combat in Sabanas del Moro — states that La Niña was a woman of integrity and courage and that she went to the mountains in the year 1961 because of the growing dissatisfaction with those in power.

“We remember her as small in size and immense in heart, with her Thompson machine gun in her hand. She was not afraid of anything or anyone. During the sieges, she was a panther and the first to break them with a clean shot.”

She became the only woman who participated actively and directly in the fighting against the militia in the mountainous area near Fomento.

“We remember her as small in size and immense in heart, with her Thompson machine gun in her hand. She was not afraid of anything or anyone. During the sieges, she was a panther and the first to break them with a clean shot.”

Contrary to what some people around here think, she never carried out missions as a messenger or collaborator from the plains. She was too well known by friends and enemies. The guerrillas loved and respected her as the most precious jewel”, said Pedro Guillén in an interview with Héctor Maseda (published on the Conexión Cubana blog).

The woman’s ordeal began with her sentence to prison because, in addition to depriving her of her freedom, they subjected her to all kinds of torture and humiliation. It is known that she was very rebellious against her tormentors and that she resisted physical torture.

From the time she was arrested, numerous techniques, typical of the repressors, were applied. She was deprived of sleep, they subjected her to intense interrogations that lasted for weeks, they kept her standing in the same position for hours and there was no shortage of execution drills, a technique used frequently at that time against the insurgents to obtain confessions and acceptance of blame.

Expletives and interrogations, as a woman and a mother, were not missing either.

In 1969, five years after her companions had been arrested and shot, she was taken to the Guanajay jail. Confined to the hideous cells, the tormentors managed to cloud her mind.

Cary Roque was a Cuban political prisoner confined within the walls of that horrendous prison along with 45 other women, who also served sanctions for their political ideas. She tells us that La Niña spent two years there without speaking to anyone

Cary Roque was a Cuban political prisoner confined within the walls of that horrendous prison along with 45 other women, who also served sanctions for their political ideas. She tells us that La Niña spent two years there without speaking to anyone.

She was very energetic, distrustful and did not associate with anyone. The women in the political prison who also suffered torture and humiliation understood what was happening to her.

There is evidence that, in addition to the prison in Guanajay, she was confined to one in Guanabacoa and to another one, ironically called Nuevo Amanecer [New Dawn] Farm.

Despite her mental state, there was something about her that remained intact, because she always stood her ground and never understood the words “to give in.” The guards beat the women with hosepipes and she was no exception.

Like the other rebels in the political prison, she burned mattresses and made protests, and was repeatedly taken to punishment cells.

Enrique Encinosa’s book “Escambray: The Forgotten War,” published in 1987, is a collection of testimonies from the warriors of that era, and highlights that La Niña spent hours sitting on her cot in the women’s prison, dressed in rags and without speaking to anyone. When she was allowed to go out to the yard, she would perch in the bushes, where she would spend long periods of time, her eyes lost on the distant horizon.

She was one of the last prisoners to leave Cuba. She had served eighteen years of her sentence and although her physical body came to Miami, the remnants of her sanity were left to wander through the filthy and damp cell walls and through the wards of Cuban psychiatric hospitals, where she received electroshock “therapies.”

Despite having been imprisoned and cut off from even her family most of the time, the communist regime never had enough. As is its custom against adversaries who fight for just ideals, it used all the avenues it could to denigrate the rebels in El Escambray, all the political prisoners and especially La Niña.

In the 1970’s, a series entitled ‘Sector 40’ aired on Cuban Television. In it, they dedicated multiple scenes related to the rebels and the alleged “crimes” they committed.

In the 1970’s, a series entitled ‘Sector 40’ aired on Cuban Television. In it, they dedicated multiple scenes related to the rebels and the alleged “crimes” they committed.

They presented La Niña de Placetas as a woman who had no qualms about allegedly murdering  newborn children to prevent their crying giving away the rebel group’s position in the mountainous area near Fomento.

But people who knew her, among them Pedro Guillén, who confirmed it to me and to independent journalist Héctor Maseda, state that what was said about her was slander of the worst kind. “She never gave birth in the mountains; she miscarried twice during her time as a rebel,” says Guillén, who knew her personally.

Under adverse conditions like the ones she faced, miscarriage is not uncommon. There was no logic to the lie that Cuban Television coined, saying that she gave birth twice in the middle of fighting, evading sieges, carrying a weapon and advancing through the mountains, quickly at times and at others at night or in the rain.

Her virtue was attacked because the regime did not want to accept the patriotism of a woman who, faced with the dilemma of being a mother or a combatant, decided to do what she, at that time, believed was correct.

Knowing La Niña’s trajectory, it is logical to think that leaving the mountains and returning to Placetas was never in her plans. Going home meant giving up on her purposes and ideas and facing the machinery of terror that finally fell on her when she was captured.

In silence and surrounded by damp and foul-smelling walls, La Niña endured pain for her partner and for her compatriots executed at La Cabaña.

She chose a tough but dignified path. My tribute and respect for her compels me to appeal in all possible ways so that we do not forget her.

Below is a reproduction of the information shared by Luis G. Infante, from The Cuban Political Prison project, about steps that are being taken to update any information related to the Cuban patriot.

In silence and surrounded by damp and foul-smelling walls, La Niña endured pain for her partner and for her compatriots executed at La Cabaña.

Miami, April 9, 2018: During about the last ten years, there has been no evidence of either the existence or the survival of Zoila Aguila Almeida, La Niña de Placetas, also known as La Niña del Escambray.

There are those who claim that she died; others among us have reservations about it, since we cannot verify it. The truth is that there is no record to verify any of the speculations.

The last location we had of her was when she lived in an impoverished apartment building on South Beach, at the southern end of the City of Miami Beach. Near the end of the 80’s, some of us went there and she didn’t welcome us. She barely cracked the door open and spoke a few words. Enrique Encinosa describes something similar in his book Escambray: The Forgotten War.

Servilio Pérez, a former politician who lived on South Beach, took an interest in her and took care of her, to the extent that she allowed, through the person in charge of the building. When South Beach became what it is today, developed into an urban zone of high prestige and a tourist destination, contact with La Niña was lost. We assume she was forced to move. Even Servilio Pérez had told us before he died that he did not know of her whereabouts.

La Niña has disappeared from us and we do not know about her and whether or not she’s alive. She must be somewhere.

From the copy of a baptism certificate that the former politician Hernán Reyes “El Tite” gave us, the Presidio Politico Histórico Cubano-Casa del Preso [Cuban Historical Political Prison-Prisoner’s House] has taken up this matter, because it is painful that we cannot find the whereabouts of La Niña, wherever that may be. We have already been in contact with different state and municipal departments in the hope of finding her if she is alive, or having the certainty of her death, if unfortunately that turns out to be the case.

Editorial Note: Idolidia Darias published the above text in her blog in 2018, which she authorized us to reproduce here. She is the author of “Escambray: The History that Totalitarianism Tied to Bury”.

Translated by Norma Whiting