Cuban political prisoner dies
BY SERGIO BUSTOS
sbustos@MiamiHerald.com
THE MIAMI HERALD

Mario Chanes de Armas, who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution only to spend three decades as a political prisoner when he spoke out against communism, died Saturday at Hialeah Hospital. He was 80.

Chanes de Armas had been in a Hialeah nursing home, but became ill Saturday and was taken to the hospital, said his sister, Belen Chanes de Armas.

'For us, he was a very special, special, special man,' said Belen. ``He died quietly, but was a man who had defended his country.'

Considered one of the founders of the Revolution, Chanes de Armas survived the Moncada attack, trained in Mexico, came over on the yacht Gramma and lived to greet Castro in Havana on Jan. 9, 1959, when the conquering heroes arrived on top of a U.S. Sherman tank.

Instead of joining the revolutionary government, Chanes de Armas chose to his work in a brewery. Two years later, after watching Castro betray their movement, he spoke out against communists and was tried as a counterrevolutionary.'

On July 17, 1961, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, longer than any other Cuban political prisoner. It included six years in solitary confinement.

'I watched men get shot, point blank, beaten with bayonets, arbitrarily pulled out and punished. But we were alone. The world didn't know,' he told the Miami Herald in a 1999 interview.

Thirty years to the date of his imprisonment, he was released and reunited with his four sisters in Miami.

He later traveled to Washington and met with then President Clinton for 20 minutes. Following the meeting, Clinton issued a statement praising Chanes as ``a living testimony to the unbending will to strive for liberty and dignity.'

In addition to Belen Chanes de Lopez, of Miami, he is survived by three other sisters: Mercedes Chanes, of Miami, Aleida Chanes, of Union City, N.J. and 'Mercedita' Chanes, of Miami.

Services will be held Monday at the Bernardo Garcia Funeral Home, 4100 N.W. 7th Avenue, Miami. Burial will be Tuesday in Hialeah.

Mario Chanes de Armas