Chronology

25/04/1947

  • He is arrested by the Secret Police, along with other student leaders, at the intersection of San José and Mazón streets in Havana, while meeting in support of one of the presidential candidates for the University Students Federation (FEU Spanish Language Acronym), which advocates the moralization of the situation in the University. They are taken to the headquarters of the National Police Extraordinary Special Investigations Service at Castillo del Príncipe.

26/04/1947

  • He is released around 11 am after his arrest the previous day and his imprisonment in the Castillo del Príncipe by the Secret Police lead by Mario Salabarría. At the jails door, he denounces the arbitrary detention to the press. In the coming weeks he would suffer countless pressures to abandon the student struggle.

01/07/1947
  • Fidel takes part in preparations for the aborted Cayo Confites expedition to fight against the dictatorship of General Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
21/07/1947

  • He signs together with other student leaders a Manifesto repudiating the results of the student elections at the University of Havana, denouncing the fraud, arbitrary appointment of leaders and absolute violation of the ideological principles by members of the executive board.

13/08/1947

  • He is 21 years old in Cayo Confites, on the northern coast of Oriente province, where he is involved since the end of July in the preparations for an expedition to fight the dictatorship of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

29/08/1947

  • The anti-Trujillo military expedition of Cayo Confites is intercepted on the high seas by Cuban Navy frigates under pressure from the Dominican dictator and the United States government. The expeditionaries are forced to disembark in the port of Antillas, in Oriente. Fidel manages to evade the arrest by escaping on a raft with Dominican Ramón Mejías del Castillo (Pichirilo) and two other fighters. Then he swims a section of the Nipe Bay until he reaches Cayo Saetía. There he is helped by the islet lighthouse keeper, Rafael Guzmán. He took refuge for a few hours at his home in Birán ..

10/10/1947

  • He participates in a demonstration organized by the University Students Federation (FEU) to condemn the murder of young student Carlos Martínez Junco.

02/11/1947

  • He arrives in Manzanillo accompanied by Lionel Soto, Vice President of the University Students Federation (FEU) of the Philosophy School, to request, on behalf of FEU, to the members of the Veterans association to take the Bell of La Demajagua (the Hacienda where the first war of independence in Cuba began) to Havana for a rally to protest against the corrupt government of Ramón Grau. The bell is transferred to the University of Havana and placed in custody at the Hall of the Martyrs.

06/11/1947

  • A gangster group serving the interests of Education Minister José Manuel Alemán steals La Demajagua’s Bell from the University Students Federation’s Hall of the Martyrs to prevent it from being used in the popular protest against Grau San Martin’s government.

  • The university students start a relentless protest against the hijacking of the Bell, until its returned to the city of Manzanillo on November 12th. During a speech at the University Staircase he strongly condemns the theft and describes it as "unprecedented and outrageous affront to a relic of the Republic."

23/03/1948

  • He arrives in Venezuela to meet with student organizations to organize a Latin American Student Congress in Bogotá, Colombia. He visits Plaza Bolivar and several newspapers and attempts to arrange a meeting with Venezuelan President Rómulo Gallegos.