Older generation of revolutionaries react to US- Cuba relations

Cuba

Manuel Yepe and his wife Marta Nunez are communist party members and lifelong supporters of the Cuban revolution. CCTV America’s Michael Voss reported from Havana.

Yepe is the former head of Cuba’s news agency, Prensa Latina. As a student he joined Fidel Castro’s underground 26th of July movement in 1955 and fought in the urban insurrection against Batista. He also went to Miami to bring back arms shipments for Fidel.

“In my case the weapons I brought were hidden in two cars, hidden in the doors,” Yepe said.

Today, Manuel Yepe’s study is full of photographs of him with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. So what does he think about restoring diplomatic relations with the United States?

“I think negotiating this deal is a triumph for President Raul Castro. We were never fighting against the United States, we were fighting against the oppression of the United States but we had many Americans working with us, including in Miami,” Yepe said.

Marta Nunez, came from a wealthy family and was educated at an exclusive American high school in Havana. She is the only one of her entire class, who didn’t move to the United States after the revolution.

Marta Nunez went on to become a diplomat posted to the Soviet Union and then a sociology professor.

“My reaction when I first heard it was wow, we are going to have respectful relations, normal relations for the first time,” Nunez said.