CubitaNOW Writing ~ Friday April 7, 2023
Cuban official media reported this Friday the death of the Mexican Antonio del Conde, alias El Cuate, who bought, repaired and delivered the Granma yacht to Fidel Castro for his “revolutionary” actions on the island once morest the government of Fulgencio Batista.
The agency Latin Press reported that Del Conde died on March 28 at the age of 97 in the municipality of Tecate in the Mexican state of Baja California, Mexico, in a nursing home where he had been for a very short time.
However, the information has not been disclosed until now nor the causes of death. The spy Gerardo Hernández, national coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), lamented the loss of the “close friend” of the regime.
“Antonio del Conde, ‘El Cuate’ from Granma, a dear friend of Cuba, has passed away. Our condolences to his family and colleagues, ”Hernández, who personally knew Del Conde, expressed in a tweet.
Antonio del Conde, ‘el Cuate’ of Granma, a close friend of Cuba, has passed away. Our condolences to his family and colleagues. #Cuba #CDRCuba #SomosDelBarrio pic.twitter.com/vlDQ5I8kjT
— Gerardo Hdez. Nordelo (@GHNordelo5) April 7, 2023
It was Castro himself who baptized Del Conde as El Cuate, following meeting him in Mexico during the preparation of the armed group, for which he needed a boat that would transport 82 people to the eastern Cuban coast.
In addition, Del Cuate made available to Castro the weapons that he sold in his establishment in Mexico City. In the same way, he dedicated himself to sending weapons to the Sierra Maestra that he bought in the United States.
Before his death, it was known that he was ill due to a deterioration in his health due to age. According to Prensa Latina, the death of Castro’s friend “surprises and fills the Cuban people with great sadness.”
Antonio del Conde Pontones, born in Manhattan, New York, on January 5, 1926, was a merchant and industrial technician. When he entered Mexico in 1933, Antonio del Conde did not speak Spanish, which is why his family admitted him to the American School, and later he was at “El Zacatito”, an institution managed by the Lasallian brothers.
In 1944, he entered the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he studied engineering for two years, which he abandoned to later go to Charleston, West Virginia, United States, to the Gravely garden tractor factory.
He returned to the Aztec nation and collaborated in his father’s sports arms sales business in downtown Mexico City. In 1949, following the death of his father in a car accident, Del Conde, at the age of 24, took care of the family businesses, which included a shop for the sale and repair of sporting weapons, the representation of Gravely tractors and a printing press, among others.
Exiled in Mexico, Castro visited the Del Conde armory in June 1955. From then on he became friends with the late Cuban dictator. The Granma was described as a 63-foot sports yacht that left the port of Tuxpan. Among the expedition members were Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida Bosque and Ramiro Valdés. The ship reached the eastern coast of Cuba on December 2, 1956 near Las Coloradas beach in the municipality of Niquero.