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Cuba's idealist past --
and future -- live on in this one elderly
man
By Ana Menendez, amenendez@herald.com.
Posted on Wed, Jan. 04, 2006 in The
Miami Herald.
The last of the original Cuban progressives
lives in a subsidized apartment off U.S.
1. The walls are covered in black-and-white
photographs, and the man in them is almost
as old as the Cuban Republic, though not
nearly as woebegone.
Largely unknown to a new generation, Millo
Ochoa is as close as we can come to a living
monument. From a poor upbringing in Holguin
to the founding of the Partido Ortodoxo
to his eventual exile, Millo's life has
spanned all the hope and disillusionment
of Cuba.
Sixty-six years ago this coming July, Millo
became one of the signers to the Cuban constitution
of 1940, a work of almost unfathomable idealism.
Today, he is the sole survivor from that
golden era.
''I finished off the rest of them!'' he
joked recently at his home.
By a certain age, a man has outlived even
his ideas. Talkative and affable at 98,
Ochoa has held up better than the notion
that politics can be clean and governments
benign.
The man who ran with Cuba's leaders as
often as he plotted against them now shares
a Section 8 apartment with his wife, Marta
Herrera, 87, whom he married on the cusp
of his 80th birthday.
The day I met him, Ochoa was dressed in
all his finery -- khaki pants, a white button-down
shirt and a blue blazer with a Cuban flag
pinned to its lapel. The formal grace of
his dress and his courtly demeanor were
a constant reminder of just how far back
his living goes.
Emilio ''Millo'' Ochoa was born on July
4, 1907, one of seven children.
''We ate cornmeal for breakfast, lunch
and dinner,'' he said. "I was just
a poor country boy. . . . Politicians for
the most part don't care about the people
on the bottom. In Cuba, it was the same
as here: Big businesses control the politics.
Against that, what can be done? Only educate
the people. And that is a long process.''
Millo's idealism often brought him into
conflict with those in power. He was arrested
dozens of times and was often on the run.
''I remember one Christmas in particular
-- I must have been 11 -- he got off a plane
in Cuba and they took me to see him at a
safe house,'' said his daughter, Pura ''Beba''
Ochoa Sosa, 63. "We changed cars about
three times to get there.''
Senator, party founder and agitator, Ochoa
was finally exiled for good after the 1959
revolution. He lived in Venezuela, taught
Spanish in Nebraska and eventually settled
in Miami, where, for a time, he drove an
airport cab.
Now and then people would recognize him
and they would say, "Millo Ochoa? I
can't believe it.''
Older exiles still remember him as one
of the most honest men in Cuban politics.
''He was born poor and will die poor; and
along the way, he was never rich,'' said
Bernardo Benes, an exile friend. "He
represents the best values of the political
life of Cuba, and I hope he lives as long
as Moses.''
Ochoa was present at the creation of Cuba's
fondest hopes for itself. The 1940 constitution,
which outlawed the death penalty and made
provisions for everything from workers'
rights to maternity leave, remains ahead
of its time.
Of the 77 delegates to the constitutional
assembly, Ochoa has had to live the longest
to see Fidel Castro, a man he remembers
as a ''gangster'' and a ''fascist'' stand
on the progressive promise that far better
men and women had built.
As Castro's revolution begins to wind down,
Miami is bursting with plans for the "reconstruction.''
In the midst of the frenzy, it would be
good to remember that the best prescription
for a democratic Cuba has already been written.
As for Millo, he has his own plans for
a post-Castro Cuba.
And, with the wisdom of age, it has nothing
to do with political insights or empty promises.
''The first plane out, I'm going to my
farm in Holguin,'' he said. "Behind
the house was a river and a hill full of
mamoncillo trees. And that's what I'll do,
spend the rest of my days eating mamoncillo
and watching the river.''
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com
and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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