Sergio Carbó | |
Birth Name: | Sergio Carbó y Morera |
Nationality: | Cuban |
Birth Date: | 1891 |
Death Date: | April 18, 1971 |
Birth Place: | La Habana, Cuba |
Death Place: | Miami, United States |
Order: | Cuban Secretary of War |
Constituency3: | Republic of Cuba |
Term Start3: | September 5, 1933 |
Term End3: | September 10, 1933 |
Party: | Cuban Revolutionary Party |
Children: | Ulises Carbo |
Sergio Carbó (born 1891 - April 18, 1971) was a prominent Conservative journalist[1] and leader of the Cuban Revolutionary party.
Sergio Carbó was born in the La Habana Province of Cuba.[2]
Sergio Carbó was the founder and the editor-in-chief of La Semana, a weekly political commentary journal, in 1925.[3] He started Zig-Zag in 1938[4] which was later re-established in Miami in 1960.[5] From 1941 to 1960, he was the owner and director of the daily Havana newspaper Prensa Libre.[6]
Carbó had been detained in the political prison at La Cabaña Fortress in January 1931, for publishing content in his newspaper, La Semana, that the government found objectionable prior to his eventual release in February 1931.[7]
In May 1931, Carbó and Carlos Hevia equipped and led an expeditionary force from the United States which landed in Gíbara, a small community in the province of Oriente (now Holguín Province).[8] It was an attempt to oust Gerardo Machado's dictatorship, but it was suppressed by Machado's army.[9] Carbó was later charged with inspiring a rebellion in Oriente Province.[10]
In August 1933, an army revolt in Havana forced President Machado to flee Cuba and he was succeeded by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada.[11] The Céspedes administration assumed power on August 12, 1933, until Sergeant Fulgencio Batista staged a coup d'état called the Sergeants' Revolt on September 4, 1933.[12] Carbó was a leading factor in the uprising which brought the downfall of the Cespedes' presidency.[13]
An executive committee of five men including Carbó, Dr. Ramón Grau, José Irisarri, Dr. Guillermo Portela, and Porfirio Franca replaced the Céspedes cabinet as Cuba's governmental leaders.[14] On the committee, Carbó, a member of the Student Directory, acted as the Secretary of War.[15] Following the coup, the five-member junta—also referred to as The Pentarquia—served as a transitional administration for just five days.
Within a week, Dr. Ramón Grau was promoted to president, replacing the Pentarchy with the One Hundred Days Government on September 10, 1933.[16] On November 13, 1933, Carbó accused the United States ambassador to Cuba, Sumner Welles, of supporting an attempted uprising against President Grau's regime and asked that he be removed from his post.[17] On January 15, 1934, Sergeant Batista forced Grau to resign, ending Grau's government of slightly more than a hundred days.
On October 16, 1934, Carbó was declared not guilty in an urgency court of publishing articles against the government.[18]
Carbó was an officer of the exile group, the Cuban Revolutionary Council[19] and on April 21, 1961, he was acting as coordinator-general of the anti-Castro Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (FRD).[20]
Sergio Carbó died in Miami, Florida at Mercy Hospital on April 18, 1971.[21]