Simeon Cuba Sarabia
Bolivian-born Marxist, member of Che Guevara's ELN guerrilla movement (1935-1967)
Simeón Cuba Sarabia (15 January 1935 – 9 October 1967), also known as Willy, was a member of the Ñancahuazú guerrilla column led by Che Guevara in Bolivia. Born in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia, he became a leader among tin miners in Huanuni and served as the secretary of organization and secretary of militias of the local mine workers' union. He also carried out various social service activities for the benefit of the miners' families. Cuba Sarabia joined the Communist Party of Bolivia (PCB) but resigned from it in 1965 to become a member of the Bolivian Marxist–Leninist Party which favored armed struggle. When he urged that group to put its principles into practice, he was expelled from it along with Moisés Guevara. It was Moisés Guevara who brought him into Che Guevara's Ñancahuazú guerrilla group in March 1967.
Guerrilla fighter
Selected to be a member of the "center" unit which was led by Che Guevara himself, Willy came to be known as a disciplined and courageous combatant. Despite this, and perhaps as a result of his extremely reserved nature, Guevara developed suspicions about him and in his monthly summary for September 1967 wrote in his campaign diary that "The morale of the rest of the group has remained quite good, and I only have doubts about Willy, that he may take advantage of some havoc to try to escape by himself ... " His suspicions would soon prove to have been unfounded.
On 8 October 1967 when the guerrillas' final battle commenced in the Yuro Ravine, Willy was leading the "center" group as they tried to find a way to break out of the Army's encirclement.
The public source identifies “Simeon Cuba Sarabia” as bolivian-born Marxist, member of Che Guevara's ELN guerrilla movement (1935-1967). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Simeon, Cuba and Sarabia.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q353712. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1967 and 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Simeon Cuba Sarabia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.