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The people of Matanzas, representing the entire island in mourning

Cuba honors, embraces
The people of Matanzas, representing the entire island in mourning, will perform the funeral services today for the 14 combatants whose remains were found after extinguishing the fire at the Supertanker Base

Author: Yeilen Delgado Calvo | nacional@granma.cu

August 18, 2022 22:08:59

Photo: Ricardo López Hevia
The Island seems immersed in the usual pace, the people going to or coming back from work, the parks taken over by a child eager for vacations, the stops, the shops, the winery, the August sun… life. But that apparent normality is just that, appearance.

It is enough to look up, notice the flags at half-staff, and feel again those emotions that overflow from the chest since the news at dawn on Saturday, August 6 –admiration and sadness, restlessness and pride– to understand that the duel is individual and collective, which in its official capacity deeply belongs to the people.

There is still no discussion of another issue than the hardest balance left by the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base: the loss of 16 people.

And they all hurt. Fabián, Michel, Pablo Ángel, Raciel Alonso, Osmani, Leo Alejandro, Rolando, Luis Ángel, Diosdel, Andy Mitchel, Luis Raúl, Areskys, Adriano, Osley, Elier, Juan Carlos hurt us. They hurt us in their youth and in their experience. They hurt us in the courage of their hours facing the flames. They hurt us in the pain of their families.

There is something very sublime and priceless when, after a name and surnames, you add “fallen in the line of duty”; because that duty marks the fate of others, ours; It is the price of survival, of jumping in the face of adversity.

The remains of 14 of those fallen could not be identified, their loved ones will not have such consolation, and there is no one who does not feel in their own flesh the emptiness of family members, of friends; and also the debt we have contracted with his memories.

Today Cuba honors. The tribute is not only fair and essential, it is felt, it is true, it comes from the root of the popular soul. Cuba embraces the fallen, embraces the families, and embraces itself, wounded by her loss.

And even after the day of funeral honors, even after recovery, or when anniversaries accumulate, Cuba will honor. She always will. We will not forget their looks or their sacrifice.

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They reveal the identity of the 14 disappeared in the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base

They reveal the identity of the 14 disappeared in the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base
According to a press conference reported by Dr. Jorge González Pérez, who was in charge of the multidisciplinary group in charge of the search and identification of these people, it was not possible to absolutely identify the remains of the victims.
August 18, 2022 14:08:45
The names of the 14 people who disappeared after the explosion of the second tank at the Matanzas Super Tanker Base, in the early hours of August 6, were released this Thursday.
As reported at a press conference yesterday by Dr. Jorge González Pérez, who was in charge of the multidisciplinary group in charge of the search and identification, it was not possible to absolutely identify the remains of the victims.
The President of the Cuban Society of Legal Medicine explained that, as a result of the expert work around tank 51 (known as tank two), 754 small bone fragments were recovered, divided into 14 groups, which were transferred to the laboratory for analysis. characterization.
But it was impossible to carry out the comparison of prints, analysis of the teeth, or DNA analysis; due to the high temperatures to which the remains were subjected; a conclusion endorsed by the international experts consulted. That is, it cannot be established to which person they belong.
The control and extinction of the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base constituted a heroic act in which personal and collective courage prevailed and meant a new epic for our people.
As a fair tribute to those who fell in the line of duty, the President of the Republic of Cuba agreed to decree Official Duel, from 06:00 on August 18 until 12:00 at night on August 19, 2022 .
During the validity of the Official Duel, the Lone Star Flag must be hoisted at half-staff in public buildings and military institutions.
Added to the list of deceased, which amounts to a total of 16: the first water tank operator Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, from the Camilo Cienfuegos Oil Refinery Fire Department, and the young officer Elier Manuel Correa Aguilar, Chief of a professional firefighter car at the Matanzas Airport Command.
IDENTITY OF THOSE DISAPPEARED IN THE LINE OF DUTY FIRE
1. Adriano Rodríguez Gutiérrez, soldier, Matanzas



Adriano Rodríguez Gutiérrez, soldier, Matanzas Photo: Granma

2. Andy Mitchel Ramos Sotolongo, First Lieutenant, Havana



Andy Mitchel Ramos Sotolongo, First Lieutenant, Havana Photo: Granma
3. Areskys Quintero Orta, Captain, Mayabeque



Areskys Quintero Orta, Captain, Mayabeque Photo: Granma
4. Dios del Nazco Vargas, First Noncommissioned Officer, Matanzas

Diosdel Nazco Vargas, First Noncommissioned Officer, Matanzas Photo: Granma
5. Fabián Naranjo Núñez, soldier, Matanzas

Fabián Naranjo Núñez, soldier, Matanzas Photo: Granma
6. Leo Alejandro Doval Pérez de Prado, soldier, Matanzas


Leo Alejandro Doval Pérez de Prado, soldier, Matanzas Photo: Granma
7. Luis Angel Alvarez Leyva, Matanzas

Luis Ángel Álvarez Leyva, Matanzas Photo: Granma
8. Luis Raul Aguilar Zamora, Havana

Luis Raúl Aguilar Zamora, Havana Photo: Granma
9. Michel Rodríguez Roman, soldier, Mayabeque

Michel Rodríguez Román, soldier, Mayabeque Photo: Granma
10. Osley Marante Guerra, Havana

Osley Marante Guerra, Havana Photo: Granma
11. Osmani Blasco Sosa, Mayabeque



Osmani Blasco Sosa, Mayabeque Photo: Granma
12. Pablo Angel Lopez Martell, Matanzas

Pablo Ángel López Martell, Matanzas Photo: Granma
13. Raciel Alonso Martinez Naranjo, Havana

Raciel Alonso Martínez Naranjo, Havana Photo: Granma
14. Rolando Oviedo Sosa, Mayabeque



Rolando Oviedo Sosa, Mayabeque Photo: Granma

Fidel unites us

Fidel, we are following your footsteps

Fidel, we are following your footsteps
The tribute was headed by the members of the Central Committee, José Ramón Monteagudo Ruiz and Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, first secretary of the Party in the province, and governor in the territory, respectively.

Author: Eduardo Palomares Calderón | internet@granma.cu

August 13, 2022 11:08:42

In a solemn military ceremony, the floral offering was placed on behalf of the people of Cuba.
In a solemn military ceremony, a floral offering was placed on behalf of the people of Cuba.

Photo: by the author
«Happy birthday, dear Fidel. We feel you among us in the challenging hours of the last days and in the inalienable dreams of always. We follow your footsteps. Overcome! ».

Revealing this feeling expressed by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Cannel Bermúdez, through Twitter to the world, was the tribute paid by the people of Santiago to Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz in his 96th birthday this August 13, before the monument rock that houses his ashes.

The tribute was headed by the members of the Central Committee, José Ramón Monteagudo Ruiz and Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, first secretary of the Party in the province, and governor in the territory, respectively, who dedicated bouquets of flowers followed by relatives of the unforgettable Leader of the Revolution, before the monolith, in the Santa Ifigenia heritage cemetery.

Faithful to that fighting spirit, courage, sensitivity and dignity that exemplified his life, hundreds of people from Santiago, Cubans from various provinces and foreign visitors paraded, with roses in their hands, a gesture that since that December 4, 2016 in which Army General Raúl Castro Ruz deposited the urn with the name: FIDEL, 2,500,000 people have revered.

As Raúl affirmed at the evening held in the Plaza Mayor General Antonio Maceo, the night before that historic moment, that those who had fought so hard would never surrender to rest and from the Heroic City “he calls on us to guarantee the independence and sovereignty of the homeland”, just a few hours ago the heroes of Matanzas proclaimed that Fidel was in victory.


Along with the Party leadership, the governor of the province, Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, was present.

Photo: by the author

Fidel Castro

He captivated, and still does, because he was exceptional

Loyalty everywhere
No monuments are needed for Fidel. He is on every corner, and in every street, and in the people, in their pains and joys, in the best of us, in criticizing mistakes, and in what makes us proud and sustains us. He who should live, he lives

Author: Yeilen Delgado Calvo | nacional@granma.cu

August 12, 2022 23:08:38

Fidel Castro Ruz Center
Photo: Ismael Batista Ramírez
In The office of the spoken word , a shocking chronicle written in 1987, Gabriel García Márquez masterfully describes a Fidel seen from the admiration and the intimacy of friendship.

That text ends with a short story: «One night, while slowly spooning a vanilla ice cream, I saw him so overwhelmed by the weight of so many foreign destinies, so far from himself, that for an instant he seemed different from the one I had always been. So I asked him what he wanted to do most in this world, and he immediately replied: “Stand on a corner” ».

In those few lines is the testimony of the sensitivity of a man who to his contemporaries always seemed titanic; and so it will also happen to those who shelter under his legacy in the future.

However, the uniqueness of Fidel’s leadership was precisely in that humanity, that desire to be one more among the people and, nevertheless, accept the moral imperative of making a Revolution and sustaining it against a powerful and implacable enemy.

He captivated, and still does, because he was exceptional in his pedagogical way of explaining the challenges to the people; for his ability to understand national and international complexities (and even those of men and women), in such an illustrious way that it seemed like divinatory art; for the ability to learn at insane rates, and process that data sometimes better than those understood.

But if the people ignored the appointments and only baptized him Fidel, if he offered himself over and over again “for whatever,” it was due not only to the marvelous reality of his moral and intellectual stature, but to the unprecedented and mythical nature of his figure, but also that he recognized himself in it.

Like Martí, deep roots of the national are synthesized in Fidel, in his life and work: love for others to the point of detachment; stubbornness against adversity; the fierceness against those who covet the Homeland; in short, the Cubanness, a concept so deep and difficult to summarize, although so easily identifiable.

Fidel could never, after throwing himself into the arms of the Island and its destiny, be that normal man who stops at a corner to observe from anonymity. Others were the demands of his missions. Whenever he was in public, his presence soothed and inflamed.

He did not want to be glorified, perhaps because he knew that the best way for ideas to endure and triumph is for them to be planted, reborn and renewed in the souls of generations.

No monuments are needed for Fidel. He is on every corner, and in every street, and in the people, in their pains and joys, in the best of us, in criticizing mistakes, and in what makes us proud and sustains us. He who should live, he lives. Fidel is everywhere.