Special coverage: July 26 in the heart of Cuba
Today, July 26, the national commemoration for the 66th anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrisons will be held in Bayamo

Author: National news staff | informacion@granma.cu
july 26, 2019 06:07:49

Photo: Granma
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, member of the Party Central Committee Political Bureau, and President of the Councils of State and Ministers, delivers the event’s central remarks.

July 26 in the heart of Cuba

Foto: Endrys Correa Vaillant

“Before the historic generation that accompanies us I will deliver central remarks at this event, in the same place where the Comandante en Jefe, on the same date in 2006, presided and closed for the last time a National Rebellion Day commemoration. “I speak on behalf of the grateful.”

“It is no accident, that located in Granma is the second garrison assaulted that morning, the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, in Bayamo, that today is a museum park bearing the honorable name of Ñico López, one of the leaders of the action in this city – Raúl’s great friend, in whose office the photo of a boy with big black glasses occupies a place of honor.

“Ñico was killed just hours after the Granma landing, but he has not been absent a minute from the revolutionary work to which he gave himself with such passion and confidence in victory.

“They were more brothers than friends, those men and women who put the nation first, who thought of the country as a family.

“We came from them, and it is very important that our tributes, annual or daily, not be enclosed within an act, in verses or a few words about dates.

“The Revolution now needs us to unleash a great battle for our defense and economy, to break the enemy’s plan to destroy us and asphyxiate us…

“It is up to us to think as a country, because no one else is going to think for us.”

“It requires, at the same time, that we strengthen, among the people, spirituality, civics, decency, solidarity, social discipline, and a sense of public service.

View image on Twitter“

Despite the pain, the physical loss of those beings ‘from another world’ – from the song “Los elegidos” – the survivors of that epic feat, guided by Fidel, never complained, or went to a corner to mourn their fallen or murdered companions. “Five years, five months, and five days after the assaults on the garrisons in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, denying the alleged failure of 53, the victory of 59 would come. The setback became a victory.

“An explanation of the miracle of a group of men defeating one of the best equipped armies on the continent can only be found in the outstanding values of the Centerary Generation, their sense of justice, loyalty to a cause, commitment to their Word, confidence in victory, unwavering faith in the people, and unity as a principle.

“Our parents and teachers taught us that it is easy to break sticks separately, but impossible to break a bundle tightly united.

“To confuse public opinion and give this confrontation a legality it does not have, the Helms-Burton was fabricated, a legal invention that combines the empire’s desires for dominance over our destinies and the revenge of those nostalgic for the Batista dictatorship.

“The current claimants of properties, that 60 years ago finally passed to the hands of the people, come from the immoral and antipatriotic beings who sacked the country.

“Let me warn them that the descendants of the campesinos and Mambi cavalry who took the Plaza in 1959 to greet the victorious Revolution, inherited the land and the machetes of their ancestors, and would not hesitate to wield them sharply against those who attempt to snatch the land the Revolution awarded them.

***

“Only a Revolution could change the country’s panorama, which four years after the assaults had deteriorated so much that, in 1957, a religious organization… would call for radical, definitive change in the country.

“Cuba changed, but not the powerful neighbor’s efforts to possess it, with the enthusiastic collaboration of hawks and the servile anti-patriots in South Florida.

“I am going to provide a recent figure, for the world’s consideration: in this last year alone, from March 2018 through April of 2019, the blockade caused us losses valued at 4.343 billion dollars.

“After six decades of harassment of the simplest Cuba transaction, accumulated losses have reached 922,630,000,000 dollars, taking into account the depreciation of green bills as compared to gold.

“The siege is being increasingly tightened around our country, around Venezuela, Nicaragua, and any other nation that refuses to accept the imperial plan for its destiny.”

“Today, before the people of Cuba and the world, we denounce the U.S. administration for beginning to act more aggressively to prevent the delivery of fuel to Cuba.

“The genocidal plan is to affect, even more, the population’s quality of life, its progress, and even its hopes, with the objective of hurting Cuban families in daily life, in their basic needs, and accuse the Cuban government of being ineffective. They are seeking a social explosion.

“How little they know us! When will they finally understand that the heroic Cuban family is capable of facing, and resisting with dignity, the worse siege, and continue loving each other, despite distances, because nothing, no one, can divide us?

“Ignorant of history and the Cuban Revolution’s foreign policy principles, they propose to negotiate a possible reconciliation with us, in exchange for abandoning the course chosen and defended by our people. They suggest betraying friends, throwing 60 years of dignity into the trash bin.“No, imperialist gentlemen, we do not understand each other.“Any proposal that departs from respect among equals does not interest us.“And as for the U.S. people, they are always invited to Cuba. Our doors are open. Come, see, and get to know the reality of the country you are not allowed to visit, in the name of freedom, an essential human right that, they say, is lacking in Cuba and abounds there.

***

“Going for more is not a slogan. It is a translation of the government’s language in response to the enemy’s policy: With those who want to steal our land, our homes, our schools, hospitals, childcare centers, beaches, ports, and airports… there can be no understanding.

“Let us all work to make every day in the almanac a 26th; every month in the year, a July; and every commitment a victorious Moncada!

“The world will see what we are capable of doing and the world will join us in our resistance. It is time to make a new and urgent call to conscience.

“We are going for more because we are Cuba and we are continuity.

“Homeland of Death!

“Venecermos!”

Photo: Twitter

Federico Hernández Hernández, member of the Party Central Committee and first secretary in the province of Granma, addresses the gathering.

With the presence of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, the President of Cuba’s Councils of State and Ministers, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez opened the political-cultural commemoration for the 66th Anniversary of the Assaults on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Garrisons.

Also in attendance are José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of the Party Central Committee, and members of the Political Bureau, Salvador Valdés Mesa, first vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers; Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power; Susely Morfa González, first secretary of the Young Communists League National Bureau; and other Party leaders and the Granma provincial government

As soon as the day dawns, Bayamo’s Plaza de la Patria will welcome thousands of Granma residents for the national commemoration for the 66th anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrison, in this historic city. Granma offers special coverage of the events.

Photo: Endrys Correa Vaillant

July 26 2019

July 26, the national commemoration for the 66th anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada Garrison

July 26, 2019 JaimeM

National news staffjuly 26, 2019 06:07:49

Photo: Endrys Correa Vaillant

Moncada: A victory of ideas

July 26, 2019 JaimeM

Moncada: A victory of ideas
The July 26, 1953, events in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo changed forever the direction of an entire country, and opened a new stage in the history of Our America

Author: Juan Diego Nusa Peñalver | internet@granma.cu
july 24, 2019 19:07:17

Photo: Marcelino Vázquez (AIN)
History cannot be forgotten. At a time when U.S. imperialism and its regional allies are intent upon eliminating the idea that “a better world is possible,” the Cuban Revolution and its heroic people are resisting at all costs, convinced of the justness of their ideals, and celebrating the 66th anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada in Santiago de Cuba, and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrison in Bayamo.

These glorious events changed forever the direction of an entire country, their greatness recognized beyond the nation’s borders, opening a new stage in the history of Our America.

The justness of their revolutionary ideas led the generation of Martí’s centenary, led by Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, to risk their lives to plant the seed of this historic change, which despite the failure of the military action would bear fruit a few years later.

The daring attack on the cruel U.S. backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, allowed the population to gain consciousness of the need for armed struggle to transform the nation’s dire circumstances, with which Cubans retook the road to full independence, that given its projections and significance, became an example for Caribbean and Latin American countries, also battling to win their “second and definitive” independence, as José Martí said.

The armed action was based on a progressive program, in which the most important aspirations for socio-economic and political transformation at that time were outlined masterfully by Fidel in his historic self-defense during the spurious trial that followed the frustrated assault, October 16, 1953, when the Comandante en Jefe ended with the celebrated phrase: “Condemn me, it doesn’t matter, history will absolve me.”

The group’s action and program reflected a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the prevailing objective and subjective conditions in Cuba, which had matured extraordinarily following Batista’s pro-imperialist coup, on March 10, 1952, in order to prevent a majority party, of a reformist orientation, from coming to power through an electoral process, convened within the framework of “representative democracy,

” which the bourgeois regime itself, dependent on the United States, did not respect.The tactical setback suffered on July 26, 1953, when the military objectives foreseen in the action were not achieved, did not modify the historical results of the events, which were definitively inserted into the annals of Cuba’s revolutionary history.

A new stage of armed struggle was opened with the assault on the Moncada garrison in Santiago de Cuba, a city with a long tradition in the country’s previous independence wars, and the simultaneous attack on the Batista army’s garrison in the city of Bayamo – a stage that would continue until the dictatorship was overthrown January 1, 1959.

The deep convictions and ideals that motivated the glorious events were strengthened and extended. The Moncada became the antecedent and a valuable experience leading to decisive subsequent events: the Granma expedition, from the sister land of Mexico, and the guerrilla struggle in the mountains, which would be the principle form of revolutionary action, with the indispensable support of an underground movement across the entire country.

Fidel insisted that the Cuban people’s struggle for liberation did not begin that day: “The heroic march begun in 1868 by Céspedes was reinitiated, and later continued by that exceptional man whose centenary was commemorated the same year (1953), the intellectual author of the Moncada: José Martí.

”Sixty-six years after the Moncada, seen by many, inside Cuba and beyond, as an impossible “assault on heaven,” the national celebration invites Cubans to reflection on the past, present and, above all, the future of the revolutionary struggle on the road to building a prosperous and sustainable socialist country, in which the greatest possible share of social justice is achieved.

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Cuba is a safe country

July 24, 2019 JaimeM

Cuba is a safe country, but U.S. continues its attempts to manipulate reality
Yesterday, July 25, Cuba demanded that the U.S. government cease its manipulation of alleged health problems reported by its diplomatic staff in Havana, as a pretext to impose aggressive measures to harm our country, economy, and people

Author: Ana Laura Palomino García | informacion@granmai.cu
july 24, 2019 10:07:25

Photo: Juvenal Balán
Yesterday, July 25, Cuba demanded that the U.S. government cease its manipulation of alleged health problems reported by its diplomatic staff in Havana, as a pretext to impose aggressive measures to harm our country, economy, and people.
In statements to the press, Johana Tablada, the Foreign Ministry’s director for the United States, described a new study from the University of Pennsylvania, published in the American Medical Association Journal, which compared images of the brains of U.S. diplomatic personnel who reported health problems during their stays on the island, with those of a control group, and concluded that differences between the two exist.
Tablada recalled that in March of 2018, in the same journal, an article was published that described the clinical condition of the diplomats, yet, on this occasion, following the publication of the new article, the corporate media has immediately responded with full coverage.
“Two years later, after much speculation and little information or cooperation, not a single reason has appeared to justify the closing of consular services, the expulsion of Cuban diplomats in Washington, deceptive travel warnings, and all the unjust measures adopted by the U.S. using the pretext that its functionaries may face some kind of danger in Cuba.”
She noted that these measures have had a significant human cost to our population, now obliged to travel to third countries to seek U.S. visas to visit relatives, or participate in professional events, with no guarantee that they will actually be granted – despite the fact that specialized agencies in the U.S. and Cuba, such as the FBI and the Directorate of Criminal and Criminal Investigation, agree that there is no evidence of any kind of attack on diplomats in Havana.
Tablada denounced U.S. National Security advisor John Bolton and the State Department, which in their public documents have maintained the irresponsible use of the term “attacks”, which deliberately “implies malicious intentions and has never been substantiated.”
She stressed that Cuba is a safe country for diplomats from the U.S. or any other country, and for the millions of travelers from the entire world who visit Cuba every year, and reiterated the Cuban government’s desire to develop a respectful dialogue and cooperate on this and other issues for the benefit of both peoples.

Casa de las Americas NY

July 26, the national commemoration for the 66th anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada

July 26, the national commemoration for the 66th anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada Garrison

Moncada: A victory of ideas

Cuba is a safe country

Defending the Cuban Revolution