NUEVA GERONA-A representation of young people from Pinar del Río held on May 15 a meeting with First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
“Our guide is in our history”, said Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, also present at the exchange, to the 70 students and workers from different sectors who shared ideas and criteria together with leaders of the country, about the present challenges and the role of the new generations in the current times.
The exchange took place after the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the release of Fidel and the Moncada fighters.
AN ACT OF COMMEMORATION
On May 15, 1955, a rainy Sunday, on the outskirts of the so-called Model Prison, on the then Isle of Pines, more than a hundred Cubans were waiting for the 29 boys, survivors of the assaults on the Guillermon Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks, who had been imprisoned there. Seven decades later, more than a thousand locals commemorated that day.
History, bravery and honor absolved Fidel and his comrades, said member of the Central Committee and head of its Department of Attention to the Social Sector Susely Morfa, in the central words of the commemoration, also headed by the member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Party's Central Committee, Roberto Morales Ojeda.
“To honor the memory of the generation that set the course for a better Cuba is the commitment of the youngest generation of the Isle of Youth, we are worthy heirs of Moncada fighters”, said young student of Medical Sciences Lienni Riquet.
MEETING WITH YOUNG PEOPLE
Inspired by those words and ideas, in the inner courtyard of the former prison hospital, a few meters from where Fidel and his comrades were imprisoned from October 1953 to May 1955, new generations listened to the remembrances and reflections of Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez.
The fighter, Diaz-Canel recalled, was in the assault on the Moncada Barracks, in prison, in exile, in the expedition of the Granma yacht, in the Sierra Maestra and in the Invasion from East to West commanded by Che and Camilo.
“We are guided by history, that's how it has always been,” reiterated Commander of the Revolution, who recalled episodes of the Liberation War such as those of the invasion, when, despite the tremendous rigor, no one gave in. And that is, he affirmed, what led us to this point.
Ramiro shared ideas about the current situation of the country and how, with the actions of young people, in every block and community, the unity of all revolutionaries must be strengthened, which is the condition to defend the Homeland.
The meeting with a living hero was considered by the young people as a privilege. They agreed that, for the new generations, as did the previous ones, it is time not only to be heirs, but also to be builders of history to continue the battle.
A UNIQUE STORY, GENERATION AFTER GENERATION
Luis Mariano Viltres Vegas, from La Fe Polyclinic, pointed out that this meeting was celebrating the heroism of Centenary generation, which in its epic for the definitive liberation of the Homeland was the same age as the young people who are now gathered here.
Celia Hardy Rodríguez underlined the validity of the strategies developed by the young Moncada fighters during the imprisonment, in which they created, for example, mechanisms of political communication, despite being imprisoned, to influence public opinion and raise awareness of the need for the struggle as the only alternative.
First Lieutenant Alisequi Justin Acosta insisted on the tremendous task of new generations, to whom it is up to us -he emphasized- to defend what the young Moncada fighters did.
President of the FEU in the Faculty of Medical Sciences Linet de la Caridad Rodríguez Suárez recalled that “history is created day by day, it is something that remains for the future, but it is made today”.
She recounted what her colleagues did during the vacations, when, faced with an increase in dengue cases, they decided to join the work of the municipality's medical institutions to support the services.
President of the Martí Youth Movement on the Isle of Youth Manuel Barroso García stressed the importance of meetings that First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez is holding with young people.
These are exchanges, he noted, “that mark the commitment to be active protagonists of our history, to continue defending the Revolution”.
LEGACY AND VALIDITY
In an analysis of the legacy and validity of the release from prison, thanks to popular pressure, of the young people of the Centennial Generation, protagonists of the assaults on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks in Bayamo, Díaz Canel described the event as an extraordinary event.
Led by Fidel, those young people -he said- “turned prison into victory, into ideological and historical training, because their convictions were strengthened in a space of camaraderie, study, analysis of Martí's works, even Marxism-Leninism.
Here -he recalled-, they developed ideas, actions and strategies; that is why this was a fruitful prison. “Here they wanted to kill ideas and, on the contrary, it became a light of ideas, hence all the symbolism of the event we are commemorating.”
“Here,” he added, “there is a lot of teaching. Therefore, here there is a legacy of unity and stoicism, here unity, independence and values were defended, and they did it with dignity and firmness of principles. That is the legacy that we can interpret from this event”.
Today our first task is ideological, to maintain unity; and for that we need to know history, added First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party in his speech, in which he insisted to the young people on the current priorities, such as the economic battle and the fight against negative attitudes, to continue contributing to the process of socialist construction.
