Category Archives: Fidel Castro Ruz

Fidel Castro Ruz

Tribute to Fidel in Santiago de Cuba, seven years after his burial

Reverence of a Hero City to a Heroic Legacy

Multitudinous tribute to Fidel in Santiago de Cuba, seven years after his burial

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

december 5, 2023 14:12:20

Fidel lives in the work of a people that resists, creates and overcomes. Photo: Dunia Álvarez Palacios

Santiago de Cuba – More than 100,000 people from Santiago de Cuba made a tightly packed pilgrimage yesterday to pay homage to the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, on the seventh anniversary of the burial of his ashes in the patrimonial cemetery of Santa Ifigenia.

From the Plaza de la Revolución Mayor General Antonio Maceo Grajales, passing through Patria Avenue, the united march arrived at the cemetery where, early in the morning, a wreath had been placed in the name of the Cuban people, before the monolith that treasures Fidel’s ashes.

Present were the member of the Central Committee and first secretary of the Party in the province, José Ramón Monteagudo Ruiz, other political and government leaders, as well as Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov, advisor of the Honorary Chair for the study of the work and thought of Fidel Castro, of the University of Oriente, and grandson of the historical leader.

On the premises of the Altar of the Homeland, the people of Santiago expressed their feelings of gratitude and tribute to the best disciple of José Martí. Castro Smirnov wrote to Granma that “today we come with the immense joy of bringing Fidel in our thoughts. It is moving to receive his closeness and strength, which he always gave us and will continue to give us”.

Fidel Castro Ruz

Fidel Belongs to Mankind

Fidel Belongs to Mankind

“A Peronist agitator of Cuban origin”. This is how the CIA described Fidel, according to journalist Rogelio García Lupo (from Prensa Latina) in his book Últimas noticias de Fidel Castro y el Che (2007).

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

august 17, 2023 10:08:28

“A Peronist agitator of Cuban origin”. This is how the CIA described Fidel, according to journalist Rogelio García Lupo (from Prensa Latina) in his book Últimas noticias de Fidel Castro y el Che (2007).
A young Fidel, 21 years old, went to Bogota as a representative of the University Student Federation of Cuba to the counter-summit that was the Pan American Conference, a tool of the Empire, which from that year on would be replaced by the OAS. On that April 9, Fidel expected to meet with the leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, but he was assassinated at noon. The Bogotazo took place, and although Fidel was not Colombian, he was there, at the side of the people.
According to García Lupo, Fidel “saved his life in a Cadillac protected by an Argentine flag stretched over the roof and with the diplomatic plates clearly visible”. Hence the hasty and fallacious conclusion of the Yankee spies. He was not Argentine, but that CIA document shows the Latin American patriot character of the man who, ten years later, would lead the necessary war.
In 1947, Fidel had been involved in the failed Expedition of Cayo Confites, integrated by Cubans and Dominicans, and whose objective was to free the Dominican Republic from the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. He was not Dominican, but at the age of 20 he had already made his internationalism clear.
Then came the Moncada barracks attack, the imprisonment and a stay in Mexico, to gain momentum and return to the struggle. There, in June 1955, he would meet Ernesto Guevara, an Argentine doctor introduced to him by Raul at Maria Antonia’s home, a Cuban exiled in Mexico City.
With the help of El Cuate, they would get the Granma yacht and the necessary weapons, and another Mexican named Arsacio Vanegas would train them. Fidel was not Mexican, but while eating tortillas he made that sentence: “If I go out, I arrive. If I arrive, I enter. If I enter, I triumph”. The conviction of reason… and of the human spirit.
He was not Puerto Rican either, but he was very clear that Cuba and Puerto Rico are the two wings of a bird. On one occasion he clarified: “Cuba’s solidarity with Puerto Rico comes from history, from Martí and from our internationalist principles”.
Fidel was not Nicaraguan, but without his help, who knows if the Sandinista revolution would have happened. In 1961 Carlos Fonseca, Germán Pomares and Tomás Borge traveled to Havana, and in Cuba the seed was sown that two years later germinated as the FSLN. But on one occasion, Fidel warned them: “You have to make your own revolution, you cannot imitate ours”. And so it was.
He was neither Soviet, nor Vietnamese, nor Yugoslavian, nor Chinese, but he always understood which side to be on in times of Cold War, against the Empire. And that strategic clarity is one of his most lucid legacies for us in these times of geopolitical reconfiguration.
Fidel was not African, but he became a symbol of post-colonialism, because the wave of decolonization in Africa matched exactly with the definitive independence of Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans went to Africa to help in that post-colonial period and the most decisive action, undoubtedly, was in Angola. The battle of Cuito Cuanavale liberated three countries, because it put an end to the reaction in Angola and initiated the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, which in turn determined the independence of Namibia.
He was from nowhere else but Biran… and Santiago, and Havana, and Pinar del Rio, and every corner of Cuba. But Fidel was and is also from humanity.

Fidel Castro Ruz, Fidel Castro's Birthday

La utopía hecha realidad

La utopía hecha realidad (+ Video)

http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2021-08-11/la-utopia-hecha-realidad-11-08-2021-22-08-27

Fidel Castro no fue solo un renovador permanente de los métodos de lucha revolucionaria, fue, igualmente, un soñador que tuvo la suerte de ver realizadas las más hermosas utopías

Autor: Amador Hernández Hernández | internet@granma.cu
11 de agosto de 2021 22:08:27


Foto: Ilustrativa
Fidel Castro no fue solo un renovador permanente de los métodos de lucha revolucionaria, fue, igualmente, un soñador que tuvo la suerte de ver realizadas las más hermosas utopías.

Bien se sabe que su carácter inquieto y rebelde desde la niñez misma contribuyó a su rápida madurez política. Apenas con 21 años, como presidente del Comité Pro Democracia Dominicana de la feu, impulsó acciones para demandar la destitución del dictador dominicano Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, y formó parte de un proyecto militar para derrocar al sátrapa militar.

Un año después, enviado a Colombia como delegado de la feu a la IX Conferencia Interamericana –citado para encontrarse con el candidato a presidente Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, la misma tarde en que este fue asesinado, en la revuelta conocida como El Bogotazo–, se unió a la protesta del pueblo colombiano y solicitó armas para repeler la asonada militar.

La muerte del líder ortodoxo Eduardo Chibás y la traición de la soldadesca cubana al apoyar el golpe de Estado del 10 de marzo de 1952, liderado por Fulgencio Batista, constituyeron el empujón definitivo para que el joven abogado concentrara todos sus esfuerzos en una lucha sin cuartel por la definitiva y necesaria independencia de Cuba.

Retomaría el ideario del Apóstol para convocar a una generación de jóvenes dispuestos a sacrificarlo todo por hacer realidad los sueños de José Martí. A Cuba le nacía un líder auténtico, sagaz y batallador, con esa luz necesaria para guiar grandes acontecimientos.

Los sucesos del 26 de julio de 1953 no rindieron los frutos militares anhelados en su momento, pero despertaron a un pueblo forjado en las más hermosas tradiciones heroicas, que hizo suyo el Programa del Moncada, y se aferró a la utopía que le regresó la esperanza y las motivaciones para luchar y defender la revolución próxima, porque Fidel Castro sí tenía las agallas y la inteligencia para hacerla realidad.

En su alegato de defensa, Fidel había llevado a su pueblo al futuro y le había mostrado un país donde los campesinos eran dueños de la tierra que trabajaban, les reveló una patria llena de escuelas, de hospitales, de médicos, de fábricas donde los trabajadores se ganaban el pan honradamente; un pueblo de gente laboriosa, alegre y solidaria; un país donde el culto a la dignidad plena del hombre era la ley primera de su Constitución.

Y lo que parecía una nueva utopía de héroes románticos se fue configurando desde la prisión fecunda, desde el exilio productivo, desde aquel 25 de noviembre de 1956, cuando toda la utopía, vestida de verde olivo, vino montada en un yate de libertad, y salvó el proyecto Seremos libres o mártires, a pesar de la sorpresa de Alegría de Pío, de las largas marchas de los sobrevivientes por la manigua tupida, para levantar la utopía sobre el pico Turquino y bajarla triunfante, con la estrella que ilumina y mata como estandarte martiano de victoria, el 1ro. de enero de 1959. Ese fue el sueño que el joven abogado había adelantado en su alegato del Moncada.

Cuando a un país le nace un líder como Fidel, la utopía está condenada, sin remedios, a revestirse de realidades, y para asegurarlo aquí está Cuba con el mismo ensueño de que un mundo mejor es posible, y somos nosotros, los pobres y dignos, los responsables de hacerlo rea­lidad.

Fidel Castro Ruz

Fidel Castro: another battle, another victory

Fidel: another battle, another victory
On the 94 anniversary of his birth, Fidel’s contribution to science and life is as relevant today as ever, and will be into the future

Author: Elson Concepción Pérez | internet@granma.cu
august 13, 2020 11:08:17

Photo: Archivo de Granma
He taught us to wage battles and emerge victorious. Ever the great strategist, he foresaw all the variables that could appear. He prepared the forces, conceived possible scenarios, studied the enemy and was always present on the front lines with his troops.

Today, his ashes resting within a boulder extracted from the bedrock of the Sierra Maestra, he would be contemplating what has been done, what remains to be done, the imperfections and the victory. He would know – he warned us –

of existent and possible behaviors by persons who, amidst a new battle, could take advantage of any lack of vigilance to steal, misappropriate resources, and illicitly re-sell essential products, regardless of the titanic effort undertaken to make what we have available to all – be it a great deal or just a little, honestly obtained.

This is the context in which our people and leadership have unleashed the current battle to control the coronavirus pandemic and make the greater challenge – recovery of the national economy – a goal that is achievable if everyone works in a unified manner, making his or her own individual contribution to the colossal task.

In the struggle against COVID-19, Fidel is ever-present. His advice, warnings, strategies, and also his conception of a war of the entire people is very much present in the current situation. The offensive underway today is being conducted by the entire people, with Fidel’s leadership.

In the Moncada program itself, he foresaw the development of the country’s human resources as key to the provision of health care and education. He went further, and in the first months following the triumph of the Revolution, organized a medical brigade to send to Algeria to support a sister people in need.

Fidel studied law at the University of Havana, but when he participated in designing the new health programs to be implemented, he gave the impression of an experienced doctor.

He conceived Cuba’s public health system and set about building it from the ground up. To offer just two examples – very visible during in the COVID-19 battle – he developed the idea of the family doctor and nurse closely tied to the community, and was convinced that science must play a role in the nation’s everyday life, leading the establishment of research and development poles.

This project thus conceived has nothing in common with the modern institutions created in capitalist countries, based on private, for-profit medical systems, producing supplies and medications for those who can pay for them.

The training of human resources to staff health care and educational programs, and the development of new revolutionary curricula to support our medical professionals’ work around the world, was also key to Fidel’s thinking. On more than one occasion, he commented that we could never train too many doctors, that they would always be needed.

Today with tens of thousands of our professionals offering solidarity, health care and humanism in more than 60 countries, expression of gratitude to Fidel and recognition of Cuba appear in the most remote communities, among all segments of the population, in many different languages.

This is a country that sends our best to offer health and save lives, asking nothing in return, regardless of the political affiliation or religious beliefs of patients. They are human beings and deserve the altruistic attention of this great army in white lab coats.

Fidel conceived of the Henry Reeve Contingent, aware of its importance in responding to pandemics and natural disasters. Difficult challenges would come to validate the Comandante’s foresight: earthquakes in Pakistan, Haiti and other countries; Ebola in West Africa; and finally COVID-19, caused by a lethal virus that within a few months’ time has ravaged the planet, taking the lives of half a million human beings.

If many more have not died, if thousands have recovered after being infected, Cuban medicine and solidarity have contributed to this victory, and Fidel can be thanked for this, as well.

Without Cuba making any such request, and amidst a ferocious defamation campaign by the Trump administration and its mercenaries against our internationalist brigades, many people of good will around the world are advocating the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Cuban doctors in the Henry Reeve Contingent.

Individuals and organizations in many different political currents, languages and cultures are insisting that our professionals are more than deserving of this international distinction.

Fidel is also leading this medical brigade and those who have benefitted from Cuban solidarity express gratitude to him, as well.

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed another battle, that Fidel is winning, too. The national articulation of all sectors in the effort, and the capacity of the country to prevent the numbers of deaths seen in other lands, offer testimony to the concrete application of Fidel’s thinking, continued under the leadership of President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel, with the wise guidance of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, who provides certainty and confidence, as well.

This August 13, on the 94th anniversary of the Comandante en Jefe’s birth, with his ashes resting in a monumental boulder in his beloved Santiago, his great battles and victories will continue to be of obligatory reference for a people who, as a matter of principle, have assumed the construction of our own destiny – the destiny he charted for us that we will always defend.