Martí, a constant presence lighting the way
Raúl and Díaz-Canel commemorate 124th anniversary of José Martí’s death in battle, sending floral wreaths to his mausoleum in Santa Ifigenia Cemetery

Author: Eduardo Palomares Calderón | palomares@granma.cu
may 20, 2019 08:05:11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: Juvenal Balán
Santiago de Cuba.–As an expression of the constant presence of Cuba’s national hero, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Party Central Committee, and President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez commemorated the 124th anniversary of José Martí’s death in battle, sending floral wreaths to his mausoleum.
These were placed beside the tomb covered with a Cuban flag, in Santiago de Cuba’s Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, May 19, alongside others from the Council of Ministers and the people of Cuba.
The honor guard participating in the special ceremony for the occasion was composed of cadets from the city’s Camilo Cienfuegos Military Academy.
The central remarks during the event were delivered by Odesa Fuentes Medina, vice president of the Provincial Assembly of People’s Power, who said that Martí’s ideas are more necessary than ever, given the complex international context Cuba faces, with increasing hostility from the United States and the reactivation of the Helms-Burton Act’s Title III.
Martí wrote to his good friend Manuel Mercado, May 18, 1895, “I am now, every day, in danger of giving my life for my country, and it is my duty to prevent, through the independence of Cuba, the U.S. from spreading over the West Indies and falling with added weight upon other lands of Our America. All I have done thus far and shall do hereafter is toward this end…. I know the monster, because I have lived in its lair.”