Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday extolled the validity of the example of the Cuban-Argentine guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara 55 years after his assassination in La Higuera, Bolivia.
Havana, Cuba.- Díaz-Canel presided over the main event to pay tribute to Che and his fellow guerrillas in the mausoleum that keeps their remains in the city of Santa Clara.
Earlier, on his Twitter account, the head of State wrote, “Today we wake up together with Cuban youths, in Santa Clara, the Cuban city where Che lives. There he is, with his vanguard detachment, to encourage us in the unstoppable march to victory.”
In another tweet, Díaz-Canel quoted the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, who defined Che as “a model of a man who belongs to the future” and we have seen him reappear in every young person who faces daily difficulties as combat, “ever onward to Victory.”
The Cuban president recalled that “55 years ago, under orders from the empire, he was assassinated in a little school in La Higuera. A useless attempt at quelling the rebellion. His assassins only succeeded in infinitely multiplying his mobilizing example.”
The mausoleum that houses the remains of the group of combatants has become a place of worship for admirers of the figure of the legendary guerrilla and has been visited by more than five million people from all over the world.
DÍAZ-CANEL EVOKES CHE GUEVARA’S PHRASE IN HIS TRIBUTE IN CUBA
Santa Clara people, Cubans, "ever onward to victory," Che Guevara's phrase was said by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel at the end of the tribute to Che on the 55th anniversary of his assassination in Bolivia on Saturday.
The Cuban president took the podium and stated the legendary phrase by Commander Ernesto Che Guevara at the conclusion of his farewell letter to Fidel Castro and the Cuban people in 1965 when he left to set up the African guerrilla in the Congo.
The commemorative rally, held at the Ernesto Guevara sculpture complex, which keeps the remains of Che and his internationalist fighters in central Cuba, was also attended by Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes, second in command of Column 8 Ciro Redondo, which invaded central Cuba from the east in 1958 under the command of the Heroic Guerrilla, as Che is popularly known.
Colonel Leonardo Tamayo, the only living survivor of the Bolivian guerrilla in 1967, was also at the ceremony. The main speech at the patriotic-artistic event was made by Aylin Alvarez, first secretary of the Young Communist League (UJC) in Cuba, who called to multiply the example Che and his internationalist thought.
At the conclusion of the event, Prensa Latina spoke with Argentinian journalist Telma Luzzani, who noted that she felt very moved when she contemplated the image of Che in the square and the videos of him that were screened.
“Since I arrived I have not stopped crying, a culturally beautiful and politically powerful show and I think Che deserved it,” she reaffirmed. (PL)
