Havana, April 19 (RHC)-- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel highlighted this Sunday the triumph of the people over the invading forces at Playa Girón -- the Bay of Pigs -- on the 59th anniversary of the victory.

On his Twitter account, the president stressed that April 19 is "Our Victory Day" and pointed out that in less than 72 hours, the mercenaries in the service of the United States surrendered to the revolutionary troops.  "That was the first defeat of imperialism in America.  Fidel was at the front and the whole of Cuba was with him," the Cuban president recalled.

In another message, Díaz-Canel alluded to the fact that the victory of Playa Girón -- the Bay of Pigs -- was inspired by the confrontation with the COVID-19 pandemic, which "we will be able to defeat with science, but also with conscience." 

On April 19, 1961, an invasion carefully prepared by the U.S. government was defeated.  The Cuban people, without large weapons and with their war planes decimated by the bombings of April 15, won with courage.

The aggression was part of the Central Intelligence Agency's Operation Pluto, which, with the use of ex-military Batista supporters and other sympathizers of the dictatorship overthrown in January 1959, sought to create conditions for a direct U.S. intervention.

It was the U.S. Army that brought the 2506 mercenary brigade to the southern coast of Cuba, which was very well armed and accompanied by some thirty planes, including 16 B-26 bombers.  The CIA itself recruited and prepared the men, and had also set up a favorable scenario for the intervention, around the Guantanamo Naval Base.  

The overwhelming victory at Playa Giron frustrated those aspirations and showed the support of the Cuban people for the process of transformation initiated on January 1, 1959, which they were willing to defend at the cost of their lives.