Havana, December 2 (RHC)-- Commemorations were held in Cuba and around the world this Saturday for the 61st anniversary of the landing of the Granma yacht on the beaches of eastern Cuba, and the founding of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

According to the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde, December 2nd is a very important date for the island.  The daily said that the landing of the Granma was an extraordinary event -- with 82 rebels led by Fidel Castro -- beginning the struggle in the Sierra Maestra mountains and ending with the revolutionary victory of 1959.

At the Cuban embassy in Angola, it was recalled that Cuba supported the African country in its struggle for independence.  Colonel Juan Francisco Roque Manso, Havana's military representative in Luanda, spoke at a ceremony in the Angolan capital.

And Venezuelans remembered the date with the laying of a wreath at the Mausoleum of the Liberator Simón Bolívar in Caracas.  The ceremony was presided over by Rogelio Polanco, Cuba's ambassador in the South American nation.