Photo: Radio Habana Cuba
Havana, Apr 16 (RHC) Cuba reached today the 62nd anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of its Revolution, which sealed the ideological course of the process of transformations that the country has been promoting since January 1, 1959.
Such announcement by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, took place at the downtown corner of 23rd and 12th, in front of the Colón Cemetery, during the burial of the victims of the bombing of several airports on the island, before the mercenary aggression for Playa Girón (1961), orchestrated by the United States.
The day before the declaration, eight US B-26 bombers camouflaged with Cuban air force insignia departed from Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, and simultaneously attacked the airfields of San Antonio de los Baños and Ciudad Libertad, in the then province of Havana, and Santiago de Cuba.
The actions, executed without prior declaration of war, set in motion Operation Pluto, orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The aggression intended to sow terror and confusion, to neutralize the country's scarce air defense capabilities to facilitate the subsequent landing of mercenary troops, and to present the event, through a media campaign, as a fracture in the revolutionary ranks.
Photo: Radio Habana Cuba
The attacks were met with anti-aircraft fire by the Rebel Army and the National Revolutionary Militias but caused the death of seven people and fifty were wounded, among them the militiaman Eduardo García Delgado, who wrote Fidel's name with his blood before perishing.
At the funeral honors of his murdered compatriots, Fidel Castro announced to the world the socialist course of the Cuban process, amid a crowd that supported, with their rifles raised, the decision to defend the "Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble".
That is what they cannot forgive us, that we made a Socialist Revolution under the very noses of the United States, and we defend that socialist Revolution…," said the rebel leader.
In the early morning of April 17, the mercenary landing began at Playa Giron (also known as Bay of Pigs), in the Zapata Peninsula, in the western province of Matanzas.
The attempt to gain a "beachhead" to present a supposed provisional government, already appointed in the United States, that would demand the intervention of the American troops, failed thanks to the fulminating victory of the revolutionary forces. In only 66 hours the invaders surrendered.
To pay tribute to all those who fought for the revolutionary cause, every April 16 is also commemorated the Day of the Militiaman (Source: Prensa Latina).
