July 26th is a day of celebration for Cubans. On the same date, but in 1953, a group of self-sacrificing young men led by Fidel, fervent in their love of freedom and in the year of the Apostle’s centenary, stormed the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks in Bayamo.

It was that heroic action, exalted by the blood of young martyrs, as the awakening of a people under oppression and a clarion call to the national conscience. That which, after the victory of the First of January 1959, became the genesis of the Revolution, the same one that opened to the people with deep Mambo roots, the paths of social redemption and political virtue, as Martí dreamt of.

The Day of National Rebellion that we commemorate today with great joy has a dual character for the people of Avila. That of remembrance and homage to the memorable deed and that of a date, symbol of the revolutionary strength of the people, based on the socialist ideology and Martí’s precepts.

Every year the date takes on a greater connotation in the province of Ciego de Avila, it is an opportune moment to review what we have done and what we have yet to do.

In the heat of the festivities for the Moncada anniversary and imbued with the spirit of those young combatants, the people of Avila work, among other things, for better results in food production, quality of services and the enlistment of social works for the benefit of the people.

To inherit in each July the rebellious fervour, discipline, sacrifice and the will to work to ensure a better world, based on the peace and freedom to which the martyrs and heroes of the heroic deeds we evoke today aspired, constitutes a commitment to continue the work begun by the youth of the centenary.

The 26th of July 1953 was the forge and the root of the Cuban Revolution. Seventy-one years after that feat, the people of Avila continue the work begun that morning of Santa Ana.

PLEASE SH