Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, leader of the Revolution, and Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of the Republic, are leading today, in this city, the central act for the 71st anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks.

Members of the Political Bureau, the Central Committee and the highest authorities of the PCC and the Government in the territory are present at the commemoration which is being held in the Plaza de la Revolución Mayor General Serafín Sánchez Valdivia, a place that is dressed in its best clothes and where some five thousand people from the whole island have arrived.

Doctors, workers, scientists, teachers, sportsmen and intellectuals attended the celebration, which was also attended by members of various brigades and groups in solidarity with Cuba, as well as a Vietnamese delegation.

This is the third time that Sancti Spíritus has hosted the headquarters for the Day of National Rebellion, having previously done so in 1986 and 2016.

In the evening of 25 July, an artistic show paid tribute to Fidel and the Moncadista heroic deed; meanwhile, as part of the extensive programme on the occasion, a solidarity meeting was held at the University of Medical Sciences and Diaz-Canel Bermudez himself toured sites of economic and social impact.