During the gala, and on behalf of the 16 personalities and seven institutions honoured across the country, the intellectual Santiago Feliú Miranda emphasised the commitment of creators and combatants to the work of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and the centenary generation.

As has been tradition since 1986, on 16 April each year, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) awards a replica of the mambí machete of Generalissimo Máximo Gómez to a group of writers, artists, journalists and cultural and information institutions whose work has stood out for defending the most genuine patriotic, revolutionary and internationalist values of the Cuban people.

The ceremony, held at Morro Cabaña, was presided over by Politburo member and First Deputy Minister of the FAR, Chief of the General Staff, Army Corps General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo; Rolando Yero Travieso, head of the Party Central Committee’s Department of Social Sector Care; Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh; Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso Grau; and Minister of Higher Education Walter Baluja García.

During the gala, and on behalf of the 16 personalities and seven institutions honoured across the country, the intellectual Santiago Feliú Miranda emphasised the commitment of creators and combatants to the work of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and the centenary generation.

«In this difficult stage we are living through, where among the ungrateful, weaknesses emerge, values are lost and even the sense of direction is lost, the visionary legacy of Fidel, right in his centenary year, is more present and victorious than ever, reflected in the resistance of our heroic people,» he expressed.

For her part, Miriam Nicado García, Rector of the University of Havana, stated that for the Alma Mater to receive Máximo Gómez’s machete is a great honour, «and in some way, it is related to the history of our country, to its leaders, to all those who have been educated in its classrooms, hence the commitment to our Revolution, at this moment when the homeland needs its sons and daughters.»

With the award of this epic symbol of revolutionary intransigence, the recipients reaffirmed their dedication to preserving the historical legacy and to Martí’s maxim that «the harshness of these times may never cause us to lose the tenderness of our hearts.»

They were also accompanied by chiefs of the FAR and the Ministry of the Interior, leaders of the Party and the Government, as well as a representation of the Military Diplomatic Corps accredited in Cuba.

RECIPIENTS NATIONWIDE:

María Victoria Rodríguez Sosa
Juan Francisco Arias Fernández
William Cabrera Salar
José Luis López Palacios
Santiago Rony Feliú
Hugo Crombet Bravo
Jesús Danilo Hurtado Yanes
Enrique Alemán Gutiérrez
Guillermo José Vilar Álvarez
Leuris Sánchez Echizárraga
Caridad Bermúdez Colao
Bárbara de las Mercedes Betancourt Abreu
Luis Herrera Yanes
Demetrio Villaurrutia Zulueta
Orestes Caballero Alfonso
Geovannys Fernández Nevot

INSTITUTIONS:

University of Medical Sciences of the FAR
José Martí Military Technical Institute
Television programme «La pupila asombrada»
Comandancia de la Plata
University of Havana
Marta Abreu de Las Villas Central University
University of Oriente