«Ever since I received that news, I followed it closely,» Fidel Castro stated. «It was said that some people were throwing stones at the police and there was also talk of some shots. Well, provocations against the police were occurring in various places…» And then he decreed that there should not be a single shot fired, and if there was to be one fatality, he wanted it to be him.

On that day, 5 August 1994, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, alongside the people, confronted an opportunistic protest on Havana’s Malecón. With his bulletproof vest and his moral fortitude, he thus achieved another victory for the Revolution.

Fidel faced the situation because he understood, like no one else, that the authority of a true revolutionary leader is demonstrated in moments of greatest danger, where the fate of the Homeland is decided.

That is why 5 August 1994 was inscribed in collective memory as the Day of Fidelity to the Homeland: a symbol not only of loyalty to the figure of Fidel, but of Cubans’ commitment to their sovereignty, their dignity and the social project they decided to defend.

Today, as every day, imperialism and its president, Trump, try to suffocate us with their tightened sanctions to starve us into submission and provoke a social outburst that would serve them as an excuse for military intervention. But they are mistaken, because the Cuban people — and the Avilanian in particular — respond with firmness to these exceptional situations.

Today, when the voices of the unsettled and brutal North once again beat war drums, the words of the Commander-in-Chief resonate more powerfully than ever: «Every year we shall have the duty to remember the great victory of 5 August 1994, in which the people crushed counter-revolution without firing a single shot, because this date says much, teaches much and encourages much.»

More than three decades after those events, Fidel’s legacy endures as a permanent lesson; therefore, we will not allow the opportunistic manipulation of our reality to fracture the unity of Cubans and their love for the Revolution. We will never fail Fidel, least of all in the year of his Centenary.