The presence of Eduardo López Leyva, head of the Information and Analysis Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba; Eumelín González Sánchez, governor of the province; and local residents.

It was a ‘toque a degüello’ (a call to fight to the death) that shook the enemy from Baraguá to Mantua, leaving a permanent lesson for all generations, he stated at an event also attended by Jorge Luis Aneiros Alonso, president of the Union of Cuban Historians and director of the Office of Historical Affairs of the Presidency of the Republic.

This experience was taken up in its conception by the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro at the head of the Rebel Army during the strategic counteroffensive, when the columns of Camilo and Che moved to the centre of the island and contributed to the definitive victory on the first of January 1959, he specified.

With Cuban flags and mambí uniforms, a representation of the local inhabitants re-enacted on horseback that 22nd of January 1896, a date which became a hard blow for the Spanish metropolis and forced it to expand its combat front.

Ramos Cordero stated that with the same spirit of the invasion, Cubans face the challenges of the complex scenario the world is experiencing, exacerbated by the imperialist arrogance of the United States.

May the valour of those mambises strengthen us, their unity guide us; and with more force we tell our historic enemy that here, nobody surrenders, he remarked.

For the young Yanislén López Cruz, a resident of Mantua, the new generations have a mambí legacy made of valour and justice upon which the defence of Cuban sovereignty is sustained.

Coming from the eastern region and with the support of General Máximo Gómez, the troops of the Bronze Titan arrived in the province on 8th January and found an organised independence movement; while hundreds of men joined the liberating cause.

Considered the most outstanding military feat of the 19th century in Cuba, the invasion was a decisive link in the weakening of the Spanish government, and armed the entire nation in just 92 days.