SANTIAGO DE CUBA – At the José Martí Mausoleum in the Santa Ifigenia Heritage Cemetery, residents of Santiago de Cuba of all ages gathered to pay tribute to the National Hero of Cuba on the 173rd anniversary of his birth.
Preceded by a military ceremony and the changing of the guard, and accompanied by the melody of "Single Verses," students from the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School in Santiago de Cuba placed floral offerings sent by the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz; by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez; and one on behalf of the Cuban people.
Flowers were also placed at the funerary monuments to Céspedes, Mariana Grajales, and the Master's most devoted disciple, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, as a tribute to those who continue to be protagonists and inspirations of the Revolution.
According to Javier Borges Nápoles, a young university student, "Martí left us a warning regarding the seven-league giant, which today hurls direct threats at us, (...) therefore, our commitment will always be to defend our independence, achieved and paid for with blood in more than one hundred years of struggle."
The ceremony was led by Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, a member of the Party's Central Committee and its First Secretary in the province, along with other government officials, chiefs and officers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as representatives from political, mass, and social organizations.
As is tradition, at noon, 21 artillery salutes were fired simultaneously at Santa Ifigenia and the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress in Havana, in homage to the most universal of Cubans.
