Chávez to pay honors to José Martí in Santiago de Cuba

The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, will visit Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, to pay honors the top Cuban pro-independence leader, José Martí, after participating at the IV Petrocaribe Summit, which will be carried out at Cienfuegos.

The information was made known by the Ambassador of Venezuela to Cuba, Alí Rodríguez Araque. It is expected as well that Chávez will visit the Moncada Barracks, which was a military building at the 50s and the assault on it, led by Fidel Castro, marked the start of the Cuban Revolution, which would succeed on January, 1959.

José Martí was born in La Havana on January 28, 1853. He was a poet, thinker, politic activist, and at the end of his days, he was a pro-independence fighter. He is considered the father of the Cuban motherland and, because his actions and his writings, he is also considered an ideological leader of Cuba. Martí dies fighting at Dos Ríos on May 19, 1895. His remains, after several problems, were carried to Santiago de Cuba and placed at a pantheon – specially designed for this purpose- on June 30, 1951. The remains of Cuban patriots like Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Frank País also rest in Santiago. Céspedes (1818-1874) was a lawyer who started the anti-colonial fight. In the middle of the war against Spain, in 1869, he was appointed as the President of the Republic on Arms.

He is reminded by his strength when one of his sons is captured by the Spaniards in 1870 and then he was executed by a firing squad, because Céspedes refused to surrender. Hs strong revolutionary personality was a landmark among land-owners, who gave him the nickname of the Father of the Homeland. Frank País (1934-1957) was a student leader who fought against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He was part of the July 26 Movement led by Fidel Castro. The police killed him at the streets of Santiago de Cuba on July 30, 1957. He was only 22 years old. The killing triggered a wave of protests nationwide and constituted a decisive event to boost the Cuban Revolution.

By other hand, the action known as the assault to the Moncada’s Barracks was the first armed insurrection of Fidel Castro. It took place in 1953, even if its military objective failed and dozens of Cubans were killed in cold blood under the orders of Batista’s dictatorship, it shocked Cuba and sew the revolutionary ideas, which was necessary to keep the armed fight started in 1868 by Cubans against the Spaniard colonialism. After Cuban revolution’s victory, Moncada was transformed into a school city and it was renamed “School City July 26”.