Cuba recalls landing of Marti and Gomez at Playita de Cajobabo

 

GUANTANAMO, Cuba, Apr 11 (ACN) The landing of Jose Marti and Generalissimo Maximo Gomez at Playita de Cajobabo, Imias, on April 11, 1895, will be remembered today in a political-cultural act for the 128th anniversary of that event in Cuban history, the most important anniversary of the province of Guantanamo(easternmost province).

A representation of the people of Imias will go to the monument erected on that protruding point of the coast where, in addition to the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and the General in Chief of the Liberation Army, Brigadiers Francisco Borrero and Angel Guerra, Colonel Marcos del Rosario and Captain Cesar Salas arrived to join the Necessary War for the national independence.

Outstanding young people from the municipality, once part of the former region of Baracoa, will reenact that historic landing, which took place on a stormy night during which the expeditionaries faced the rough sea, under a torrential downpour and lost the rudder.

A ceremony will also be held in this sacred place of the homeland to present the Party and the Young Communist League membership card to a group of new militants.

On the occasion of the date, there will also be a visit to the April 11 museum, located in the house that the Historical Leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro ordered to be built for Salustiano Leyva Leyva, the last witness of the landing, who died at the age of 97 and was co-star of the documentary My Brother Fidel, filmed by filmmaker Santiago Alvarez, in the 70s.

After their hazardous landfall, the expeditionaries, harassed by Spanish forces, made a risky pilgrimage through areas belonging to the present-day municipalities of Imias, San Antonio del Sur, Manuel Tames, Guantanamo and Niceto Perez, where they set up 17 camps, before joining the Santiago region.

Four days after his arrival, Jose Marti received the rank of Major General of the Liberation Army, in the Council of Chiefs held in the place known as Rancho de Tavera, an intricate spot of the Sagua-Baracoa mountainous group.

With the landing at Playita de Cajobabo, the presence in Cuba of the three main leaders of the Necessary War was completed: Jose Marti, Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo.