Cuban people recall the memory of the martyrs of March 13

 HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 13 (ACN) Students, combatants and other representatives of the people in Havana paid tribute to the heroes of the assault on the Presidential Palace and the taking of Radio Reloj, which took place on a day like today in 1957.

The ceremony took place in front of the stone plaque that marks the place where Jose Antonio Echeverria Bianchi, honorary president of the Federation of University Students (FEU), martyr of that heroic action, fell in unequal combat, where floral offerings were laid on behalf of the Councils of State and Ministers and of the youth organization.

Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, member of the Secretariat and head of the Department of Attention to the Social Sector of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary of the Party in the province, Aylin Alvarez Garcia, first secretary of the Young Communist League, and Miriam Nicado Garcia, rector of the University of Havana (UH) attended the ceremony.

In the main speech of the event, Ricardo Rodriguez Gonzalez, president of the FEU, highlighted the commitment of the new generations to keep high the banners raised by the revolutionary process in its different stages, which he assured constitutes a heritage of the Cuban people.

He pointed out that the students of today and always will remember Jose Antonio for his courage and energy, for the social horizon of justice that he was able to foresee and for carrying the cause of the student body on his chest to its ultimate consequences.

President of the FEU expressed that the new times have generated new challenges, before which the young university students have historically stood as bastions in defense of the ideals for which their predecessors gave their lives.

On March 13, 1957, a commando of about 50 men, led by Carlos Gutierrez, entered the former Presidential Palace with the aim of executing the dictator Fulgencio Batista, while another group led by Jose Antonio Echeverria broke into the Radio Reloj radio station to inform the people of the event.

Although the assailants reached the third floor of the building, they could not fulfill their purpose because Batista escaped through a secret door and the support group that was to take the surrounding buildings did not reach the place, which forced them to retreat with some losses.

The other group was intercepted by a patrol at the side of the university campus and in the exchange of gunfire the student leader, only 24 years old, was killed.