Diaz-Canel and Raul lay wreaths to Cespedes and Marti in Santiago de Cuba

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, Oct 11 (ACN) Army General Raul Castro and President Miguel Diaz-Canel laid floral tributes to Jose Marti, Cuba's National Hero, on the 156th anniversary of the beginning of the national independence struggle.

In front of the crypt that houses the remains of the most universal Cuban in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in this eastern city, floral arrangements were also placed on behalf of Esteban Lazo, president of the Parliament, and the Cuban people.

Likewise, students of the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School and cadets of the Inter-arms School of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) General Jose Maceo Orden Antonio Maceo, placed an offering on behalf of the Cuban people in front of the funeral monument erected to Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, as a token of the independence legacy started on October 10, 1868.

After the honor guard ceremony, loose flowers were placed at the tomb of Mariana Grajales and at the monolith that keeps the ashes of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro.

The ceremony was attended by Beatriz Johnson, first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba; Manuel Falcon, governor, leaders of the FAR, the Ministry of the Interior, the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, political and mass organizations, intellectuals and the indomitable people.

At La Demajagua Farm, in the current eastern province of Granma, the first president of the Republic in Arms freed his slaves inviting them to join his struggle, an action that initiated the revolutionary period of wars for the independence of Cuba.

The Ten Years' War was the first of the three liberation wars that took place on the Caribbean island in the second half of the 19th century, with the aim of achieving the nation's sovereignty over the Spanish metropolis.