Cuban youngsters recreate Granma yacht landing

BAYAMO, Cuba, Dec 2 (acn) Young people, followers of Fidel Castro´s ideas, recreated today the glorious landing, led by the Commander in Chief, in Las Coloradas, site in Granma municipality of Niquero where that event happened, exactly 60 years ago today.

With the added excitement of doing it at a peculiar moment in Cuba's history, the 82 protagonists dressed in green uniforms, after the symbolic disembarkation, participate in the traditional political act in the monument Portada de la Libertad, located where Fidel and his 81 companions stepped on solid ground that day of 1956, after walking through the mangrove near the sea.

Gelkis del Toro Pérez, first secretary of the Young Communist League in Granma, told ACN that about five thousand young people are attending the ceremony.

In previous days, they toured sites of great historical value such as the National Monument La Demajagua, where Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, considered Father of the Homeland, freed his slaves and summoned them to fight for Cuba´s independence, on October 10, 1868.

They also visited the Monument to Juan Manuel Marquez, second in command of the expedition of 1956, who was assassinated on December 15 that year by the forces of Fulgencio Batista´s regime.

At the Celia Sánchez Manduley Museum, they learned more about that outstanding heroine, faithful friend of Fidel Castro, and heard anecdotes from the Commander-in-Chief's visit to that facility on December 18, 1986.

The members of Granma yacht expedition left on November 25, 1956, from the Tuxpan port, in Mexico, with the objective to arrive in Cuba, move to Sierra Maestra mountain range and restart the fight for Cuba´s independence.

Today will be a special day for the people of Granma province, because the funeral procession will arrive in this eastern territory with the ashes of the Commander-in-Chief, will rest until tomorrow at Ñico López museum, in Bayamo, before continuing to Santiago de Cuba.