Just meters away from the obelisk that marks the site of the Apostle's fall in combat, the meeting between the Party leadership and a hundred young people took place in a “sacred place for all that it entails”, affirmed the first secretary of the National Committee of the Young Communist League, Meyvis Estévez Echevarría.
The young leader introduced the prestigious historian Eduardo Torres-Cuevas, director of the Martiano Program Office:
“I think today is a very happy day,” he enunciated.” That is to say, that really Martí's passion is here, among all of us; and it has been manifested to the extent that we are getting closer to him and we are understanding him more and more.
“Martí is much more than everything we sometimes think he is”, and he emphasized Marti's idea: ‘Homeland is humanity, it is the part of humanity in which we are born and to which we are most obliged’.
The concept of Homeland, in Martí, is reiterated in numerous writings, commented the expert, who also brought up the concept according to which it is something that merges and is indivisible. “The Cuban is above all a new quality, and that new quality is here, and it will always continue to grow, changing, developing; and then, when we talk about the Homeland, we must take it as it is in its original concept, which means mother earth”.
A very special moment was the narration of the historian of the sacred site, Antonio Espinosa Martínez.
“I have had the opportunity to meditate on the pain, on the traumatic” of that May 19, he said.
On the day of the Apostle's fall “there was a lot of pain in the Mambí camp, practically nobody ate food, they didn't even have the opportunity to have José Martí's corpse, because it had been left in the hands of the Spaniards, who were the ones who buried him in a common grave in the Vuelta Grande cemetery”. And he recalled that, as General Máximo Gómez said, “the most important man for Cuba at that time was lost that day”.
Moving were the words of Lil María Pichs Hernández, deputy director of the Office of the Martí Program, who -recalling on the Apostle's gaze- recalled that there is a sense of life in the homage of May 19; and that, as the National Hero once said, the best tree is the one that has a dead man underneath it. He added that “Martí is nature”.
It is very important to touch the heart, it is very important to touch the heart of human beings, especially if it is about convoking and moving with a cause. This conceptual axis was shared by Tin Cremata, who was there, with La Colmenita.
The director of the Center for Martí Studies, Marlene Vázquez Pérez, spoke of optimism reinforced by everything she had seen and warned that “in the midst of the symbolic war, if they want to take something away from us it is Martí; and we are not going to allow them to falsify him, much less to take him away from us”.
ANOTHER DATE WITH HISTORY
“Once again we are in an appointment with history; and this meeting has been so emotional, so patriotic, so full of teachings, that it deserves to be taken to a podcast From the Presidency, so that we can also share it with other young people in Cuba, and with our people.” This is what President Díaz-Canel said.
He recalled a Martí's maxim: “Honor, honor”. And by the way, he reflected: “That is what we are doing here; and that is what we are trying to do every time we have a meeting of this kind: we honor our history, we honor our heroes, we honor our thinkers, we honor our heroes, we honor our martyrs.
“And we are honoring ourselves because we are growing, we are surpassing ourselves, we are learning, we are getting excited, we are getting more committed, and our convictions with the Homeland, with the Revolution, with that history we have, and with socialism are getting stronger.”
The Head of State made reference to a “significant coincidence”: He recalled the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, born on May 19, 135 years ago, and highlighted the common points in humanist thought, between Martí and the Asian fighter.
“When we live in difficult times, I believe that it is necessary to bring Martí, to think about him, to believe in him, to assume him”, stressed the Head of State, who shared this conviction: ‘We need every Cuban citizen, every young Cuban to follow Martí’s ideas; and by turning to Martí we can achieve it; first, because of the patriotism and love for Cuba that he always professed; and secondly, because Martí had a clean life’. The ethics, the morality in the Apostle's life, he affirmed, is enough to inspire.
“On the other hand,” he reasoned, “Martí was always resilient in the face of adversity, and he overcame many adversities; and, as he said in many of his writings, he did it without harboring hatred. He went above hatred.
“Let us bring Martí to the current situation, let you young people become the standard bearers of that movement, because we would be reencountering the thought and action of the political poet who knew his people best, and that was José Martí.”
It was recalled that the first cross that marked the place where Martí fell was made of Caguairán; that is why the first of the one hundred Caguairán trees that will be planted there in salute to the centenary of the best and greatest disciple of the Apostle: Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.
“THERE IS NO ONE WHO WILL SURRENDER US”.
On a day full of symbolism, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez inaugurated, as a sign of the importance given in Cuba to the preservation of history, the Dos Ríos Museum, an annex to the Monument.
The space, located near the obelisk that honors the hero, exhibits historical objects and recreates scenes of Martí's life in the region, highlighting his independence legacy. At the ceremony, Díaz-Canel highlighted the importance of the site as an educational tool to promote patriotic values.
Accompanied by member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party Roberto Morales Ojeda, and by the highest authorities of the province, the inauguration was followed, as has become customary, by an exchange with inhabitants of the community, in which social advances derived from a program of homage to Martí were discussed, such as improvements in access to water, gastronomic services, remodeling of houses affected by the erosion of the river, and medical care. According to Urbano Macías Fajardo, president of the popular council, the actions respond to citizens' demands.
The delegate emphasized that these projects were executed “in times of less cement, fuel and resources”, demonstrating the capacity for collective resilience.
“So the lesson is that there is no one who gives up on us, and that in difficult times we can do things even better than we did at other times,” Díaz-Canel stressed.
The President also visited the Santa Ursula base business unit, key in the production of stallions of high genetic value for livestock.
Its main objective is to improve the genetics of the national livestock by producing high-value bulls for artificial insemination and direct mating, contributing to the efficiency of meat and milk production. Despite its capacity to house 120 bulls, it currently has 54, and is part of a recovery process, reflecting technical and economic limitations extended over time.
“Our commitment is to continue recovering and strengthening this unit, to have good sires and improve the quality of the zebu cattle,” stressed Yunior Milanés Ramírez, director of the UEB.
Leticia Ledea Fernández, director of the Manuel Fajardo Genetics and Breeding Company, emphasized the commitment to behavioral testing projects in other breeds, and the preservation of the livestock mass, despite the drought.
In a context of an intensified blockade and economic tensions, the main message that stood out on the day was Cuba's capacity to promote transforming projects, even in the midst of adversity, as the martyr of Dos Ríos taught us by his example.
