We Cubans commemorate every July 30, the Day of the Martyrs of the Revolution, a date chosen to pay tribute to the fallen in the struggle for liberation that began on October 10, 1868. The customs officers met today to commemorate such a remarkable date with the participation of vice-heads of the institution, cadres, leaders of the Party and the UJC and workers.
The decision was adopted on July 26, 1959, by the Council of Ministers, in Santiago de Cuba.
In the first commemoration of the anniversary, held four days later at the Institute of Education of the then capital of Oriente province, Fidel said that that date was chosen, “because it has been this month and it has been especially this day a symbol of the sacrifices our people made to win their freedom.
Among them Frank País García, assassinated on July 30, 1957 by Batista's regime forces. The young man from Santiago, who put all his intelligence and courage to the test as coordinator of the July 26 Movement in Oriente province
The news of his death caused a great commotion throughout Cuba. His burial was a true expression of popular mourning. His coffin was covered by the Cuban Flag and the one of July 26.
An impressive and massive manifestation of deep pain and repudiation of the Batista regime accompanied him to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery. His death provoked a broad movement of civic protest and a spontaneous general strike paralyzed the entire city of Santiago.
Exactly one year, Commander René Ramos Latour falls in combat, the 26-year-old young man who, since Frank's fall, assumed responsibility for Frank as Chief of Action and Sabotage of the July 26 Movement. His loss occurred in the middle of the Sierra Maestra, when he prevented an enemy battalion from retreating. To make the date more sad, on July 30, 1967, José María Martínez Tamayo, a prominent and audacious member of the Bolivian guerrilla commanded by Commander Ernesto Che Guevara, died fighting.
Also on this date but in 1896, in an unequal combat in the jungle, Juan Bruno Zayas dies, who was part of the Invasion of the West and together with Maceo and Gómez participated in more than 37 combats.
Every July 30, Day of the Martyrs of the Cuban Revolution, the Homeland gratefully remembers and pays tribute to the men and women who offered their lives and do so with the eternal commitment to defend the freedom that cost so much blood to the Cuban people.
In them the verses of José Martí come true: "When one dies in the arms of the grateful Homeland, death ends, the prison is broken, life begins at last with dying."
