Havana – Cuba celebrated on Sunday the 47th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s triumphant entry into this capital after toppling dictator Fulgencio Batista.
The event was commemorated with a political and cultural ceremony attended by hundreds of children and students at the Ciudad Libertad school, which used to be the Columbia military barracks, the island’s largest base prior to Castro’s revolutionary triumph on Jan. 1, 1959.
The so-called “Caravan of Freedom,” made up of several columns of guerrilla fighters, departed from Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city some 870 kilometers (540 miles) east-southeast of Havana, and arrived in the capital on Jan. 8, 1959.
After his arrival in the capital, Castro headed for the Columbia barracks where he addressed the public as he had on various occasions during his struggle against the Batista regime.
Sunday’s ceremony, which the now 79-year-old Castro did not attend, was presided over by Education Minister Luis Ignacio Gomez and Higher Education Minister Fernando Vecino Alegret, as well as by Communist Party Central Committee official Roberto Montesinos and Julio Martinez, the head of the Union of Communist Youth.
In addition, other communist party leaders and officials attended the event, along with civil organization heads and former guerrilla fighters, most of them now quite elderly, who fought the Batista regime.
