CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

The Eternal Olive-Green Caravan.
By HÉCTOR ARTURO
Dawn was breaking that Thursday, January 8, 1959. For a week, Havana, like the whole of Cuba, had been witnessing the coming and going of bearded men with long hair dressed in olive green, carrying their rifles and wearing caps or hats and armbands. Thousands of Cuban flags were flying in squares, parks, balconies and vehicles, as well as in the hands of men, women, youngsters, children and elderly people –black and white people and people of mixed race.

Al last, the country was free, after almost 400 years of foreign dominion and Creole rulers that had learned the word "yes" by heart.

From indomitable Santiago de Cuba to the capital, millions of Cubans cheered the victorious Rebel Army and chanted the name Fidel, which already meant combat and victory.

Later, at the largest military fortress in the country, the former Columbia barracks, Fidel spoke to the people, his people. One of the white doves -the universal symbol of peace- alights and rests on his shoulder, on which the star of Commander in Chief shines. He asks legendary Camilo Cienfuegos if he’s doing all right, and amid the enormous joy of the multitude for the liberty achieved, says a prophetic phrase: "we shouldn’t think that from now on everything will be easier, from now on, everything will be more difficult."

He knew that the powerful enemy of everything and everybody was opposite the island, the criminal bombs of which had already been dropped, in 1957, on the humble house of mountain farmer Mario, when the current term "collateral damage" was still unknown.

Immediately, the US plans to overthrow the triumphant Revolution became more intense, which over the last five decades have included the entire gamut of the possible and the impossible, with no other result but one defeat after another.

Thus, amid constant and real danger, Cubans celebrate this January 8 the 52nd anniversary of the entry of the Caravan of Victory into Havana, with the same unity and confidence in the future of this same day in 1959, analyzing and debating the Draft Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution, which will be definitively be approved by the 6th Congress of the Communist Party, which, in President Raúl Castro’s words, has already begun with the current debates at workplaces, showing the world once more that Cuban democracy is palpable.

Cubans have made thousands of dreams come true and they dream even about many more things, better things with all and for the good of all, provided that we pull together and manage to make -as we’ve done so far- our socialism, defended weapons in hand by the people in April, 1961, a few hours after being proclaimed, be eternally irrevocable and irreversible, because that’s what the majority of this people wants, a people that, in the words of the poet, is willing to give everything for its freedom. (Cubaminrex-Granma)

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