17.04.2023, Havanna.
Cuban citizens celebrated the 62nd anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution, Prensa Latina wrote on April 16.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel led the celebrations in the capital. “Today we celebrate the heroic day when Fidel, together with our people, proclaimed the socialist character of the Revolution,” the president said.
Cuban journalists point out that Cuba’s victory over the mercenary invasion of Playa Girón 62 years ago was the first major disaster for the United States on American soil and demonstrated the country’s determination to defend socialism.
On April 17, 1961, some 1,500 men, recruited, trained and financed by the US Central Intelligence Agency, landed in Cienaga de Zapata, one of Cuba’s most isolated regions, as part of Operation Pluto, approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. A day earlier, at the funeral of the victims of the bombing of several Cuban airports, the leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, had proclaimed a course toward a socialist state.
The response to the mercenary invasion was immediate. In 72 hours, the National Revolutionary Militia, together with the forces of the Rebel Army and the National Revolutionary Police, inflicted a humiliating defeat on the invaders. Thus, the enemy’s goal of gaining a “beachhead,” establishing a provisional government (already appointed in the United States) and justifying a direct military intervention by this northern power to overthrow the Cuban government was thwarted.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
