On April 16, 1961, while speaking at the mourning farewell ceremony for those who had fallen as a result of an artful attack by planes from abroad on several Cuban military airports, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro proclaimed the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution.
The ceremony takes place very close to the main entrance of the Colón Cemetery, at the intersection of 23rd and 12th Streets, in Vedado, Havana.
Due to its historical transcendence, this site of the Cuban capital was conferred years later the condition of National Monument.
Fidel explained to the people that the crews of the pirate planes had carried out simultaneous attacks against three sites in the national territory, Havana, San Antonio de los Baños and Santiago de Cuba.
An attempt to destroying the Cuban Revolution
He specified that in addition to dropping bombs of high destructive power and rockets, the crews of those planes had fired machine gun shots.
Fidel pointed out that it was an attack similar to those that the vandalistic governments of Nazism and Fascism had carried out against various countries in other stages.
In the emotional speech he delivered on that occasion Fidel also stressed: “Because what the imperialists cannot forgive us is that we are here, what the imperialists cannot forgive us is the dignity, the integrity, the courage, the ideological firmness, the spirit of sacrifice and the revolutionary spirit of the people of Cuba That is what they cannot forgive us, that we are there under their noses and that we have made a socialist Revolution under the very noses of the United States!”
