Posted by
whoyg on Monday, October 26, 2009 5:56:38 AM
SANTA CLARA.— President Raúl Castro presided over the family and military interment ceremony of combatants who died in the liberation struggle or after the triumph of the Revolution in this city’s Las Villas Front Mausoleum.
The ceremony, which took place in the Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara Memorial Complex, now completed by the Mausoleum, was also attended by Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura, other members of the Councils of State and Ministers, officials from the
leisure chairs Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, Communist Party and government leaders, and the province’s mass and social organizations, as well as a representation of combatants from the Guerrilla Front and the relatives of those who were re-buried in this ceremony.
Wreaths from the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro; Raúl; and the people of Cuba preceded the transfer of the caskets to their respective
freshwater pearl jewelry niches, followed by the funeral ceremony, accompanied by the notes of the national anthem and a 21-gun salute.
Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, second in command of the Ciro Redondo Column 8, then lit the eternal flame, accompanied by Raúl and Faure Chomón, maximum leader of the 13th of March Revolutionary Directorate.
Julio Lima Corzo, first secretary of the Party in Villa Clara, read out the list of the 37 Ciro Redondo Column 8 combatants, the 20 members of the 13th of March Revolutionary Directorate, and the 12 from the 26th of July Movement whose remains were laid to rest in this sacred place. During the reading, he listed the ranks attained by the combatants during the revolutionary struggle and those who, after the triumph of the Revolution, continued within the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.
Finally Carlos Puebla’s song to Che Guevara, Hasta siempre Comandante, was played to recall his presence in Santa Clara, which intensified in
pearl earrings 1997 with the arrival of the remains of what Fidel called the ‘Destacamento de Refuerzo’ (Reinforcement Detachment), now joined by these 69 members of the Las Villas Front.
At the end of the ceremony, President Raúl Castro, accompanied by members of the Political Bureau and other leaders of the Revolution, greeted the heroes’ family members.