What a Tragic 26th of July!

Fifty-seven years ago, on July 26, 1953, something happened in the city of Santiago de Cuba that had an extraordinary and unfortunate significance for the people of Cuba, with subsequent consequences for the rest of the Americas. The Moncada Barracks in that city were attacked by a then young Fidel Castro with a small group of his followers. That date was considered by him as the starting point of the fight against the government of General Fulgencio Batista that was toppled on December 31, 1958.
In spite of the undesirable characteristics of the leader of this attack, Fidel Castro, there were many who placed democratic hopes in his endeavors. Those undesirable characteristics were ratified with each passing day, until the victory of January 1st, 1959.
After the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks where several government troops were killed including those who were in the infirmary of the barracks, Fidel Castro skillfully fled, basically with the tolerance of the Batista government. Later on he surrendered to the authorities with the cooperation of the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Monsignor Enrique Pérez Serantes, who protected him, something that was exceptionally positive for Castro and negative for Cuba. Later on, the Batista government approved a generous general amnesty, and Castro was set free in May 1955, going to Mexico where he continued his conspiracy, now with strong international ramifications, with the help of many known communists and others who not being communists, with unfortunate naiveté, did not realize the Soviet ramifications of this conspiracy.
Fidel Castro landed in the province of Oriente, Cuba, on December 2, 1956 with a group of 81 revolutionaries. This operation was financed by important figures of Cuba’s democratic life that did not have the vision to understand what Castro represented as a serious threat for the Cuban republic. An honoring exception that must be cited was Dr. Manuel Antonio de Varona, former Prime Minister and former President of the Senate, who opposed the help others had given to buy the yacht Granma that was used by the revolutionaries.
Afterwards, we have seen 57 years of calvary suffered by the Cuban people beginning on January 1, 1959, when the present tyranny emerged with an excess of cruelty, with executions day and night, with mass imprisonments and plundering of private property. The Republic, as an institution, had disappeared.