Cuban News Agency

---

The traditional Torch March was headed by Lazara Mercedes Lopez Acea and
Miguel Díaz-Canel, members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of
the Cuban Communist Party (CC-PCC), as well as by Jose Ramon Balaguer and
Olga Lidia Tapia, members of the Secretariat of the CC-PCC, along with
leaders of the main national student and youth organizations.

In a short speech before the march, the president of the Federation of
University Students (FEU), Carlos Rangel, referred to the first Torch
March, carried out in 1953 by university students to mark the centenary of
Marti’s birth.

He added that January 28 is a glorious day for Cuba because it marks the
birthday anniversary of the most universal of all Cubans and also because
this year it coincides with the beginning of the First National Conference
of the Cuban Communist Party.

“The Cuban youths will never let Fidel (Castro) down, nor will we ever
betray this Revolution or give up our homeland, this free Cuba, that of
Jose Marti, Julio Antonio Mella, Ruben Martinez Villena, Antonio Guiteras,
Jose Antonio Echevarria, Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara, that
of the five Cuban heroes who remain unjustly imprisoned in the United
States,” Rangel said.

At the Fragua Martiana monument, floral wreaths on behalf of the Cuban
people were placed in front of the monument dedicated to the Cuban
National Hero by Balaguer and Liudmila Alamo, First Secretary of the Young
Communist League (UJC).