IN PHOTOS: Toronto celebrates Moncada Day and stands with Cuba

On July 24, the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association (CCFA) Toronto, the Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network (LACSN), and the Juan Gualberto Gómez Association of Cuban Residents in Toronto organized a celebration for the Cuban National Day of Rebellion at Christie Pits Park in downtown Toronto.

This year marked the 69th anniversary of the heroic assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953. The uprising against the dictatorship was the spark for the eternal flame that is the Cuban Revolution. Appearing in court several months after the attack, Fidel Castro delivered a speech in defence of the rebellion, now immortalized and popularly known as “History Will Absolve Me.” The date of the attack gave its name to the Movimiento 26 de Julio, which overthrew the dictatorship and gave power to the people. Today, the Movimiento 26 de Julio lives on as the Communist Party of Cuba. 

The event in Toronto was well attended, and raised funds to support the ongoing solidarity campaign to send medical supplies from Canada to Cuba in order to assist the Cuban people’s struggle against the genocidal American blockade. Attendees heard speeches from Julio Fonseca on behalf of the Juan Gualberto Gómez Association and the Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC), Elizabeth Hill from the CCFA, and Drew Garvie of the Communist Party of Canada, as well as a keynote address from Jorge Yanier Castellanos Orta, the Consul General of Cuba in Toronto.

The CCFA, LACSN, and the Juan Gualberto Gomez Association hold pickets on the last Sunday of every month at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto to protest the illegal and immoral American blockade of Cuba.

The YCL-LJC is committed to solidarity with the Cuban Revolution as a priority, not only as a member organization of the CNC and of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, but also as a youth organization in the international communist movement with comradely ties to the Cuban Union of Young Communists (UJC). The very name of this publication is a tribute to the UJC’s newspaper “Juventud Rebelde,” named after the “rebel youth” of July 26. It was the youth who rose up against the dictatorship in 1953, with the average age of the heroes of Moncada being 26 years old — the same age as Fidel at the time. As young communists, we take their torch and carry it high, for the fight of the Cuban Revolution is the same as ours: an internationalist struggle against imperialism, for the emancipation of the working masses, for socialism. 

¡Hasta la victoria siempre! ¡Venceremos!