Cuba remembers today the victory over the mercenary invasion of Playa Girón, on April 19, 1961.
With that victory, the island demonstrated its willingness to defend with arms the revolutionary process that began on January 1, 1959.
After tough fighting after the landing three days before of some 1,500 mercenaries in that area of the Zapata Swamp, in the western province of Matanzas, the forces of the Rebel Army, the National Revolutionary Police, and the popular militias defeated the invaders.
The aggression, 63 years ago, was organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and had the air and naval support of the US Army, whose government sought, since then, to reverse the process of social transformations in Cuba.
For Fidel Castro, the historical importance of April 19, 1961 transcended the country’s limits because that day, Yankee imperialism received its first great defeat in the America.
