«Máximo Gómez was the maximum expression of internationalism in the 19th century; (…) a prophet of great wisdom and scope in his thinking,” said the head of the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), Major General Víctor Rojo Ramos, at the political event and military ceremony for the 119th anniversary. of the death of the Generalissimo.
The Mausoleum in charge of guarding the mortal remains of the hero of the wars of independence of the Greater Antilles, located in the Colón Cemetery, in Havana, received, on Monday morning, a floral offering in the name of the people of Cuba, as a tribute “with sacred respect and deep admiration”, a feeling captured in Rojo Ramos’s intervention.
The martiality of a march in review by the Ceremonies Unit completed the activity chaired by the vice minister of the FAR and chief of its General Staff, Army Corps General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo; as well as leaders of the capital’s Party and heads of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
“Without Máximo Gómez it is not possible to speak or write about the history of Cuba,” stated the Head of the Political Directorate, and reviewed several passages in Gómez’s life, since his arrival on this Island, in 1865, as commander of the provincial reserves of the Dominican Republic.
Among the most important events, he recalled the leading role in actions of the Ten Years’ War, such as the first machete charge in Pinos de Baire. Likewise, several campaigns conducted in the Necessary War constitute “classic works of military art in the last half of the 19th century”, such as the Circular Campaign, the Shuttle and the Strategic Countermarch.
Rojo Ramos emphasized the need to return to Gómez from the present, and underlined his humility, glimpsed when he expressed: “My degrees, my political significance, truncated in solemn moments of history, my glories cut off and all that is worth nothing, it is ephemeral, but no one can ever deny me that I was a loyal soldier of the freedoms of Cuba.
