By Lourdes Pérez y Raisa Pagés —Granma daily—

GENERAL of the Army Raúl Castro, second secretary of the Communist Party and Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, presented a group of direct participants in the events of March 13, 1957 with a stamp recalling the 50th anniversary of the assault on the Presidential Palace, the taking of Radio Reloj and the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Federation of University Students (FEU), in an emotive political and cultural event outside the Museum of the Revolution.

Exactly 50 years after that revolutionary action in which a number of courageous young people and student leader José Antonio Echeverria lost their lives, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, president of the National Assembly of People's Power, affirmed that we can now show those heroic comrades a homeland that is the best tribute to them and a University like the one they dreamed of, extending to all parts of the country. "Today," he noted, "We have a University and a Student Federation that will increasingly be of all the people.

"If the annexationist and pro-Batista mafia try to return Cuba to the times of the dictatorship, they are going to have to confront José Antonio, Fructuoso Rodríguez, Frank País, all the 26th of July combatants and all the people, who will come out of every trench to impose the most shameful defeat on them," Alarcón added.

He emphasized that that generation has multiplied and been reproduced in new generations that will rise to the height of the comrades of yesterday in every University, in every school, but also in five cruel and unjust prisons where five former FEU members: Ramón, Fernando, René, Gerardo and Antonio, are still incarcerated, united and ready to go on fighting, he stated, in reference to the Cuban anti-terrorist fighters imprisoned in the United States.

Carlos Lage Codorniú, national FEU president, affirmed that the Revolution of José Antonio Echeverría and Fidel does not come into play for the Cubans; without it sovereignty, identity and culture are impossible. There are more than enough reasons, historic nutrition and moral fortitude for the flags of Cuban socialism never to fall.

He highlighted the present challenges of the university student movement: to continue strengthening itself, building, consolidating itself in the popular conscience. "Those are our Palaces of today," he added.

Present at the commemoration were members of the Political Bureau, the Central Committee Secretariat, the government, the FEU and student and mass organizations; combatants of the Revolutionary Directorate headed by Commander of the Army Faure Chomón; family members of the combatants who fell in the March 13 actions and of the five Cubans in U.S. jails; and university students in the capital.

The student leader was also remembered by thousands of people from Cárdenas who took part in a pilgrimage from his home – now a museum – to the local cemetery where he was interred.

Among the floral wreaths was one from President Fidel Castro.