Author: Elio Delgado Legon

Barack Obama has become the first US president to have shown a degree of concern over the present and future effects of climate change and has advanced a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The experiences I am publishing as diary entries aim to show, in broad strokes, what the life of a revolutionary was like during Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship (from 1953 to 1958) and the first years of the revolution.

Our column stayed in Mina Carlota in the Escambray Mountains for 10 days. Soon after arriving at this camp, Major Anastasio Cárdenas left with troops to attack the Trinidad barracks. The next day, news arrived of his death in combat and of the operation’s failure.

The Congress ratified the continued relevance of essential principles, such as the defense of socialism, understood as the only socio-economic, political and cultural system capable of successfully confronting the complex challenges that lie ahead of humanity.

Assuming openly counter-revolutionary stances or disguising themselves as left-wingers who claim to want to save the revolution, some people criticize everything in Cuba.

Perhaps not many people would believe me if I said I celebrate two birthdays, having been born twice. My first birthday is June 28, 1937, the date I arrived in this world in a sad, poverty-ridden country…

Painfully, we moved away from Crespi Hill and headed towards the Escambray mountain range. We walked all afternoon, without taking a break, and, as night fell, completely exhausted, we stopped for a while to regain our strength…

After parting with the members of the guerrilla who chose to stay behind, unwilling to make the trip towards the Escambray mountain range, and sending two men who had wounded themselves accidentally to see different doctors, we left the La Margarita ranch at night…

After the ambush by the Ciego river, still under a heavy fire that ripped the bark off trees, we split up into three groups to break through the enemy fence. The time was late 1958 in the province of Las Villas.

For over six months, a brigade of 256 health professionals, belonging to the Henry Reeve internationalist work team, combatted the deadly virus in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, putting their own lives at risk.