63rd Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Socialist Character of the Cuban Revolution.
The prelude to the attack on Playa Giron and Playa Larga were the air raids in the early morning of April 15, 1961 when eight A-26 propeller planes, with the Cuban flag on the fuselage, bombed the military airports of Ciudad Libertad, San Antonio de los Baños and the Antonio Maceo airfield in Santiago de Cuba. They were U.S. planes and it was the beginning of a military operation with the objective of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution. The bombings had very little success, since the Cuban military air fleet remained practically intact, although it took the lives of seven young Cubans. On the morning of that same April 15, the Cuban ambassador to the UN, Raul Roa, formally accused the United States of sponsoring an invasion against Cuba and although he was denied by the US ambassador to the UN who rejected Roa's statements, the lie was discovered the same day when the photo of the landing in Key West of a plane that participated in the bombing was shown, and it was discovered that it was a plane of the US military air force and not of the Cuban air force.
On April 16, 1961, Fidel proclaimed the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution in a multitudinous act carried out in Havana at the gates of the cemetery of the Necropolis of Colon, during the burial of the victims of the bombing of the previous day. Before a people who raised rifles, Fidel said: "What the imperialists cannot forgive us is that we are here, what the imperialists cannot forgive us is the dignity, the integrity, the courage, the ideological firmness, the spirit of sacrifice and the revolutionary spirit of the Cuban people". "That is what they cannot forgive us, that we are there under their noses and that we have carried out a socialist Revolution under the very noses of the United States! .... And that we defend that socialist Revolution with those rifles... and that we defend that socialist Revolution with the courage with which yesterday our anti-aircraft gunners riddled the aggressor planes with bullets! ...And that Revolution, that Revolution, that Revolution, that Revolution we do not defend with mercenaries; that Revolution we defend with the men and women of the people..."...Comrade workers and peasants, this is the socialist and democratic Revolution of the humble, with the humble and for the humble. And for this Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble, we are ready to give our lives..., we will not hesitate, against whoever they may be, and to defend it we are ready to give even our last drop of blood..."
He announced his certainty that the bombings of April 15 were most certainly the prelude to a greater aggression and invasion, already imminent. He was right, as so often, for the following day an armed mercenary force, instructed and paid by the White House, began the invasion of Playa Giron and Playa Larga.