Friends of Cuba in Vietnam celebrated in Hanoi the 61st anniversary of the Bay of Pigs victory in a ceremony where several books on the realities and friendship between the two countries were also presented.
Vo Hai Ha, president of the Vietnam-Cuba Friendship Association (AAVC), highlighted the significance of that deed, which he described as the first great defeat of U.S. imperialism in the Western Hemisphere and the basis on which the Revolution would conceive its doctrine of "war of the whole people".
The also member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (PCV) and head of the Foreign Relations Commission of the National Assembly assured that the Vietnamese will never forget the material and moral help of the island in the times when the Indochinese nation was struggling for its independence.
He noted that today the two countries are still united by the friendship sown by Presidents Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro "and together they will overcome all difficulties to achieve prosperity and contribute to peace and stability in their regions and in the world".
For his part, Cuban Ambassador Orlando Hernández said that the victory of the Bay of Pigs, and that of Vietnam over the US invader, demonstrated the invincibility of two peoples never bent to colonial designs and determined to build a development model with the human being at the center.
Our relations, forged in the heat of the battle for independence and founded on the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, are an example of solidarity and mutual aid for the world, he said.
At the presentation of the nearly 40 books included in the exhibition, translated into Spanish, the director of the National Political Publishing House, Pham Minh Tuan, explained that they range from speeches and interviews with Fidel and passages of bilateral friendship, to essential titles on the construction of socialism in Vietnam.
The event was attended by Nguyen Phuong Nga, president of the Union of Friendship Associations of Vietnam, leaders of the PCV, the ambassadors of Venezuela and Mexico in this country, other members of the diplomatic corps, and directors of the AAVC, coordinator of the evening.
Later, at the headquarters of the Cuban embassy, its officials and workers held a revolutionary reaffirmation rally as an expression of the feelings of joy and will to win that overwhelms their compatriots on a date like this. (Source: PL)
