The Cuban people pays posthumous tribute to one of its undisputed leader, the Commander of the Revolution Juan Almeida Bosque, loyal and dignified revolutionary fighter, who died on this day in 2009, as a result of respiratory failure.
Almeida, as we affectionately called him and recognized in all the places where he left his indelible mark, stood by his infinite loyalty to Fidel, Raúl, the Party and the Revolution, who devoted all his energy and was one of its most inspiring from the days of Moncada.
His name will remain forever in the hearts and minds of his countrymen as a paradigm of revolutionary firmness, courage, integrity and commitment to the cause of the country and love for his people.
Of humble origins, he never renounced his origins and was loyal in their behavior to the roots, where they raised their convictions of revolutionary, immortalized forever with that virile phrase that is everyday practice and currency of the Cuban revolutionaries: This is not surrender anyone...!
Juan Almeida Bosque is one of those exceptional men, who from the privations of his humble birth, the cast Los Pinos in Havana, Cuba, grew up and trained with the highest values of a child you want and struggle to see their country free .
The very large family home with his parents-as-guide and the life of the people, taught him that there was only one way, that of the struggle.
After Batista's coup of March 10, 1952, more close ties with those who fight the dictatorship. With teammate Armando Mestre, he is related to Fidel at the University of Havana, and joined the ranks of that generation who vindicated the Master on the centenary of his birth, when it seemed that he would die ...
"There is oppression in our homeland but one day there will be freedom again," he said Fidel Castro and Juan Almeida kept these words in his heart.
Fortitude and courage always sealed their personality in combat. Nobody doubted before his appointment in February 1958, as commander. An important mission put on his shoulders the head of the revolution would organize and lead the Third Eastern Front Mario Muñoz Monroy. The same day that Raul Castro started to form the Second Front, Almeida would to equally.
Both eastern fronts as part of the strategy devised by Fidel would play a major role in the fight and ultimately the success of rebel operations.
The triumph of January 1959 opened new responsibilities for Commander Juan Almeida Bosque would comply with the same discipline and commitment from head of the Motorized address M-26-7, to chief of the Rebel Army Air Force and Army Chief replacing the commander Camilo Cienfuegos, after his physical disappearance.
Other tasks involved efforts: Struggle Against Bandits; And first deputy head of the Directorate of Services of General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba, PCC, and its Central Committee. Almeida is Deputy to the National People's Assembly by the National Assembly of Santiago de Cuba, as well as vice president of the State Council.
Doing his will, the mortal remains of Juan Almeida Bosque rest in the Mausoleum of the Mario Muñoz Monroy Third Front, of which he was its founder and beloved leader.