“On December 2, 2016, at approximately 11:45 in the morning, the technical stop and passage of the caravan with the ashes of the Commander in Chief through the province was assured.”
Las Tunas, Cuba.- This is how Colonel Luis Felipe Panqué Pérez, later head of the ceremonial company of the mournful reception, remembers it, in a meeting held with union leaders from Las Tunas, gathered to pay tribute to the unforgettable Commander in Chief, on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of his death.
The tribute took place at the Lázaro Peña Convention Center of the Cuban Workers' Central Union (CTC), the place chosen for the stop, where the officer recounts details of the mournful tribute and affirmed: "This was the most important mission in my 36 years of service in the Armed Forces up to that moment, and that I would never have wanted to fulfill."
WITNESSES OF THE HISTORIC EVENT
"It was a moment in which the pain increased for the loss of the Leader, the exceptional human being who led the Cuban people to its true national sovereignty," agree Luis Vega Guerrero and Esperanza Vázquez Cárdenas, then director of the convention center and a worker in the administrative area, respectively.
They would not have wanted such a task because they wished eternal physical life to the Historical Leader of the Revolution, however, they assumed the painful mission with responsibility and dedication at the height of the event that plunged the nation into pain.
“It was something big, a moment that all Cubans remember with sadness,” Esperanza emphasizes, and adds: “A few days before there was a mobilization with colleagues from many work centers to organize everything, but that day, December 2, only Luis Vega and I remained.”
She remembers that there was little time left for the caravan's arrival, and some of the ceremony participants were missing the bracelets they were supposed to wear. “They asked Luis if he could solve the problem; he answered that, in the center, there was not what they needed.”
“So Luis told me, we went to the house because I live nearby. I grabbed a black dress and brought it here, cut it, and made the missing bracelets with the scraps. And I feel proud of that gesture,” she says with the same emotion that motivated her to give away one of her clothes.
Luis describes the unusual hustle and bustle, and the sadness that overwhelmed all the workers, who put their greatest effort into preparing the necessary conditions, for which they had the support of local organizations and companies.
IN JOBABITO
The caravan with Fidel's mortal ashes left for Santiago de Cuba at seven in the morning on November 30, 2016, from the Ministry of the Armed Forces of Cuba, in Havana. On December 2, it reached Las Tunas territory.
That day, Professor Alexis Sánchez Peña was in Jobabito, a point on the Central Highway not so far from the CTC convention center, and he remembers: “There, a crowd was waiting for him with various signs of respect and veneration. People cried, applauded, and raised Cuban flags, everywhere photos of Fidel, on a mountain, on stones, on mounds, at the school… and the phrase ‘I am Fidel’ presiding over such a crowd gathered on both sides of the road.
“When the funeral procession passed by, there was an immense emptiness, a profound silence as an expression of the great feeling that took hold of the crowd. The people felt it deep inside and showed it,” Alexis remarks.
