Florida, Feb. 19 – On February 19, 2000 and as part of the epic battle for the return of the child Elián González Brotons to his family and his homeland, in the glorious grove of Baraguá, in Santiago de Cuba, and inspired by the intransigent example of Antonio Maceo, the Cuban people swore once again to resist and win in the confrontation with imperialism, sworn enemy of the peoples, no longer in the field of arms, but in the field of ideas.
Evoking the virile protest staged by the Bronze Titan and his followers, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, read the document that denounced the crude manipulations spread by several organs of the U.S. press, referring to the exhaustion of the Cuban people and the exhaustion of forces before the monstrous injustice committed against the child and his relatives.
«How badly they know our people,» reflected the Commander in Chief, and after recalling Operation Peter Pan which in the early years of the Revolution caused the transfer to the United States of 14 thousand Cuban children with the support of their own parents, he assured that «In the struggle for the return of that child many values and principles are at stake, which cannot be renounced.»
In Baragua Oath, in addition to the vile and repugnant kidnapping of the child Elian Gonzalez by the anti-Cuban mafia based in Miami, Fidel denounced the economic war, the Cuban Adjustment Act, the subversion plans, the ideological diversionism, the sabotage and other acts of internal destabilization; the laws such as Helms-Burton, Torricelli and numerous amendments to intensify the blockade, in order to crush our people by hunger and disease.
The Open Tribune of the Revolution on that April 19 was held in the same place where in 1878, Antonio Maceo raised his voice to reaffirm his disagreement with the trench pact and his willingness to continue the armed struggle for independence, in that historic place Fidel assured that «Our struggle will adopt a thousand different forms and styles. The masses will always be ready; the transmission of the message will be permanent, the forces and energies will continue to be accumulated and saved for every necessary or decisive minute», and in worthy response millions of Cubans signed the Oath.
