Photo: Ismael BatistaThose who lived that fateful day remember the sound of the blasts, the column of smoke that could be seen from any point in the city, the terror of the injured, burned, agonizing bodies; but also the Revolution’s principal leaders joining the people at the site of the tragedy.

Sixty years since the terrorist attack, the people of Havana remembered the brutal blow delivered by U.S. imperialism, in a tribute presided by Omar Ruiz Martín, member of the Party Secretariat; Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary in the capital; and Reinaldo García Zapata, governor of the province of Havana.

The two explosions, March 4, 1960, inside the French steamer La Coubre left more than a hundred dead and 400 injured. The victims included 44 port workers and six crew members, but the crime’s shock wave ravaged the city and the families who lost loved ones.

What happened in Havana Bay that day was the first act of state terrorism committed against revolutionary Cuba, which has lost 3,478 of its people and seen 2,099 injured in crimes of this kind, organized by the United States.

Six decades have passed, the aggression has not ceased, but our conviction is as strong as ever: Homeland or Death!