March is not just any month when it comes to the history of Cuba. If we were to go to the books, to those that tell us where we come from, from the first day they remind us that there was a great event that took place in western Cuba, in the middle of the last century.
We are in March, not that of 64 years ago, perhaps the same men do not even live to relive the joy with which they embraced with their own hands the true symbol of freedom, but there are the children, the grandchildren, the neighbors or the new tenants who venerate the area for being the first in the country where Fidel Castro went, after the revolutionary triumph, to hand over the land title to its true owners.
RIGHT THERE, IN THE POOREST PLACE
Yes, it was in Las Martinas, Pinar del Río, the site chosen to perpetuate the collapse of the agrarian structures that authorized the exploitation of peasants, where what was called the General Rehearsal of the First Agrarian Reform Law would take place, which It would be signed on May 17 and it would mean an opportunity for new jobs for the peasants and their families, their economic and nutritional situation would improve and resources would be guaranteed to them, it was the end of the latifundio.
By virtue of Law No. 96 of February 23, 1959, the delivery of the first property titles is made effective to 340 vegueros from Pinar del Río and on behalf of them, six belonging to this western end would receive it, but first hand, the kind that everyone dreamed of squeezing.
The versions about that moment were transferred from generation to generation. The newspaper Avance, a press at the time, even said that Fidel arrived aboard the frigate Antonio Maceo that took him to Arroyos de Mantua and from there he went by road to the town of Las Martinas, where the event would take place.
Said newspaper, in its only edition of March 2, 1959, reviewed the occasion as follows: “… Initiated by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, who moved to that place for that purpose, the delivery of 270 deeds was verified in Las Martinas ownership of as many farms to the peasants of the place…».
Different bibliographies speak of Julio Sabatier, who was an inhabitant of the area, the carpenter in charge of the improvised tribune and also present at the demonstration. He explained that Fidel arrived accompanied by Commander Castiñeiras, head of the Navy, and the frigate captain Isidro Contreras and that upon arrival there were demonstrations of joy and absolute support for the leader of the Revolution.
The concentration of the people was in front of the old properties of the North American company Cuban-Land, the owners of the trade and cultivation of tobacco in the area, and from the rostrum Fidel talked pleasantly with the people of Martinez, after handing over the aforementioned titles .
WHEN THE OLD WISHING CAME TRUE
The antecedent to this fact was in the plea of self-defense History will absolve me, in which Fidel had spoken about the land problem: “(…) 85 percent of small Cuban farmers are paying rent and live under the perennial threat of eviction from their plots; more than half of the best cultivated production land is in foreign hands; in the Oriente, which is the widest province, the lands of the United Fruit Company and the West Indian unite the north coast with the south coast.
“There are 200,000 peasant families that do not have a piece of land where they can sow food for their hungry children and, instead, remain uncultivated, in the hands of powerful interests, close to 300,000 caballerias of productive land (…)”, were these Just a few notes from back then.
The first massive handover of land thus arrived in western Cuba. There a tarja represents the jubilation of a group of Cuban men who savored the pleasure of the rescue, of independence and sovereignty. Nothing less expected from the fact that it demonstrated the democratic, popular, agrarian and anti-imperialist character of the triumphant Revolution, as a reflection of the spirit of social justice always emanating from Fidel Castro Ruz.
