Cuban Youth Honor Jose Marti

Cuban Youth Honor Jose Marti Havana, Jan 28. – Thousands of young Cubans, accompanied by Cuban First Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, staged the traditional March of the Torches on Thursday night to honor national hero Jose Marti on the 158th anniversary of his birth.

Holding up torches, participants paraded from the Havana University staircase to Central Park in the capital.

At the park, a group comprising Machado Ventura, Communist Youth first secretary Liudmila Alamo, and Federation of University Students president Maidel Gomez laid a wreath at the centrally-located monument to the Cuban hero.

The march also honored the 50th anniversaries of the Bay of Pigs victory and the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution.

A concert by the pop music band Buena Fe topped off the event. The first such march was led by a group of young people on Jan. 27, 1953.(Prensa Latina)