01-27-06,9:30am

With the same firm step with which he has guided his people for the last 47 years of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel marched surrounded by eight thousand young social workers, students from the University of Computer Sciences and the University Students Federation.

This made a formidable close to this unforgettable and overwhelming march by more than 1.4 million people from Havana representing the whole of Cuba. The protest, which took over seven hours, demanded punishment for Luis Posada Carriles, the most dangerous terrorist in the western hemisphere, and an end to the misdeeds of the US empire against Cuba.

Once more the Cubans have surprised the world with the forceful image of a sea of people as indomitable as the ocean that breaks on the Malecon, the sea wall of the capital, rallying men and women, pensioners and children, laborers, intellectuals, students, famous personalities of sports, science, and the arts, whole families, Cubans of all creeds and races, who paraded past the perfidious and provocative US Interests Office in Havana to express their determined support for Fidel, the Revolution and Socialism, and to condemn injustice and terrorism.

As an emotive reinforcement of their fighting protest, they added messages in the name of the five Cuban anti-terrorists who remain locked up in US jails. Messages sent by Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, who as well as their compatriots Ramon Labanino and Antonio Guerrero, were today in the hearts of the Habaneros marching for their dignity, sovereignty and independence.

It was a new demonstration of what a small nation is capable of, a nation that is not frightened by the menaces of the most powerful country on the planet and is determined to defend their land whatever the consequences.