The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, today recalled the foundation 64 years ago of the Second Eastern Front “Frank País”, and considered it a model of organization and decisive force for the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.
Through his official Twitter account, the president recalled that the commander of the Rebel Army Raúl Castro founded the front to combat the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-1958) in the easternmost region of the Caribbean nation.
The guerrilla territory came to cover 123 thousand square kilometers and a population of half a million inhabitants, and today it corresponds to the provinces of Guantánamo and part of Santiago de Cuba and Holguín.
In the rebel demarcation Raúl Castro created and organized the departments of Justice, Health, Public Works, Treasury, Propaganda and Inspection, Education, the Agrarian Bureau and the Worker.
As a result, 20 field hospitals and medical posts sprang up, some 400 schools were created, and hundreds of kilometers of roads and telephone lines were built.
“Now we are like a small revolutionary state within another,” Raúl Castro said at the time.
In its nine months and 20 days of operation, the Frank País Second Eastern Front seized 31 barracks and Rural Guard posts, in addition to seizing some two thousand weapons from the enemy.
Important events also took place there, such as the Peasant Congress in Arms, on September 21, 1958, and the Workers’ Congress on December 8 of that year.
