November 27th, 1871
We are still moved by the events of the mournful date of November 27th, 1871; the execution of the eight medicine students, at four and twenty minutes in ‘’La Punta’’, in front of ‘’El Castillo de los Tres Morros’’, in Havana. After 145 years of that ignominy we can not forget those abominable facts, we need to remain them fresh in the historical memory.
The Volunteers and the Spanish government constituted a diabolical binomia by the sanguinary and unworthy actions, they will always deserve the repudiation of men and women of all times. They acted in an arbitrary way to prosecute 43 students, with the infamous purpose of pointing out those responsible for the alleged profanation, the silence of the young people made clear the innocence.
The way they were forced to face death was outrageous. They were blindfolded, tied behind their backs, and forced to kneel. To make crime more pathetic, they were executed in pairs. Infamous did not hesitate, they were moved by the interest of giving a lesson to the university students in the insurrection against Spanish power, only two students were acquitted.
Repeated manipulations, made possible the maximum penalty for eight of the accused students. Among those punished, eight were sentenced to death, eleven were sentenced to six years, twenty to four years and four to six months imprisonment. The freshness of youth, was frustrated.
They were found guilty and sentenced to death: Alonso Álvarez de la Campa y Gamba, Anacleto Bermúdez y González de Piñera, Eladio González Toledo, Ángel Laborde Perera, José de Marcos Medina, Juan Pascual Rodríguez Pérez, Carlos de la Torre Madrigal and Carlos Verdugo Martínez, It did not matter that he was in the province of Matanzas on the day of the alleged offense.
We are called to not forget, because our minds can not erase the crime and the successive aggressions against the student revolutionary movement. The events that occurred that day had important antecedents that can not be ignored when evoking this date. The injustice did not remain in the forgotten, on the contrary the pen, the patriotic feeling and the rebellious soul of the Cubans, will always remember the beautiful poem titled ‘’To my brothers’’ by José Martí:
"Beloved corpses, those who one day / Daydreams were from my homeland, / Throw, throw on my forehead / Powders of your rotten bones! Touch my heart with your hands! / Moam on my ears! / Each one must be my moans / Tears of one more of the tyrants! [...] And more than a world! When one dies / In the arms of the grateful homeland / Death ends, the prison is broken; / Starts, at last, with dying, life! [...
Those students deserve the etrenal tribute and the commitment of the Cuban youth to defend the homeland against any aggression because the event has deep and painful roots, that despite the force of time, nor the current youth , nor any truly human, can look at them passively.
