In an article titled “With Fidel on His Centenary,” published in the newspaper *Lucha*—the organ of the Communist Party of Labor (PCT)—Chaljub Mejia stressed that the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 “illuminated the horizon” of Latin America and had a special impact on the Dominican Republic, which was then under the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.
“We were living in a country oppressed and confused to unimaginable levels. And then Fidel arrived. His triumph illuminated the horizon, shook the Americas, and impacted no other country as much as ours—a nation for which he always held a special regard,” stated Chaljub Mejia, who is also a writer and intellectual.
He remembered that, just six months after the revolutionary victory, Cuba backed the Constanza, Maimon, and Estero Hondo expedition—an action that, in his view, awakened the consciousness of the most committed sectors of Dominican society and spurred the struggle against the Trujillo regime.
The author highlighted that figures such as Minerva Mirabal and Manolo Tavarez Justo led a generation that broke with the passivity imposed by the dictatorship—a process that, he asserted, gave birth to the Dominican revolutionary left.
He affirmed that Fidel Castro has remained a symbol of dignity for peoples ever since and noted that the Cuban Revolution played a decisive role in his own political development.
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