On Twitter, the president said that “raising our flag without another one next to it, in 1902, was an act of symbolic independence.”

“May 20 reminds us that we used to be a neo-colony. Then #Cuba consulted every step with its powerful neighbor. That is the past. The Monroe Doctrine. Never again,” he added.

Historians agree that the raising of the national flag at Havana’s Palacio de los Capitanes Generales (Palace of General Captains) 120 years ago marked the birth of a colony disguised under the name of a republic.

On May 20, 1902, Cuba ended the US military occupation, emerged with a government and Constitution, but history proved that nothing of that meant the independence for which Cubans had fought for over 30 years.

After the Cuban-Spanish-American War, Cuba was militarily occupied by the United States, and Washington prepared the process of establishment of the republic to meet its interests.

A constitutional appendix would reaffirm the US absolute control of Cuba: the Platt Amendment, imposed on the Cuban Constitution under the threat that this was the only way the military occupation would end.

On January 1, 1959, Historic Leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro, alongside the Ejército Rebelde (Rebel Army), erased the foundations of that republic and established a transforming and independent social and political project.

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