In his X profile, the Cuban foreign minister reminisced the four brave revolutionary youths fatally shot in the wake of a manhunt unleashed against the survivors of the armed attack on Cuba’s Presidential Palace and Radio Reloj station on March 13, 1957.
Led by the Revolutionary Directorate and its main activist, Jose Antonio Echeverria, both actions aimed at putting an end to the the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who, had run the country in a corrupt and repressive manner since staging a military coup in the early hours of March 10th, 1952.
After surviving that failed action, Fructuoso Rodriguez (24), Juan Pedro Carbo Servia (31), Jose Machado Rodriguez (Machadito) (24), and Joe Westbrook (20) hid in safe houses to escape the police search.
Following a tip from a snitch, Police Captain Esteban Ventura arrived at the Humboldt 7 building with enough troops to surround and surprise the young men, who were killed in cold blood.
This massacre is recalled in Cuba as one of the worst crimes of the Batista dictatorship.
The Federation of University Students (FEU) pays tribute to the four young revolutionaries every year.
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