The park in front of the Museo de la Revolución is dedicated to the martyrs of the failed action against the regime of Fulgencia Batista that occurred in March 13, 1957. It is the date of the uprising of young rebels against the dictatorship, in that the Presidential Palace was assaulted to execute the dictator.

The park is also a venue for different ceremonies of remembrance, as well as cultural activities and concerts. It is a large area with scarce trees, ideal to bring large numbers of people together. It looks like an enormously wide way in front of the former Presidential Palace that is bordered by green wooden benches. The ground is paved by pink and grey concrete slabs in a rectangular design. The only monument in the park that is rather a square, is the bronze statue of José Martí. It is the replica of the statue that was erected in New York.

THE STATUE OF JOSÉ MARTÍ

In 1945 the Sixth Avenue in New York was named Avenue of the Americas according the suggestion of Fiorello H. LaGuardia, the Mayor of New York, to honor the Pan-American ideals. Shortly afterwards a new plaza was constructed, where the avenue meets the Central Park, and the statues of the Bolivian revolutionary pioneer Simón Bolívar and Argentine General José de San Martín were erected on the eastern and western sides of the plaza, respectively. Although the statue of José Martí took part in the project as the third piece of the equestrian trio, and was completed already in 1959, the inappropriate political climate between the protagonists of Castro and the Cuban anti-Castro groups led to the delay of the mounting of the monument. The statue, valued at $200.000, was the work of the American sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington that presented the statue as a gift to the Cuban government for presentation to the people of New York City as the symbol of the friendship between the peoples of both nations. The Cuban government, headed by Fulgencia Batista, donated $100.000 for the monument’s dark granite pedestal, which was designed by the architectural firm of Clarke & Rapuano. The empty pedestal was irking the Cubans in exile very much, so that they tried even to place the plaster model of the statue on the pedestal that they had obtained from the Huntigton’s studio in Connecticut, but it was so heavy, so that they gave up to place it on the pedestal. Finally, the monument of José Martí was placed on the plaster between the two earlier works and was unveiled in 1965.

The replica was brought from New York to Havana in 2017 and unveiled by a solemn ceremony in the Parque Plaza 13 de Marzo in 2018, as a tribute to the 165th birthday of the Cuba’s national hero. It shows Martí riding on a horse, and thus it evokes his death in Dos Rios in 1895, where he was fighting on his horse against the soldiers of the Spanish rule and was shot down. The necessary fund to make its replica, was raised by the prestigious institution Bronx Museum of Art.

The bronze statue stands on black marble pedestal and on each side of the pedestal the summarized life story of José Martí is embossed both in Spanish and English.

The inscription on the east side of the statue:

APOSTOL DE LA INDEPENDENCIA / DE CUBA GUIA DE LOS PUEBLOS / AMERICANOS Y PALADIN DE LA / DIGNIDAD HUMANA SU GENIO / LITERARIO RIVALIZA CON SU / CLARIVIDENCIA POLITICA NACIO / EN HABANA EL 28 DE ENERO DE / 1853. VIVIO QUINCE ANOS DE SU / DESTIERRO EN LA CIUDAD DE NUEVA / YORK MURIO EN EL COMBATE DE / DOS RIOS PROVINCIA DE ORIENTE / EL 19 DE MAYO DE 1895. /

The inscription on the west side of the statue:

APOSTLE OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE / LEADER OF THE PEOPLES OF AMERICA / AND DEFENDER OF HUMAN DIGNITY / HIS LITERACY GENIUS VIED WITH HIS / POLITICAL FORESIGHT. HE WAS BORN / IN HAVANA ON JANUARY 28, 1853 / FOR FIFTEEN YEARS OF HIS EXILE HE LIVED IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. / HE DIED IN ACTION AT DOS RIOS IN / ORIENTE PROVINCE ON MAY 19, 1895.

The larger-than-life size bronze equestrian statue is 5,5 meters high, like its original, and weighs about three tones.

It is said that the last image that Martí saw, before he died, was the image of a Dagame tree. When the park was built, special effort made to plant a similar tree in the same direction of the eyes of the statue. The Dagame tree is a wild tree with a tall trunk, reaching about 2 meters in height and 60 cm in diameter. It has small leaves and small and white flowers, whereas its wood is yellowish gray color. It is the national tree of Nicaragua, where it is called Madroño, but it is uncommon in Cuba (some of them can be seen also in La Quinta de los Molinos, in Havana). Furthermore, there is also a Fustete tree, planted on the left side of the monument, in front of the Dragame tree, that evokes the Fustete tree that was on the left of the place, where Martí fell. The Fustete tree is common throughout the island. It has greenish flowers, arranged in panicles, and their leaves smell aromatic.

What happened in Havana in 13 March 1957?

In January 1957, the rebels that revolt against the bloody regime of Fulgencia Batista, made a plan to capture and execute him. The task was undertaken by the Directorio Revolucionario that was an organization of insurrectional character, emerged in Cuba during the struggle against the dictatorship of Batista. It mainly consisted of young university students and functioned as the armed wing of the University Students Federation (FEU, Federación Estudiantil Universitaria). José Antonio Echeverría Bianchi, Fructuoso Rodríguez Pérez and Faure Chomón Mediavilla were its presidents respectively. The organization merged with the Popular Socialist Party in 1961.

According to the plan, about 50 men under the leadership of Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo would attack and seize the Presidential Palace (today Museo de la Revolución) with automatic weapons, while about 100 men would enter into action later to support the pioneer group. The first group would first control the tallest buildings close to the palace, such as the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hotel Sevilla, and then the den of the dictator on the roof would be raked through by 30-caliber machine gun fire. Faure Chomón Mediavilla and Armando Pérez Prieto were the other members of the military committee that was responsible for this action. At the same time, about 15 men headed by José Antonio Echeverría, would seize the building of the radio station Radio Reloj to announce the death of Batista and call the civils to gather in the University of Havana. The third localization they had to seize, would be the University of Havana where they would establish the headquarter of the action.

Two apartment flats were rented for the assault command team in Vedado, as they had to be close to the Presidential Place. The necessary money was collected from the rebels; the rent of the second flat was defrayed by Armando Pérez Pinto that granted his salary of that month. The rebels had to be very cautious not to raise any suspicion in the apartment; for example, they had to smoke alone, not to go to bathroom frequently, and they had to talk quietly. At the same time, they had established a communication system by phone to follow Batista on his routine route from the Columbia barracks to the Presidential Palace. The first house with the phone was in Playa (at the intersection of the 42nd street with the Avenida 31), the second in Malecón, and the third close to Paseo del Prado. The armament consisted of rifles, ten 30-caliber machine guns, ten automatic rifles, and 50-caliber machine gun, mounted on the axis of a truck.

On March 13, 1957, at 11 o’clock, the rebels went into action. The rebels were transported to the action area by two cars and a delivery truck, on that was written “Fast Delivery”. This truck is on the display in the Museo de la Revolución today. The rebels entered into the building through the south door that was always left open on the contrary to the main door that was kept open only when the palace was waiting for important personalities.

Even though the rebels could reach the office of Batista, he had already fled through a door in front of his office that opens to an internal staircase, to the 4th floor where the headquarter of the guards of the Palace was. The rebels had practiced on the plan of the Presidential Palace, but they were not aware of the existence of this secret door.

The resistance of the guards was stronger than estimated, so that the rebels couldn’t get to the 3rd floor. After a gun battle some of the rebels were murdered, some were wounded and bleeding, and some had finished the ammunition, so that they needed urgent support of the trail team, but the support group was never mobilized by Ignacio González. The failed action lasted about 10 minutes, leaving many dead bodies of young people behind.

On the other hand, the group headed by José Antonio Echeverría, the leader of the University Student Federation, took the CMQ 24 hour news station Radio Rolej, and exactly at 15.21 Cuba heard the news about the attack of the President by the words of José Antonio Echeverría: “People of Cuba, in these moments the revolutionary Fulgencio Batista has just been executed in his own burrow at the Presidential Palace. The people of Cuba have gone to settle accounts!“. After these sentences, his speech was interrupted, as the broadcasting had gone off the air by the intervention of an employee in another place. When the rebels were informed about this, they left the building to join other young people in the University Havana, but the car in that José Antonio Echeverría was travelling, was intercepted by a patrol car on the side of the university campus and the student leader was shot down by machine gun fire. There is a plaque now that marks the place where he fell.

30 young men were killed during the attack of the Presidential Palace, including Menelao Mora Morales, Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo, José Castellanos Valdés, Luis F. Almeida. Their names are given on a metal plaque, hung in Museo de la Revolución.

In the events related with the attack 10 men more were killed, including José Antonio Echeverría.

23 men survived, including Faure Chomón Mediavilla.

After the failed attack Batista’s police gave Havana the hardest time that the city had ever experienced. Some political figures, even though they were not involved in the attack, became the victims of the repression and political violence. Many young men became lost in the bloodbath of the police squads that ensued apparently of their own initiative. Even though the actions on March 13 didn’t fulfill their objectives, the young men demonstrated to Cuba that the tyranny was living on borrowed time.