Hanoi (VMA) - Cuba and Vietnam on July 10 commemorated six Cuban military experts who lost their lives 60 years ago while supporting the Vietnamese people's resistance war, reaffirming the enduring solidarity and defence ties forged through the two countries' shared history.
Delegates from the two nations, along with military attachés from several countries accredited to Vietnam, laid flowers in tribute to the Cuban military experts at the memorial monument within the Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi.
Addressing the event, Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam Rogelio Polanco Fuentes said Cuba was the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Shortly afterwards, the two countries opened embassies in each other's capitals, while the representative office of the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLF) in Havana operated as the legitimate representative agency of the people of South Vietnam in their struggle against foreign aggressors, the diplomat said.
The ambassador recalled Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz's declaration at a mass rally in José Martí Revolution Square in Havana in January 1966 that “For Vietnam, Cuba is willing to shed even its own blood,” saying the historic pledge was translated into action just a few months later.
In July 1966, Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces dispatched a high-level military delegation to Vietnam to study its people's war to resist the US war of destruction in northern Vietnam. On July 19, 1966, while conducting a field survey of air defence fortifications and forces at a position on the outskirts of Hanoi, the delegation encountered a surprise US air raid. The six Cuban officers were killed alongside members of Hanoi's air defence forces while defending the position.
On the occasion, the Cuban Embassy, in coordination with the Vietnam Institute of Defence Strategy and History under the Ministry of National Defence, introduced the Spanish edition of the book entitled “The 60-year history of Vietnam - Cuba defence relations (1960–2020), published by the Su That (Truth) National Political Publishing House./.
