On February 24, 1958, the first official transmission of Radio Rebelde, took place from the house of Conrado, a farmer who was member of the Socialist Popular Party and a collaborator of the Rebel Army, the place was located near Alto de Conrado in Buey Arriba, Granma, a mountain range on the line of the Sierra Maestra to the south of the eastern Cuban region.

On that date ocurred a trascendental event for our nation, on February 24, 1895 the Grito de Baire was the landmark of the struggle for the independence of Cuba against the Spanish colonialism. According to history, Jose Marti, from the emigration, sent the order for the uprising to Juan Gualberto Gomez rolled in a cigar.

Consequently, our Cry for truth and justice has been linked to that date February 24, which is also the Communication Worker’s Day, a branch of our society that has been a protagonist of the Cuban Revolution in all its changes.

For Cuban communicators and radio producers this date marks the first time “AQUI RADIO REBELDE” was aired by outstanding announcer Violeta Casal, at present that phrase represents a historic alert under the orders Commander Ernesto Che Guevara and the legacy of those bearded men and brave women who challenged the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista, under the orders of Fidel Castro and created the commands and cornerstones to free the farmers at that time in Cuba 50 years ago.

Radio Rebelde is more than a dream of a group of bearded men in the Sierra Maestra, like some critical ideologists wanted to impose, this radio station has been, is and will be a tool to inform the Cuban people, guiding the path of the Revolution, which in these five decades has trained hundreds of thousands of health professionals in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean to give life and love to build up the light of knowledge in the same rgions, making truth the maxim, also recognized by the UNESCO as an effort without precedents : Yes I can.

Luis Orlando Rodriguez was the first director of the radio station and Orestes Varela and Ricardo Martinez as its radio announcers, and the first trasmission lasted 20 minutes.

Some days before his passing away, in one of the Radio Rebelde’s halls on the third floor of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television(ICRT), Ricardo Martinez told us that the first trasmission of Radio Rebelde started with the invading anthem, after the identification of the radio station as the official organ of the July 26 revolutionary Movement. Ricardo and Orestes mentioned the death of the men in Pino Del Agua combat.

That trascendental day was the meeting betwen two generations that made history, Martinez also told me that an editorial on the February 24, 1895 event was aired and they promoted a lecture on the health in the Sierra Maestra by Dr. Martinez Paez, a surgeon of the medical staff of the Rebel Army and one of the pioneers of Cuban ortopedhics.

That tobacco in the hands of the immigrant cigar maker in New York with the message of the uprising read by Jose Marti and carried out to Cayo Hueso and later to Matanzas, in the hands

of the delegate Juan Gualberto Gomez, inspired that date, but that small radio plant carried

by the brave farmers up to Altos de Conrado, inspired the begining of our great station Radio

Rebelde, the information channel of the Rebel Army with the Cuban people.

At present an outstanding group of Radio Rebelde workers are visiting the province of Granma

to travel across the region and recall that epic. Radio Rebelde constitutes a symbol to defend

the legacy of those heroes who restarted our struggles for independence.

Radio Rebelde, like the other 95 Cuban radio stations has the mission of informing, explaining

and clarifying the process of the social and economic changes called for by the Revolution as

part of the Draft-Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Communist Party, on the

occasion of its Sixth Congress.

Like that February 24, the Cuban radio system, which is today a transcendental Radio Rebelde,

is aired with the voice of truth and justice, the Declaration of Independence, together with

our historical leader Fidel, to clamor for a world of peace and human survival.

Translated by: Daysi Olano

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