HAVANA, Cuba.- In the presence of Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Pedro Sanchez Perez-Castejon, President of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, gave to the Museum of the City in Havana a palm-tree-trunk chair that belonged to the Major General of the Liberation Army, Antonio Maceo.

The chair has engraved the lone star associated with the independence of Cuba and the initials A M of the Lieutenant General. It was occupied by the Spanish army in campaign, in Sierra del Rosario, Pinar del Rio province, where there were strong clashes between the Liberating Army and the Spanish one, in 1896.

It was presented as a war trophy to the Captain General and transferred to Spain. Now, the City Council of Palma de Mallorca and its authorities have temporarily ceded the chair as a renewable loan to be shown to the Cuban people.

The chair will be exhibited in the Flags Hall of the Palace of the General Captains, next to the saddle officially handed over to Cuba by Spain in 1986 and near the oil painting by Armando Menocal, which represents Antonio Maceo´s fall in combat, on December 7th, 1896, in San Pedro, Punta Brava.

In his speech, the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sanchez Perez-Castejon, said that he wishes this event to be sees as an act of friendship, of brotherhood of the Spanish people with Cuba.

This chair is a symbol of Cuba’s War of independence, but today, thanks to this act, Maceo´s chair symbolizes the encounter and the link between brother countries, Sanchez expressed, and emphasized: This act serves to look at history but especially to put the accent on the re-encounter of two peoples, of what we can get to do together.

Later, the presidents of Cuba and Spain, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez and Pedro Sanchez Perez-Castejon, toured the Old Havana guided by the Historian of the City, Doctor Eusebio Leal Spengler. The tour began in the Palace of the General Captains and culminated in San Francisco de Assisi Square.