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Regla () is one of the 15 municipalities or boroughs ( in Spanish) in the city of Havana, Cuba. It comprises the town of Regla, located at the bottom of Havana Bay in a former aborigine settlement named Guaicanamar, Loma Modelo in a peninsula dividing Marimelena from Guasabacoa inlets, and the village of Casablanca located at the entry of the Havana Bay.
Regla has a strong patriotic tradition being home to several patriots and personalities, among them Eduardo Facciolo, executed by the colonial Spanish government for conspiring for Cuban independence, and Miguel Coyula, who reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the Cuban Liberation Army (Mambi Army) in its fight against colonial Spain.
It is an historic known fact the first speech with political pro-independence overtones given by National Apostle José Martí was delivered in the Lyceum of Regla.
During the struggle against dictator Fulgencio Batista, due to the strong opposition to Batista, the town was described as "sierra chiquita" (little mountain range) in allusion to the rebels in the Sierra Maestra range. The most conspicuous public action against Batista in town was led by Juan Alborna Salado, at the time 21 years old, head of the clandestine militias of the Movimiento 26 de Julio in town, in March 1958, when the local police killed another young man of Regla named Gilberto Monzon. The young men Leonardo Lopez, Filiberto Torres, Luis Lorenzo Gonzalez, Marcos Gonzalez, Manuel Lopez Guenaga, Elio Serrano, German Roche, Pedro Valdes, Jose Luis Cabrera and others seconded him. All of them belonged to the Movimiento 26 de Julio.
Thousands of people took to the streets, with the burial of the young men being a centerpoint of a riot, and a crowd escorted the funerary car up to the cemetery at which Alborna and Luis Lorenzo Gonzalez spoke. Motorized police reinforcements took Regla and surrounded the cemetery and shot at close range. The police took prisoners, and many escaped, including Juan Alborna, but with a hand injury that was cured by his girlfriend Noemi Vidal. It was practically a popular uprising. But in 1960 Juan Alborna Salado became dissident.
Regla is divided into Barrios or Colonias, including Reparto Modelo, La Colonia, La Loma and La Colina Lenin. It is also divided into three Consejos Populares (People's Council), the grassroots local government form in Cuba, namely Guaicanamar, comprising Regla downtown; Loma-Modelo, comprising Regla suburbs; and Casablanca, comprising the village of the same name and its surrounding area.
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