A SOLEMN wreath-laying ceremony, to remember the 73 victims, including 11 Guyanese, who died in the 1976 Cubana Air Disaster, was held on Tuesday at the Cuban Embassy, on High Street, Kingston, Georgetown.

It was organised by the Embassy of Cuba in Guyana and Guyana/Cuba Friendship Society, in collaboration with the Guyana/Venezuela Friendship Society, to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the tragedy.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds views the mini exhibit to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the Cubana Air Disaster

The 73 were killed when flight CU-455, en route to Jamaica, was blasted out of the sky by a terrorist attack shortly after takeoff from Barbados, on October 6, 1976.

Those on board the aircraft met their deaths in what was then the most deadly act of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, using two time bombs variously described as dynamite or C-4.

The passengers were scheduled to fly from Guyana to Cuba via Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica.

At 17:24 h, nine minutes after taking off from Seawell Airport at an altitude of 18,000 feet the captain, Wilfredo Pérez Pérez radioed the control tower, saying: “We have an explosion aboard. We are descending immediately! We have fire on board! We are requesting immediate landing! We have a total emergency!”

The plane went into a rapid descent while the pilots unsuccessfully tried to return to Seawell.

All 48 passengers and 25 crew members died; 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds lays a wreath, while, at right Cuban Ambassador to Guyana, Mr. Raul Gortazar-Marrero, looks on.

The Guyanese were medical students Ann Nelson, Eric Norton, Rawle Thomas and Seshnarine Kumar, all aged 18 and 19-year-old Jacqueline Williams and Raymond Persaud. With them was the wife of the Second Secretary in the Guyana Embassy in Havana, Mrs. Margaret Bradshaw, 22, Sabrina Harripaul who was going to seek medical treatment and Gordon Sobha, Violet Thomas and Rita Thomas.

Notably, among the victims were all 24 members of the 1975 national Cuban Fencing Team that had just won all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship, many of them teenagers.

Several officials of the Cuban Government were aboard the aircraft, too, including Manuel Permuy Hernández, Communist Party Director of the National Institute of Sports (INDER); Jorge de la Nuez Suárez, Communist Party Secretary for the Shrimp Fleet; Alfonso González, National Commissioner of Firearm Sports and Domingo Chacón Coello, an agent from the Interior Ministry.

Evidence implicated several Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan Secret Police DISIP.

Controversy
Political controversy developed quickly when Cuba accused the United States (U.S.) Government of involvement.

Current Cuban Ambassador to Guyana, Mr. Raul Gortazar-Marrero, speaking at the Tuesday commemoration, said 33 years after the tragic occurrence “we can ensure that injustice continues trembling for the energetic and virile people who cried that day of indignation and pain…”

“Today, 33 years ago, at the Cuban Revolution Square, the Cuban people laid off a few coffins carrying small pieces of human remains and personal clothing,” he recollected.

The diplomat said: “More than a million people, with tears in their eyes, dismissed that day in a symbolic way to our brethren, whose bodies were lying at the bottom of the ocean.”

Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, two Venezuelans mercenaries placed the explosives on the journey from Trinidad and Tobago to Barbados and returned to Trinidad where they were arrested and immediately confessed their participation, he said.

“Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, intellectual perpetrators of terrorist crimes, linked to the CIA from 1960, were arrested and subjected to a plagued tortuous process of irregularities in the midst of colossal pressures,” Gortazar-Marrero said.

He said the Venezuelan Public Prosecutor initiated the judicial proceedings against them for murder, manufacture and use of weapons of fire and making and carrying false documents.

“His dignified position raised violent reaction of the political mafia of the extreme right,” the Cuban Ambassador stated.

He said General Elio Garcia Barrios, President of the Martial Court, sentenced both terrorists to a prison term of several years and the Miami mafia avenged it with the shooting death of one of his children, in 1983.

Posada was rescued by the Cuban American National Foundation that sent $50,000 from Panama to finance the leak and he escaped on August 18, 1985, Gortazar-Marrero related.

“Today, the confessed murderer Luis Posada Carriles walks freely on the streets of Miami,” he noted.

Solidarity
“This act has been summoned as homage and tribute to the memory of our brothers and sisters who were killed in Barbados. But it is also an expression of solidarity with the thousands of people of the planet that had died because of terrorist acts,” the envoy stated.

He added: “That is why, as a day like today, we have the right to ask what measures will be taken with Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, responsible for the monstrous terrorist act of Barbados and demand that justice has to be done.

“Cuba will not dismiss in its struggle until justice finally has been done.”

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, performing the duties of the Office of President said: “Today, it is with a great degree of solemnity that we commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the bombing of the Cuban aircraft.”

He reminded that this infamous and cowardly terrorist attack took the lives of 11 Guyanese, six of whom were amongst the best scholars.

“73 innocent persons lost their lives in that attack and, today, we join with their families in honouring their memories,” Mr. Hinds told the gathering.

He said that dastardly act, aimed at the Cuban people “magnified the presence of terrorism in the Latin American and Caribbean region” but it took the international community three decades after to recognise that there needed to be a collective effort to condemn and counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and wherever it may occur.

“The Government of Guyana has supported efforts in this fight and, in this context, has joined in calls for the perpetrators of the bombing of the Cubana aircraft to be brought to justice,” Mr. Hinds said.

He said Guyana is still to erect a suitable monument but informed: “I am advised that a site has been selected at the University of Guyana. We think that such a location of students is an appropriate one at which to locate this monument and it is our hope that, by next anniversary, there will be an appropriate monument there.

“We want, today, to join, again, in paying tribute to the resilient spirit of the Cuban people who have continuously sought to rise above the external challenges to their development, particularly those brought about by the trade and economic embargo and efforts made to ostracise them from normal social and other economic intercourse in the Latin American region,” Mr. Hinds offered.

He stated that the Government of Guyana remains firm in its call for these sanctions to be removed and for Cuban to be fully embraced in all the activities of the hemisphere.

“As we join with the people and Government of Cuba in this commemorative event, we pledge our continued support and solidarity to them and commit to the further strengthening of the friendship and cooperation which we have enjoyed in our relationship with the Government and people of Cuba,” Mr. Hinds said.

History
Mayor of Georgetown, Mr. Hamilton Green said the occasion symbolised what has happened throughout history where men “attempted to frustrate the efforts of those who fought for progress, justice and decency in our world”.

He expressed the hope that, next year, there would be a symbolic place and event to remember the Guyanese who died in the crash.

“I hope, therefore, that, as we leave the premises of this Embassy, we turn away, recognising that there is a continuum of intolerance, prejudice and hate in this country and elsewhere,” Green said.

“And I hope the young people, Cubans, Guyanese and others present, will dedicate the rest of their lives to ensure that what happened on October 6, does not happen again, because we will inculcate measures and a philosophy of love not hate, of cooperation and not dislocation and that we work together for peace in the world.”

Ambassador of Venezuela to Guyana, Mr. Dario Morandy also shared the sentiment that the Cuban air disaster is the worst terrorist act that ever happened in the Western Hemisphere.

He said Venezuelans are very passionate about this and, acknowledging that the persons killed were innocent victims, declared: “That is the reason why we are exercising a lot of pressure on the Obama Government that, if he really wants to struggle against terrorism, let him extradite Posada Carriles so that he can go to a court in Venezuela.”

President of the Guyana/Cuba Friendship Society, Mr. Samuel Abdool declared October 6 is a date “we will never forge”, being one of the most despicable and horrible events to occur in this hemisphere.

The country lost “aspiring young people whose dreams to become doctors” and other Guyanese citizens whose lives just vanished, along with 62 of Cuban and North Korean friends, the envoy remarked.

He called for unity to “continue our solidarity to call for justice” and bring an end to the situation.