By twist of fate, Josefina Muguercia Yacer, from Baracoa, was not among the victims of the brutal attack devised by the notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.
By twist of fate, Josefina Muguercia Yacer, from Baracoa, was not among the victims of the brutal attack devised by the notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.
"I heard about the Cubana de Aviacion and could not believe it ...." said the former athlete when he heard that the lives of 73 people were mowed on October 6, 1976, off the coast of Barbados.
Josefina was selected member of the delegation to represent the Greater Antilles in the Central American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1976, but an injury in his left leg just a day before the game, prevented her from attending the meeting.
The accident saved her from a predestined death, but not from pain caused by an irreparable loss and sting of hate and hopelessness of impunity that protect the perpetrators.
"The day before the trip I slipped, I fell and hurt my ankle. My leg swelled up and hurt and injured I could not travel. It was very sad for me, I cried a lot, because none can’t represent Cuba in international competition, people have to fight, prepare well, train hard, I fought hard and got my place ... but hey, it seems that the leg injured saved me from the criminal sabotage. "
Josefina recalls with precision to the smallest detail: "The fencing team who took part in those Games was mixed, because the other team members were in another country Cuba. Several athletes completed the Youth delegation A. As I was not able to travel, then The Junior A Vigen Felisola, of 16, who was the youngest athlete, joined the group. "
On October 6, 1976 it was a date marked in memory of Josefina Muguercia: "It was terrible news. I was in the dining room of the National School of Training for Athletes (ESPA, in Spanish), when a fellow came and said 'did you heard that the plane that took the fencers aboard blow up?' I got really bad, I could not eat and I said, well, we'll let’s wait, maybe it is a 'a piece of gossip ...’”
"We went to the boarding house, I had a radio in the room and I tuned in to Radio Reloj Station, and it was reported only a Cubana Airlines plane had suffered an accident, but it said nothing about who the people aboard the ship were.
"At 12 midnight someone knocked on the door of the boarding house and told that all the fencers have to go down to the theater. We were anxious, all the girls were crying. Something told me no, that it could not be possible, it was a lie; but when I got to the theater and saw all teachers, nurses and doctors gathered there, I said to myself, then there are problems.
"There was a microphone on the table, we all sat down and saw when the principal, sat down too and just said, 'All your colleagues have been killed.’"
That October 6th meant for Josephine Muguercia Yacer a day before and a day after of her life. For her, life goes on and some even talked about "being lucky" or encouraged her to celebrate her "second birthday" that day. But they do not know ... do not know the pain and sorrow that she still feels and will keep until her last days.
Josefina tells that "after she continued training, I was recovering during two months and participated at a championship in Puerto Rico, where she fought wearing black suit, mourning our colleagues. I'll never forget that day. I lost my companions, who I loved so much, so I demand that the murderer Luis Posada Carriles must be sentenced. "
Translation: Liubis Balart Martínez