Forty-seven years after the crime of Barbados, Cuba honors today the victims of that attack and condemns terrorism in all its manifestations.This scourge took 73 full lives and one in pregnancy, said Miguel Diaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, in a message in which he also recalled that those responsible for the sabotage of the Cubana de Aviacion aircraft lived and died in the United States without paying for their crimes.
In spite of this, that same country includes Cuba in its list of sponsors of terrorism, the greatest proof of the empire’s cynicism, he affirmed.
In a statement posted on the same social network by the National Assembly of People’s Power, its president, Esteban Lazo, also paid tribute to the martyrs of Barbados, and stressed that on October 6 Cuba commemorates the Day of the Victims of State Terrorism.
Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, Cuban foreign minister, emphasized that the date commemorates the 3,748 dead and 2,099 disabled people who died as a result of violent actions against the island.
On October 6, 1976, all the crew members of Cubana de Aviacion’s CU-455 aircraft died as a result of an attack, so far considered the worst terrorist attack in the western hemisphere.
A total of 57 were Cubans, mostly young members of the fencing team returning from the Central American and Caribbean championships in Caracas, and were flying from the island of Barbados to the island of Jamaica, bound for Havana.
Investigations have confirmed that the crime was orchestrated in Venezuela by Cuban-born terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who had the backing of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, Venezuelans hired to plant the bombs inside the plane, were sentenced to 20 years in prison, while Bosch was acquitted on technicalities after a brief period in detention, and Posada Carriles was imprisoned, but escaped with the support of prison guards.
At the mourning farewell to the victims of the Barbados crime, on October 15, 1976, the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, said: “We cannot say that pain is shared. Pain is multiplied. Millions of Cubans cry today with the loved ones of the victims of the abominable crime. And when an energetic and virile people cry, injustice trembles!”.
