BARBADOS Remembering those lost in the Cubana Tragedy

SPEECH given by H.E. Sergio Pastrana Cuban Ambassador at the Cubana Memorial today. 6 – October 2021

Our Elder of the Caribbean, our beloved brother Bobby Clark.
H.E. Ambassador David Comissiong,
H:E. Ambassador Álvaro Sanchez Cordero. Charge d´Affaires
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
H.E. The Most Honorable Ambassador, Dr. Mighty Gabby.
Ms. Aneesha Allie, Consular Officer at the Consulate of the
Cooperative Republic of Guyana.
Brother David Denny, President of the Caribbean Movement
for Peace and Integration.
My brother poet Winston Farrell.
My sister poet Sonia Williams
My brother Federico Weekes, Representative of the
Association of Cuban Residents ¨Martyrs of Barbados¨.

Dear friends, Today, at this time, we are convened here at this monument that is sacred for all Cubans for the commemoration of the 45 th anniversary of the bombing of the Cubana Flight 455 over the waters of Barbados on October 6, 1976.
If I am allowed a personal recollection, that day I learned of the event minutes after it had happened while I was at the International Airport José Marti in Havana, waiting to board a flight that would take me to Mexico City in transit for my first visit to Washington, D.C., to attend a meeting of the International Council for Science. Living through all those days for a week while in the USA was a very special way to mourn those victims. Although it was not confirmed yet, there was little doubt who was behind that heinous attack. Violent groups in Miami who had already started a number of aggressions to Cuban diplomatic and economic
representations, as well as to progressive movements, even within the USA, manned with operatives that had been trained for years since the previous decade by the Central Intelligence Agency of the USA, who had been involved in violent actions throughout the world and also within the USA
were to be soon confirmed as the masterminds and organizers of the horrible bombing of the first civilian aircraft ever downed by a terrorist attack while on flight.
A quarter of a century later, four planes were used as bombs by terrorists in the USA, and the date of 9/11, 2001 was etched in the minds of all humanity as the birth moment of a war on terror. Not many people were able to realize this new war was only the offspring on a WAR OF STATE
ORGANIZED TERRORISM that had been waged for years against the downtrodden masses of the developing world and specially in Latin America and the Caribbean, in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Grenada, Brasil,
Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and so many other places. A terrorist war that had produced thousands of disappearances, killings, tortures and the like waged against peasants, workers, community leaders, teachers, priests, and ordinary people that were only trying to find better lives for their own
masses.
This heinous act of criminal terrorism is mainly remembered
by this monument , and similar places in Guyana, and Venezuela, as well as in the memory of many Cubans, Barbadians, Guyanese and Venezuelans; but there are generations now that have not heard of this event at all. It is
startling to learn that those flying that day were mostly young people in the prime of their lives, and that they were murdered out of hate and animosity by criminals that were protected later on by those in power in the United States who had been their promoters as CIA operatives for years.

That is why the book that Ambassador David Commissiong has just edited for this 45 anniversary is such an important historic document to enlighten our youth to the history of aggression that continue against our Caribbean civilization since the days of the slave trade, and continuously until now.

It is especially proper to recognize that this monument has turned into a place of remembrance and peregrination for those Cubans who come to serve in any capacity in Barbados. Both peoples, Bajan and Cubans, are linked through familiar bonds brought about by history and culture.

Today the main group of Cuban specialists serving here in Barbados is formed by the nurses and doctors of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside their Bajan sisters and brothers. All of them come to this monument to pledge their commitment to the task they are here to accomplish and to swear their personal involvement in the river of history that runs from the blood of those who gave here in these waters their young lives, over the thousands that for centuries laid their flesh and blood as the foundation of our civilizations, enslaved by the same
imperial powers that continue today to oppress and exploit our children.
What is also especially shocking is that the present government of the same country that trained those criminals and protected them afterwards is now accusing Cuba of being a state sponsor of terrorism, and that is now using that innuendo to increase the economic, financial and commercial war that has waged against Cuba for over six decades, and all
this even in the midst of a world pandemic that is killing millions all over the world, but in worse droves here in this part of the world.
While the Caribbean countries have promoted the vision of the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace and have defended this concept in all international venues, and Caribbean countries have all come to help each other against pandemics, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, hurricanes and every kind of catastrophes, many of them increased and aggravated by
climatic changes produced by unconscious ways of abuse of the environment promoted elsewhere, the biggest economy of the world wages this aggression on a small island country of the Caribbean.
It is more impressive that this 45 Anniversary of the Crime in
Barbados finds us immersed here in the Celebration of the 15 Quadriennial Meeting of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development, while all of us are struggling to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the decade to finally either accomplish the preservation of our environmental conditions for human sustainable development in the long run, or lose the fight for a more humane future for our planet earth
and our societies. It is against that background that the present criminal behavior to make the Cuban people suffer while fighting this pandemic proves that the Crime is still in the making.
But Cuba will continue to fight for development and will continue to help all our sisters and brothers in the Caribbean and all over the world sharing what we have, not what we do not need. Cuban vaccines are now covering completely almost half of our population, and they have been already offered to many countries and especially those of Latin America and the Caribbean. The process of recommendation by WHO has been started and will eventually finish, and their export is being prepared as we speak.

In spite of the fact that Cuba is subject to a constant aggression and now for over six decades, we have been able to develop our capabilities for help our sisters and brothers, and will continue to do so.
That is the behavior of the Cuba Revolution, and that is our way to continuing honoring our fallen heroes and martyrs.
Long live the martyrs of Cubana flight 455!
Thank you.