Cuban and CARICOM officials lay wreaths in memory of the passengers who lost their lives in the bombing of Cubana de Aviacíon Flight 455, during a commemoration ceremony for the 48th anniversary of the Bombing of Cuban Airlines Flight 455 and the second CARICOM-Cuba Day against Terrorism at the the Cubana Monument, Paynes Bay, St James, Barbados.
SPEECH AT THE MONUMENT IN PAYNES BEACH BY
THE CUBAN AMBASSADOR YANET STABLE
CÁRDENAS. OCTOBER 6, 2024.
Good morning.
The Hon. Sandra Husbands, Acting Minister of Foreign
Affairs and Foreign Trade; The Hon. Charles McD. Griffith,
Minister of Sports, Youth and Community Empowerment;
Mr. Wayne McCook, Assistant Secretary- General
CARICOM Single Market and Trade; His Excellency. David
Comissiong, Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM,
distinguished Mr. Trevor A. Prescod, J.P., member of the
Parliament and Special Envoy to the Prime Minister’s Office
with responsibility for reparations and economic;
distinguished Mr. Edmund G. Hinkson, , member of the
Parliament, Ambassador Alphea Wiggins, Special Envoy to
Guyana & Suriname; Her Excellency Geneva Ross Tyndall,
Consul General of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana to
Barbados, Her Excellency Martha Ortega, Chargé de
Affaires of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela to Barbados, other distinguished colleagues of
the Diplomatic Corp, esteemed officials of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, dear Tamara
Armenteros Alcee, official of the Institute of Friendship with
the Peoples that is visiting us, dear friends of the Barbados/
Cuba Friendship Association
Ladies and Gentlemen
Terror still surprises us when we look at the images of the
faces of those who boarded Cubana Airlines Flight 455.
How is so much evil possible?, we ask ourselves over and
over again, in the frustration of knowing that 73 people lost
their lives because of terror and cruelty.
Necessarily we have to resort to how the events took place
in order to get closer to the real dimension of this
abominable act.
On October 6, 1976, Cubana regular flight 455 had started
in Guyana. After a stopover in Trinidad & Tobago, the DC-8
plane arrived in Barbados with the aim of continuing
towards Jamaica and finally to Havana. That day, the flight
was interrupted. Nine minutes after take-off from Barbados
international airport the plane would drop into the sea,
victim of the explosion in tandem of two terrorist bombs.
The lives of all 73 passengers and crew on board, nationals
of Cuba, Guyana and Korea, were lost.
That same day, policemen in Trinidad &Tobago detained
two mercenaries from Venezuela who had committed the
crime on the instructions, and by proxy, for the two Cuban
origin intellectual authors, Luis Posada Carriles and
Orlando Bosch, trained and run by the Central Intelligence
Agency of the United States of America.
Judged and convicted, the culprits were smuggled out of jail
in 1985. Unexplained acquittals and unfulfilled sentences,
left the perpetrators of this abominable act of terrorism,
unpunished.
We were moved to cry every time we listened to the
recording of the black box, the only survivor of the explosion
and witness of the barbarism in mid-flight. “Stick to the
water, Felo, stick to the water!
We put ourselves in the place of the families at the moment
when they were confirmed that unfortunately the plane in
which their loved ones were traveling had suffered a
terrorist attack, and we feel their grief as our own.
The imprint of terror marks us when we imagine the
orphanhood that overshadowed the days of those children
whose father or mother were taken away by terror; when
parents, after losing their only daughter in that criminal act,
gave up on life; when a young man lost his only sister,
when a girlfriend was left waiting; when a life that had just
germinated in the womb of a woman never saw the light;
when many families were left with their arms open eternally
waiting for the return of their loved ones.
Unfortunately, the hate, bigotry and zealotry that fueled that
act, is still rampant. The children of Palestine and other
Middle Eastern countries today suffer from the prejudices of
terror and darkness.
The threats to the Cuban Revolution and the acts of
aggression under the blockade and the inclusion of Cuba in
the list of alleged country sponsors of terrorism are still in
place, without valid arguments and without reasons that
support such genocidal acts against a people that defends
its independence, fight for their dreams of justice for Cuba
and for the world. As stated by the Cuban Institute of
Friendship with the Peoples in its call for the Day for Peace,
against the Blockade and Terrorism that is being
celebrated, let us fight For a Free Palestine!; For a Cuba
without blockade!; For a future of peace and sovereignty!;
At a times when the defense of peace is urgent, we also
commemorate the Second anniversary of the “CARICOM-
Cuba Day Against Terrorism”, declared during the VIII
CARICOM- Cuba Summit held in Barbados in December
- This represents the reason and the voice of
condemnation of terrorism in any of its manifestations, not
to forget never to the victims of these acts and to maintain
the commitment of Caribbean people to Peace.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said in his
speech before this Monument on December 6, 2022 and I
quote: “Cuba does not forget either. We denounce, in every
tribune open to our denunciation, that the same hatred of
those who guaranteed impunity to terrorists moves those
who in unacceptable offense to the victims continue to
cause pain to Cuba, by putting their name in a spurious list
of sponsors of terrorism. This site, this memorial, confirms
that Cuba can only be on the list, if it existed, of the victims
of terrorism” and to paraphrase the eternal Commander in
Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, when he delivered his historic
speech on October 15, 1976, we would say today: When
energetic and virile peoples cry, injustice trembles!
Thank you very much.
ALL Photography: DAVID CRICHLOW.
