Athens, October 6. Today marks the 44th anniversary of what was called the "Crime of Barbados", on October 6, 1976, by a terrorist attack, which caused the destruction in mid-flight, of Cuban Aviation's CU-455 aircraft, which was heading from the island of Barbados to that of Jamaica bound for Havana. The 73 people on board the aircraft, a US-made Douglas DC-8, were killed in the until then worst attack of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most brutal acts of terrorism executed by people in the service of the CIA against the Cuban Revolution. In the luctuous fact two bombs were used, described as dynamite or explosive C-4.
The crime was organized at the time in the city of Caracas (Venezuela) by Cuban-born terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch Avila who employ Venezuelans Hernán Ricardo and Freddy Lugo to place the bombs inside the plane. These characters were arrested and prosecuted by the Venezuelan authorities, who sentenced the material perpetrators to 20 years in prison, while Orlando Bosch was initially arrested after alleged technical defects he was acquitted. For his part, Posada Carriles was detained for eight years while awaiting a final sentence, but managed to flee with the support of prison guards, years later, he lived peacefully until his natural death in the US, who never prosecuted him as a terrorist.
From the outing point the U.S. government put up obstacles to the condemnation of the UN Security Council, as they had collaborated with the fact and Posada Carriles himself was a CIA agent. Although Cuba had no concrete evidence at the time to officially accuse the U.S. government of its participation in CIA documents itself that were declassified in 2005 stating that the U.S. agency "had concrete advanced intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by exiled Cuban terrorist groups to bomb a Cuban airline."
The burial of the victims was held on October 15, 1976, to pay homage to them in the Revolution Square in Havana, more than a million people attended representing the Cuban people, seeing a strong representation of the aeronautical and sports society of the country in mourning for the attack on his co-workers who flew in that plane.
In the farewell of the victims was present the Cuban president, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, who gave an energetic speech where he made known the courage of the Cuban people and their pain at this loss when he expressed:
"Our crew members, our heroic air workers and all our selfless fellow cowardly sacrificed compatriots that day will live eternally in the memory, affection and admiration of our people! An increasingly revolutionary, dignified, more socialist and more internationalist homeland will be the great monument that our people erect to their memory and to that of all who have fallen or are to fall for the Revolution! We can't say that pain is shared. Pain multiplies. Millions of Cubans are crying today with the loved ones of the victims of the abominable crime. And when an energetic and virile people weep, injustice trembles!"
We have a memory, we cannot forget the acts of terrorism against Cuba. Eternal glory to the martyrs of theHomeland.Embacuba Grecia