Dear Prime Minister, La Honorable Mia Amor Mottley;
Dear President, Her Excellency La Muy Honorable Sandra Prunella Mason;
Distinguished Barbadian authorities;
Collaborators, Cuban residents, and Barbadian friends;
Caribbean brothers;
Compatriots present here:
We gathered in front of this historic monument, which went up in memory of 73 people, including 24 teenagers and a pregnant woman of a boy, who were innocent victims of the first act of terrorism against civil aviation in our hemisphere.
The historical documents report that on October 6, 1976, at 12:23 hours, one minute after leaving the airport at Seawell, at an altitude of 18,000 feet, the captain of the aircraft was heard from the control tower from Cubana de Aviación, Wilfredo Pérez Pérez, shout ¡Cuidado!
An explosion had occurred in the passenger cabin of the plane. After a few minutes of maneuvering to control the aircraft, a second explosion occurred, the pilot lost control and the plane fell into the water a few kilometers in front of this beach.
On October 7, 1976, the Instituto de Aeronáutica Civil de Cuba, after carrying out a thorough and exhaustive investigation of the passengers, officially informed that among the 73 passengers who perished, 57 were Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and 5 Koreans.
This horrendous crime has been denounced on countless occasions by the United Nations Organization and the Security Council. However, overturned judgments, inexplicable acquittals, and unfulfilled convictions have gone unpunished to the perpetrators of this abominable act of terrorism.
On August 1998, the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, as part of his tour to the Caribbean, unveiled this monument to the victims of sabotage on the DC-8 aircraft of Cubana de Aviación, sentenced: “ What can never be imagined by those who commit great crimes against the people in the intoxication of their impunity and in the ephemeral nature of their power, is that the truth is always revealed sooner or later”.
El pueblo de Cuba does not forget those who were cruelly injured in Barbados and were immortalized in this monument near Paynes Bay.
On a day like today, while paying tribute to the martyrs of Barbados, I ratify Cuba's strongest condemnation of the terrorism of which we have been victims, including state terrorism, as we reject the outrageous, arbitrary, and unjustified inclusion of our country on the spurious list of states sponsoring terrorism.
Here we are accompanied by one of the Cubans who were unjustly deprived of their dear family members, Carlos Alberto Cremata, our Tin.
That boy, deprived of his most beloved playmate, his best conductor, and his guide, channeled his deep pain into art and created a theater company inspired by love. He didn't feed the hate, he didn't swear revenge, he didn't ask "eye for an eye".
His project, the prestigious Colmenita, an authentic Cuban school of art and feelings where all Cuban priests want to have their children, is inspired by a sentence that José Martí wrote in his magazine for children “The Golden Age” La Edad de Oro:
Martí:says “Having talent is having a good heart; the one who has a good heart, is the one who has talent. Naughty people are all foolish. The good people are those who win the battle in the long run”.
If we are here today, together with the young man who was that child, paying tribute to his father and to other victims of this crime so despicable, it's because the good people want to leave. Cuba saved love from the claws of hate!
But… “watch out”, Cuba does not forget either. We denounce, while the tribune is open to our denunciation that the very hatred of those who guaranteed impunity to terrorists has changed into an unacceptable offense to the victims that continue to cause pain to Cuba by putting their name on a spurious list of sponsors of terrorism.
This site, this memorial, confirms that Cuba can only be on the list, if it exists, of the victims of terrorism.
I ask a moment for the Cubans present today to exclaim the verses of Bonifacio Byrne:
“If ripped into thin pieces
will be my flag someday...
our dead people raising their arms
will know how to defend it still!”
Glory to our heroes and martyrs!