Georgetown: Forty-one years after a terrorist bomb exploded on Cubana Airline Flight 455, causing it to crash into the sea off the coast of St. James, Barbados killing all 73 of the passengers and crew, President of the Guyana Cuba Solidarity Movement (GCSM) Haleem Khan is repeating calls for the rejection and condemnation of all acts of terrorism.
“We refuse to forget, we demand justice in the names of all those lost to these unspeakable acts of terror. We shall not forget, and we shall not give up,” Khan said.
On October 06, 1976 when the aircraft exploded just after take-off from Barbados, there were 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans on board. The Cuban national youth fencing team were among the dead, as were a number of young Guyanese academic scholarship winners who were traveling to Cuba to pursue studies in medicine.
The names of the 11 Guyanese are: Eric Norton, 18 years old, Ann Nelson, 18 years old, Seshnarine Kumar, 18 years old, Jacqueline Williams, 19 years old, Rawle Thomas, 18 years old, wife of a former Guyanese diplomat Margaret Bradshaw, Economist Gordon Sobha, Violet Thomas, Rita Thomas, Raymond Persaud and nine year old Sabrina Harripaul, who perished
A special commemoration is expected to be held on October 6, at the University of Guyana to mark the 41th anniversary of the Cubana Air Disaster which claimed the lives of 73 people, including 11 Guyanese. Other activities are also planned.
Investigations revealed that two types of bombs were used, variously described as dynamite or C-4.
President of the Guyana Solidarity Movement with Cuba, Haleem Khan explained that at its simplest, the mastermind of the tragedy walks freely in Miami, while those who sought to expose the terrorist actions of groups that targeted Cuba from the safe haven of the United States, were put behind bars. Those convicted are referred to as the Cuban Five.
At the Tribunal, testimony was heard from legal counsel and expert witnesses on the historical and political context, the arrests, trials and convictions of the Cuban Five, and events since the trial in Florida that resulted in the convictions.
According to Khan, on Sept. 12, 1998, a heavily-armed FBI SWAT team arrested the members of the Cuban intelligence network in Miami. The five agents were tried, convicted and sentenced to long prison terms, including one double life sentence, plus 15 years.
Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González were convicted in Miami of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign government, and other illegal activities in the United States.
The Cuban president, Raúl Castro, in 2015 named the five spies Heroes of the Republic, the Cuban government’s highest honour, for infiltrating rightwing exile groups that plotted against Havana after a 1959 uprising led by his brother Fidel Castro ousted a pro-US dictator.
Following the reversal of US policy towards Cuba under Barack Obama, who called for normalisation of ties, three of the five Cuban spies were freed on 17 December 2014 in an exchange for a Cuban man who had been jailed for nearly 20 years for spying on his own country for the Americans.
That same day Cuba released American aid worker Alan Gross in a humanitarian gesture after he had been held five years for bringing banned telecommunications equipment into Cuba. The other two Cubans had been released earlier after serving their terms.
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