On October 6, 1976, a crime against humanity deeply affected the people of Cuba: the blowing up of a civil aeronautics plane in which 73 people were travelling, including the victorious and youthful national fencing team that was returning home with all laurels, for his successful participation in the Central American and Caribbean Championship, held in Caracas, Venezuela.
There were no survivors of this monstrous event that had the decisive support of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), entrusted to the notorious assassins and assassins Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who died years later without paying for this and other crimes, and made a reality by the executing hands of the Venezuelans Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo.
A small Korean delegation, a girl and 10 crew members, as well as 10 young Guyanese who came to study medicine on the island, were also passengers on the Cubana de Aviación DC-8, which was on flight CU-455.
Commander in Chief Fidel Castro himself, in the act of farewell and mourning for the victims of the sabotage, held in the Plaza de la Revolución on October 15, with the assistance of a million Cubans, expressed that if there had been doubts before about the implication of the CIA, there was evidence, expressed in messages sent by that institution to a Cuban mercenary, suggesting that she was the very likely author of the plans for the terrible sinister.
In these instructions, the Agency was very interested in knowing what measures would be taken in Cuba to avoid and prevent terrorist acts.
The leader wondered what interest the United States could have in the matter if it were not up to its neck in the macabre affair.
Similarly, although the US authorities pretended to be uncomfortable with the actions and violent record of the henchmen of the Cuban counterrevolution based there, the truth is that they never stopped giving them tortuous assignments, advice and abundant financial support.
The savage attack, after a stopover in Barbados, became the crystallization of a series of attacks that the Cuban counterrevolution announced and even published in the press without any hesitation, saying that they had plans to blow up a plane from the Antillean Island in the middle of flight. After the crime, both Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles publicly bragged about their barbarities.
The material authors, Lugo and Ricardo, made part of the flight together with the unfortunate passengers and were eyewitnesses to the joy of the team, brimming with life and promises. None of this stopped them and, without a qualm of conscience, these vermin planted the two planned explosive charges, from C-4, and calmly got off the aircraft during a stopover in Barbados.
The first failures and deadly explosions occurred just minutes after leaving that country. Everything happened quickly, without giving time for anything that could save the passengers and crew. And it is clear that they tried with great skill.
A reflection of Fidel is always remembered, in which he wondered what kind of horror or unspeakable feelings those human beings had suffered in those last minutes of their lives, without understanding anything, stuck in such a hell. In addition, it is a disturbing and humanistic concern that is not forgotten.
Of course, Fidel was not wrong in his judgment about the CIA's responsibility. That was one more event of the several perpetrated during that year, whose format corresponded squarely with the methods of the famous Agency. These were aggressions and terrorist attacks against Cuba abroad, carried out materially by paid mercenaries.
Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the CIA were especially present at meetings of counterrevolutionary groups, both at home and abroad. This is how they learned of the intentions of these groups to blow up a Cuban aircraft in mid-flight, months before the villainy perpetrated on the Barbadian stopover. Moreover, they took the baton on it.
Although they had been sent to meet in the Dominican Republic in early June 1976, nothing was alien to these institutions.
Therefore, at the convenience of the United States, for various rather tactical and not moral reasons, the Barbados crime plan was carried out by counterrevolutionary organizations united outside the territory of the northern power.
However, far from leaving them without support, he was seriously involved in the organization and "logistics", to call it in some way, and then in the protection of the barbarians who conceived and executed the horrible event. He freed Orlando Bosch from the beginning of all guilt and helped Posada Carriles to escape happily from prison years later. There they died with the placidity of angels, yes: exterminators.New evidence of CIA involvement was revealed four decades later, in June 2015, when documents declassified by the State Department corresponding to October and November 1976 were released.
In these, the then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, expressed his concern about the CIA's links with terrorist groups of Cuban origin, especially those related to the incident off the coast of Barbados.
Cubans have never forgotten their brothers who died on that fateful day. Much less because from the beginning the great imperial press wanted to downplay the issue, trying to impose the version that it was an accident.
A Cuban commission, in which the expert Julio Lara Alonso participated, demonstrated endlessly with technical tests that the plane fell into the sea due to the explosion of two bombs and the exact location of both artifacts was proven.
To the terrible blow that that savagery meant for the deceased, their relatives and relatives, was also added the great pain of the people as a whole, who lived days of mourning and homage, and of patriotic reaffirmation. For this reason, October 6 is a day also dedicated to the memory of the fallen victims of terrorism, an appointment that each year is a duty and a commitment that is born from the soul.