Barbados crime: 48 years after an atrocious event

Forty-eight years have passed since that atrocious event and we still remember with deep sorrow October 6, 1976, a day of mourning for Cuba due to the horrendous Crime of Barbados in which 73 people on board a Cubana de Aviacion aircraft died physically.

On that day, the lives of each one of the victims were snatched away in the cruelest way, and it hurts very much to know that the intellectual authors of that vile sabotage were never tried.

The terrible fact had as ringleaders the Cuban-born terrorists Luis Posada Carriles (1928-2018) and Orlando Bosch Avila (1926-2011), employees of the U.S. empire, who died without answering to justice for their crimes.

The investigative commission and the Cuban expert Julio Lara Alonso proved to the point of exhaustion that the aircraft, a US-made Douglas DC-8, fell into the sea as a result of two explosions, the second one in the rear bathroom of the passenger cabin, which caused the downing of the aircraft.

As a consequence of this vile act, 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five Koreans died.

As a result of this horrendous event, October 6 was established as the Day of the Victims of State Terrorism, a day to demand an end to impunity and violent actions against the Caribbean nation.

Among the passengers who perished in the abominable attack were 24 members of the island's youth fencing team, who successfully competed at the 4th Central American and Caribbean Fencing Championship, where they won all the titles.

These young people were happy for their successes and it is painful that murderous hands cut short their dreams in the most inhumane way, that is why we cannot cease in our efforts to fight for the truth to be known.
To pay a well-deserved tribute, every year in Cuba, a traditional pilgrimage is held at the Cristobal Colon Cemetery, attended by relatives of the victims, fencers and the population in general. In addition, at the Cerro Pelado High Performance Athletes Training School in Havana, athletes and coaches repudiate the cruel murder.

Likewise, other countries such as Venezuela commemorate the sad fact that the Cuban fencing delegation left the Maiquetia Airport undefeated, full of triumphs, gold medals and dreams, which were interrupted by the hatred of savage and unscrupulous people.

Those outstanding fencers will forever be part of the rich history of Cuba's sports movement, which counts in that discipline with illustrious world-class athletes such as Ramon Fonst, Rolando Tucker, Elvis Gregory or Zuleidis Ortiz, just to mention a few names.

It is then up to the current generation that makes up the national team of the discipline to follow the example of those who preceded them, as a way of paying tribute to them in order to make their legacy last.