October 6 is a date that hurts. Cuba does not forget its children, victims of terrorism. On that day in 1976, a Cubana de Aviación plane exploded in mid-flight, taking the lives of the 73 people on board.
By María Josefina Arce
October 6 is a date that hurts. Cuba does not forget its children, victims of terrorism. On that day in 1976, a Cubana de Aviación plane exploded in mid-flight, taking the lives of the 73 people on board.
The Crime of Barbados shook Cuba, which never ceased to denounce the impunity of the masterminds of the terrorist attack, in which 57 Cubans, five North Koreans and 11 Guyanese who were traveling to our country to study medicine lost their lives.
Orlando Bosh and Luis Posada Carriles, the organizers of such a vile crime, were never brought to justice, despite the existence of irrefutable evidence of their links with that heinous act and with the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.
In fact, the material authors, Hernán Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, of Venezuelan nationality, admitted having worked for Posada Carriles and having been trained by the CIA.
Various U.S. administrations protected the culprits. They even refused to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela, to answer for that fact, and where he had also tortured several detainees when he was acting in the South American nation in the 70's of the last century as commissary of the political police.
Both terrorists died peacefully in the U.S. city of Miami, where, since the triumph of the Cuban revolution in January 1959, ultra-right-wing elements of Cuban origin have taken refuge.
The United States openly violated UN Security Council Resolution 1373, approved unanimously in September 2001, which obliges all states, without exception, to act so that any individual linked to terrorism is brought to justice.
In connection with this abominable event, the Council of State established October 6 as the Day of the Victims of Terrorism, in perennial remembrance of the more than 3,400 Cubans who have lost their lives as a result of this type of action.
This, like so many other crimes, demonstrates the double standards of the United States, which crusades against those it arbitrarily considers to be harboring and financing terrorists and, on the other hand, protects these criminals in its territory.
October 6 hurts, but it also outrages us, given the impunity of those who take lives, cause suffering to families and to a whole people, who like the Cuban people, do not forget their children.
