October 6 marked the 40th anniversary of the terrorist attack on Cubana Airlines CU-455 carrying 73 persons, including students, athletes, and children. Flight CU-455 was scheduled to fly from Guyana to Cuba via Trinidad, Barbados, and Kingston, Jamaica.
According to reports, at 5:24 pm, nine minutes after takeoff from Barbados’ Seawell (now Grantley Adams International) airport and at an altitude of 18,000 feet, a bomb located in the aircraft’s rear lavatories exploded. The flight’s Captain, Wilfredo Pérez Pérez, radioed to the control tower: “We have an explosion aboard. We are descending immediately! … We have fire on board! We are requesting immediate landing! We have a total emergency!”
The plane went into a rapid descent as the pilots struggled to return the plane to Seawell Airport. A second bomb exploded in the ensuing following minutes. Realizing a successful landing was no longer possible, it appears that the pilot turned the craft away from the beach in its path and towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it crashed, saving the lives of many on the ground. The crash occurred about eight kilometers short of the airport.
All 48 passengers and 25 crew aboard the plane died: 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five North Koreans. Among the dead were all 24 members of the 1975 national Cuban Fencing team that had just won all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championships; many were teenagers.
Several officials of the Cuban government were also aboard the plane, including Manuel Permuy Hernández, director of the National Institute of Sports (INDER); Jorge de la Nuez Suárez, secretary for the shrimp fleet; Alfonso González, National Commissioner of firearm sports; and Domingo Chacón Coello, an agent from the Interior Ministry.
The five Koreans were government officials and a cameraman.
Among the 11 Guyanese victims were a number of young academic scholarship winners traveling to Cuba to pursue studies in medicine.
The names of the Guyanese murdered in this terrorist attack are:
- Eric Norton – age 18 – student
- Ann Nelson – age 18 – student
- Seshnarine Kumar – age 18 – student
- Jacqueline Williams – age 19 – student
- Rawle Thomas – age 18 – student
- Raymond Persaud – age 19 – student
- Margaret Bradshaw – The wife of a Guyanese Diplomat
- Gordon Sobha – Economist
- Sabrina Harripaul – age 9 – related to Violet and Rita Thomas
- Violet Thomas – related to Sabrina Harripaul and Rita Thomas
- Rita Thomas – related to Sabrina Harripaul and Violet Thomas
Cuban, Venezuelan and Trinidadian law enforcement authorities identified the perpetrators of the terrorist act as Herman Ricardo Lozano and Freddy Lugo, and their handlers and controllers, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch of the counter-revolutionary Cuban mafia organization, “CORU”.
Luis Posada Carriles remained free in the United States of America for years, as did Orlando Bosch Avila, Bosch, until his death on April 27, 2011.
Orlando Bosch Ávila was a Cuban exile, former Central Intelligence Agency-backed operative, and head of Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, which the FBI has described as “an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization”. Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called Bosch an “unrepentant terrorist.” Bosch’s role in the Cubana Airlines terrorist attack is alleged to have been plotted at a 1976 meeting in Washington, D.C. attended by Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, and agent Michael Townley of DINA (Chilean secret police in the government of Augusto Pinochet). At the same meeting, the assassination of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier is alleged to have been plotted.
Bosch was given safe haven within the US in 1990 (some reports say he was pardoned on July 18, 1990, of all American Charges) by President George H. W. Bush, who, in 1976, as head of the CIA, had declined an offer by Costa Rica to extradite Bosch to the US.
Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles, nicknamed Bambi by some Cuban exiles, is a Cuban exile militant terrorist. He is considered a terrorist by the FBI and the government of Cuba. He helped organize the Bay of Pigs invasion and, after it failed, became an agent for the CIA. He received training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and from 1964 to 1968, was involved with a series of bombings and other anti-Castro covert activities. He migrated to Venezuela in 1968. He was convicted in absentia in Panama of involvement in various terrorist attacks and plots in the Americas, including the Cubana Airline terrorist attack.
Posada and Orlando Bosch were involved in founding the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, described by the FBI as a terrorist outfit. In 1985, he re-established links to the CIA, and moved to Central America, where he became involved with the United States support to the Contras, and later admitted to playing a part in the Iran-Contra affair. It is alleged that Posada sought US Citizenship under a law applying to non-citizens who served honorably in the US military.
In 1998, on a visit to Barbados, Cuban President Fidel Castro dedicated a monument to the 73 victims of flight CU-455 in the Paynes Bay area.
On October 15, 2012, a monument was unveiled on the Turkeyen Campus of the University of Guyana in the vicinity of the pond, east of the University’s library. The monument takes the form of a fountain, four elevated stairs, a plaque with the names of those who died, and the flags of Guyana, Cuba, Barbados, and Korea.
All suspects are still at large or dead, and justice has never been served for the murder of those aboard that ill-fated flight. Families lives were irrevocably changed. As another anniversary passes, we owe it to the memories of those taken in this cowardly attack to never forget..
