People's Democracy

"JUSTICE MUST BE DONE"

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN!

History can be unpredictable and move along strange labyrinths. Twenty-five years ago, in this very same square, we bid a final farewell to a small number of coffins. They contained tiny fragments of human remains and personal belongings of some of the 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese-most of them students on scholarships in Cuba-and five North Korean cultural officials who were the victims of a brutal and inconceivable act of terrorism. What was particularly moving was the death of almost the entire Cuban juvenile fencing team, both women and men, coming home with every single one of the gold medals awarded in this sport at a Central American and Caribbean tournament.

A million of our fellow countrymen, with tears filling their eyes and running down their cheeks, gathered here to bid a more symbolic than actual farewell to our brothers and sisters whose bodies rested on the ocean floor.

Nobody, except for a group of friendly personalities and institutions, shared our pain and sorrow. There was no upheaval around the world, no acute political crises, no United Nations meetings, nor the imminent threat of war.

Who could have predicted that almost exactly 25 years later, a war with totally unpredictable consequences would be on the verge of breaking out as a result of an equally heinous terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people in the United States? Back then, in what now appears to be a tragic omen, innocent people from various countries died; this time, there were victims from 86 nations.

The cold figure of 73 innocent people murdered in Barbados cannot possibly express the significance and magnitude of the tragedy. Americans will better understand by comparing the population of Cuba 25 years ago with that of the United States on September 11, 2001. The death of 73 people aboard a Cuban jetliner blown up in mid-flight is to the US people as if seven American jetliners, with over 300 hundred passengers each, had been destroyed in full flight the same day, at the same time, by a terrorist conspiracy.

We could still go further and say that if we were to consider the 3,478 Cubans who have perished in over four decades as a result of acts of aggression - including the invasion by the Bay of Pigs as well as all the other terrorist acts sustained by Cuba, which originated in the United States - it would be as if 88,434 people had died in that country, that is, a figure almost similar to the number of Americans who died in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.

There were, however, a few differences between the monstrous crime in Barbados and the abhorrent, unimaginable terrorist attack against the American people. In the United States, the act was the work of fanatics willing to die alongside their victims, while in Barbados it was the work of mercenaries who did not run the slightest risk. In the United States, the main goal of the perpetrators was not that of killing the passengers. They hijacked the planes to attack the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, albeit absolutely mindless of the death of the innocent traveling with them. In Barbados, the basic objective of the mercenaries was to kill the passengers.

In both cases, the anguish suffered by the travelers in those final minutes of their lives, particularly the passengers on the fourth plane hijacked in the United States - who already knew what had happened in New York and Washington - must have been unbearable, the same as that of the crew and passengers of the Cuban plane during the desperate attempt to land when it was clearly impossible for them to do so.

There is moving filmed footage of the horrific events in New York. As for the explosion of the plane off the coasts of Barbados and its plunge into the sea, there could not be, and there is not, so much as a photograph.

This was the first time in the history of Latin America that such an act had been promoted from abroad.

ERA OF HIJACKING

Actually, the systematic use of such politically motivated ruthless and fearsome practices and procedures was initiated in this hemisphere against our country. But, it was preceded in 1959 by another equally absurd and irresponsible practice: that of hijacking and diverting planes in mid-flight, a phenomenon that was practically unknown in the world at the time.

The majority of hijackings and diversions of Cuban aircraft took place between 1959 and 1973. Faced with the risk of a major catastrophe in the United States or Cuba - given that there were even hijackers who, once they had the plane under control, threatened to fly it into the Oak Ridge nuclear power station [in the United States] if their demands were not met - on the initiative of the government of Cuba an agreement was signed with the government of the United States - led at the time by President Richard Nixon, with William Rogers as Secretary of State - to deal with cases of aircraft hijacking and maritime piracy.

From that date forward, there was a considerable reduction in the hijacking of Cuban planes, and for more than ten years, every attempted hijacking in our country was foiled.

With the brutal terrorist attack that led to the explosion of the Cuban plane in mid-flight,in late 1975, Cuba denounced the agreement, in full accordance with the clauses stipulated therein, while continuing to apply the sanctions provided in its own Penal Code against highjackers. As a result of these measures for the last 17 years there has not been a single further hijacking or diversion of an U.S. plane to Cuba.

Dramatic events like the assassination of President Kennedy led to in-depth investigations, like that carried out by an U.S. Senate Committee. The embarrassing situations and major scandals that resulted forced a change in tactics, although there was never really any change in the policy towards Cuba. As a consequence, after periods of relative calm, new waves of terrorism have continued to break out.

This is exactly what happened in late 1975. With the exposure of the direct responsibility of the CIA for assassination plots and terrorist acts against Cuba, the most trustworthy and best-trained terrorist personnel were put into 'independent' groups, and coordinated into an organization called the CORU.

Only eight weeks later, the Cuban jetliner was blown up in mid-flight. Hernán Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, the two Venezuelan mercenaries who planted the bomb during the Trinidad and Tobago-Barbados leg of the flight, got off the plane in Barbados and returned to Trinidad, where they were arrested and immediately confessed to their involvement and that they were working for the CIA. The Barbados Police Commissioner added that Ricardo had pulled out a CIA card and another one where the rules for the use of C-4 plastic explosives were described.

On October 24, 1976, The New York Times indicated that "the terrorists who launched a wave of attacks in seven countries during the last two years were the product and instruments of the CIA."

The Washington Post noted that confirmed contacts with the U.S. embassy in Venezuela "cast doubt" on the statement issued on October 15 by U.S. Secretary o0f State Henry Kissinger, with regard to the claim that "no one related to the U.S. government had anything to do with the sabotage of the airplane" from Cuba.

Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who masterminded the terrorist crime, had links with the CIA dating back to 1960. Arrested, the Venezuelan magistrate, Dr. Delia Estaba Moreno, initiated legal proceedings against them for murder, manufacture and use of firearms, and forging and carrying of false documents. But her honesty and integrity provoked a violent reaction among the extreme right-wing political mobsters.

General Elio García Barrios, the presiding judge of the Military Appeal Court, maintained a steadfast and determined stance, thanks to which the two terrorists were forced to spend a number of years in prison. But, the Miami terrorist mob took revenge by riddling one of his sons with bullets in 1983.

NEITHER FROM HATRED NOR RANCOUR

This denunciation we are making here today is not inspired by either hate or rancour. I understand that American officials do not even want to hear us raise these embarrassing issues. They say that we simply should look ahead.

However, it would be senseless not to look back at the sources of errors whose repetition should be avoided, and at the causes of major human tragedies, wars and other calamities that, perhaps, could have been prevented. There should not be innocent deaths anywhere in the world.

This massive demonstration against terrorism has been called to pay homage and tribute to the memory of our brothers and sisters who died off the coasts of Barbados 25 years ago, but also to express our solidarity with the thousands of innocent people who died in New York and Washington. We are here to condemn the brutal crime committed against them while supporting the search for ways conducive to a real and lasting eradication of terrorism, to the prevalence of peace and against the development of a bloody and open-ended war.

I am deeply convinced that relations between the terrorist groups created by the United States in the first 15 years of the Revolution, to act against Cuba, and the US authorities have never been severed.

On a day such as this, it is only right that we ask what will be done about all those who have plotted against our country and have been restlessly trying, for over four decades, to murder Cuban leaders.

It is not too much to ask that justice be done, for these professional terrorists have not ceased in their work to destroy the economy of a harassed and blockaded nation, one from which terrorist devices have never come - not even a gram of explosives - to blast in the United States. Never has an American been injured or killed, nor has a facility big or small in that large and rich country, ever suffered the least damage from any action coming from Cuba.

As we are involved in the worldwide struggle against terrorism, -committed to take part alongside the United Nations and the rest of the international community - we have the full moral authority and the right to demand the end of terrorism against Cuba. The economic warfare, itself a genocide and a brutal act to which our people have been subjected for more than 40 years, should also end.