Farewell mourning for the victims of the plane attack on Barbados. Photo: Archive/Cubadebate.
The placement and maintenance of Cuba on the infamous list of countries that allegedly support terrorism or do not cooperate sufficiently by American standards has hybrid pretexts, but none with legal, moral, ethical or actual support.
It serves to apply unilateral coercive measures against the island and to deepen the genocidal blockade that has existed for more than six decades and is suffocating millions of Cubans; It is also used to defame a sovereign, participatory democratic and supportive political system; It enforces legal emigration, but also promotes illegal, unsafe and disorderly departure from the country using risky means, which has resulted in numerous deaths.
It is used to threaten investors in the national economy under the false pretext of “trading with the enemy.” It is an illegitimate basis for sanctioning companies, ships, companies and banks that defy sanctions against Cuba, a country that is a victim of terrorism in all its forms. manifested since 1959.
It is not recent history that can be passed on to new generations; In less than three years, there have been two serious terrorist attacks on the country’s embassy in the United States. In April 2020, a gunman emptied a magazine from an assault rifle at its facilities and on September 24, an attacker attempted to burn all officials and family members of this diplomatic headquarters when he threw them against the property armed with two homemade firebombs. Neither of these two attacks were solved, nor were the perpetrators brought to justice. The impunity of the first attack inspired the second and will encourage others with the approval of the authorities responsible for ensuring the security of diplomatic missions accredited to the United States.
The terrorism rooted in Cuban emigration has been and continues to be a case of domestic terrorism on the territory of the United States since its inception. It has compromised this country’s national security and damaged its public and private interests. Airlines were threatened, bombs were dropped on them, resulting in significant casualties and damage, but the political will of successive governments in the United States aimed at destroying the Cuban system has allowed it to endure to this day.
We remember the 47th anniversary of the shooting down of a Cuban civilian aircraft while flying in the territorial waters of Barbados on October 6, 1976, and the case still remains unpunished, its intellectual instigators and conspirators died on the territory of the United States, a Land that gave them refuge and protection until the end.
One, Orlando Boschan international criminal, a fugitive from justice, who refused to accept him when he was deported from Venezuela, whose President George HW Bush pardoned him and received him as a “good man” against the authority of his State and Justice Departments.
The other, Luis Posada CarrilesCIA agent since March 1963 who completed dozens of missions for that agency until he died in Miami with impunity for his crimes.
In June 1976, a group of terrorists of Cuban origin representing extremist organizations based in US territory met in Bonao, Dominican Republic. The coordinator was the aforementioned criminal Orlando Bosch, then a fugitive from US justice for violating his probation when he was accused of several crimes, including extorting Cuban émigrés using terrorist methods.
The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate future actions against Cuban missions, their personnel and interests of countries that maintained relations with the Cuban government despite pressure. Two meetings were held, one to establish the so-called Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), a terrorist alliance, and one to plan more than twenty terrorist attacks for immediate execution. All those present signed, except for the members of the fascist group Cuban Nationalist Movement, MNC, who claimed that they were carrying out an action ordered by the Directorate of the National Intelligence Service of Chile, DINA, which, as it later turned out, was nothing else, the assassination of the former Chilean ambassador to Washington, Orlando Letelier del Solar, carried out by a terrorist of Cuban origin on September 21, 1976.
The January 23, 1989 statement of Joe D. Whitley, assistant attorney general at Bosch’s admission to trial by the United States, supports his involvement in the downing of the Cuban plane with the conclusion: “Bosch, while outside the United States, founded and led the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), an anti-Castro terrorist organization that had to claim responsibility for numerous explosions in Miami, New York, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Argentina and other places.
The official US verdict continued: “In October 1976, Bosch was arrested in Venezuela in connection with the explosion of a Cuban civilian airliner on October 6, 1976, which killed 73 men, women and children.” Although he was imprisoned in Venezuela for eleven years due to the charges arising from this incident, he was eventually released. Evidence was presented at his trial that the two men convicted of murder in connection with the explosion had contact with Bosch before and after the incident.”
The court ruling added: “Upon his release on May 17, 1988, Bosch was arrested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (SIN).” At that time, the director of the INS Miami district sent Bosch a temporary exclusion notice on the grounds that he was out of the country United States could be excluded because: “There is reason to believe that he would generally only seek entry into the United States if or incidentally to engage in activities that are detrimental to the public interest.”
Additionally: “Whoever is or has been a foreigner who advocates or teaches or has been a member of an organization that supports the necessity or desirability of attacking or killing officials of a government and injuring or destroying property and engaging in sabotage.” ”
The incumbent authorities concluded: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that upon entry he would likely engage in activities that would be prohibited by United States law relating to espionage, sabotage, public disorder, or other activities subverting the national interest. “ The statement also stated that Bosch could also be excluded because of his conviction “a crime of moral reprehensibility, more than a simple political crime.”
What came next? The criminal was pardoned by the aforementioned president, but there was a reason why the then president was the director of the CIA when the plane exploded.
It is now known that the international terrorist is of Cuban origin Pablo Gustavo Castillo Diaz, alias El Cojo, one of the material perpetrators of the assassination of the Cuban technician Artaigñán Díaz Díaz, which occurred in Mexico on July 23, 1976, He was the one who surveyed Cuban flight routes in the Caribbean and selected the ship that was later damaged.
When Orlando Bosch was arrested in Caracas on October 11, 1976, he was accompanied by the aforementioned Castillo, who explained that he had prepared the bombs that were later planted on the plane by Venezuelan mercenaries Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano. The omnipresent CIA incriminates itself with its own declassified secret documents testifying to its prior knowledge of the plans to shoot down the Cuban plane, and it has done nothing to prevent it, it has not transmitted a simple warning to the authorities. Cuban.
A secret CIA document declassified and dated October 13, 1976, marked “Country No. 7514,” identified the source as: “A former Venezuelan government official who is usually a reliable informant” and warned: “This information must not be discussed with foreign officials, including those of the Venezuelan government.”
The text accompanying the demolition plan states: “Bosch made the statement: “After our organization leaves the Letelier workplace in good condition, we will try something else.” The report adds: “A few days later at a benefit dinner, Posada was heard saying, “We’re going to attack a Cuban plane” and “Orlando has the details.”
Previously, on June 22, 1976, the CIA had advance knowledge of the same plans to shoot down Cuban planes, according to this US agency’s document, dated and distributed that day, which read: “Secret report, sensitive, Sources and…” intelligence methods involved. Do not share the information with foreigners. Not redistributable to contractors or hired consultants. He then reviewed: “A businessman with close ties to the Cuban exile community.” He is usually a reliable informant. He revealed that an extremist group of Cuban exiles, whose leader is Orlando Bosch, is planning to plant a bomb on a Cubana de Aviación airline flight that operates between Panama and Havana. The original plans for this operation called for two bombs to be placed on Flight No. 467 of June 21, 1976, which was scheduled to depart Panama at 11:15 a.m. Panama time. This precise information was used to draw attention to the incident, but it was kept quiet and the hatred was greater.
Copies of the revealing document were sent to the State Department, the Army Intelligence Directorate, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the FBI and the CIA, but the Cuban government was not the recipient of this information, which even stated that there were two There would be bombs planted, as happened later in Barbados, mentioned the criminal Orlando Bosch as the leader of the crime and that the target would be a civilian airliner Cubana de Aviación and everything that was known to the CIA four months before October 6, when 73 people lost their lives. lives, including 57 Cubans.
New revelations will continue to emerge about this terrible crime, which marks its 47th anniversary this year “Injustice still trembles”.
October 6, 2023