My friends died in a plane explosion 40 years ago

Oct 02, 2016 Features / Columnists, My Column

It was a Wednesday, almost 40 years ago when an incident so rocked Guyana that people were speechless. Many cried and the incident became a talking point across Guyana. The date was October 6, 1976.
England were touring the West Indies that year. Guyana National Service was compulsory for anyone pursuing a Government scholarship and there were many. Guyana as a member of the Non Aligned Movement was enjoying a lot of offers. There were scholarships from many countries including Yugoslavia, Cuba, Poland and Russia. I was heading to Jamaica,
To satisfy the National Service component of our scholarships that year, we travelled to Papaya, way up in the North West. We came from all walks of life but the trip by boat to Port Kaituma and the train ride to Matthews Ridge served as unifying force. We were all people with a mission, ‘Get the scholarship, do well and comeback to be somebody in the society.”
Forget the details of the trip from Port Georgetown. Suffice it to say that it was nice for those who liked adventure. People vomited but for the greater part we lay under tarpaulin stretched across the deck for nearly 24 hours until we reached Morawhanna.
Forget about bathing. Those among us who were sophisticated were soon exposed as very ordinary people. That is what national service did. It made people understand the life of others. We did reach Camp Papaya and the fun began. We marched, played, protested to the point of having Joyce Sinclair flying from the city to appease this bunch of upstarts who were upset with what was happening to us at times.
The life at Papaya ended and we met for one grand farewell at the Sophia Exhibition Centre. We did not return to the city by boat; we flew and again some vomited in that old Dakota the likes of which no longer the local skies.
The meeting at Sophia, s I said, was out farewell. That was the day Michael Holding grabbed eight English wickets on a dead pitch. There was Prime Minister Burnham taking and there were those of us who had more interest in the cricket.
We had made firm friends and all of us knew that our lives would not be the same ever again. We had all come to realize that there was no class to divide us. Yes, there were the gregarious and the quiet ones. There were the ones who had led sheltered lives before Papaya but who were no longer the sheltered person they were.
I flew out of Guyana on Wednesday September 28, 1976. With me was my friend Arnon Adams. Our first night landed us with some Guyanese who had gone there before us and who were always glad to see another. A new life had begun.
Jamaica had television (black and white) so that magic box grabbed out attention. Of course, it showed old North American reruns except for Saturdays and Sundays when the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation would film local programmes. Test matches at Sabina Park were shown live but not with the number of cameras that we see today.
And so it was that one Wednesday afternoon, having come from classes at the Mona Campus that we heard the news of an aircraft goi9ng down off the coast of Barbados. Shocking as that news was we did not get the full grasp of what really happened. We knew at Air Cubana had gone down but not in our wildest dreams did we realize that some of the people who had shared their lives with us at Papaya in the North West were on that aircraft.
Gradually more and more information began to filter in. Then came the numbers. In the end Cubans, Guyanese and North Koreans died on that aircraft after it exploded. We went to classes the nest day, Thursday, and tried to read everything there was to read. The Cubans released the names of the dead; the Jamaican newspapers published. I saw the names of my friends and like Arnon, I was shattered.
There was no Internet and no social media back then. People communicated the old fashioned way. They wrote letters or used the telephone but then again, the telephone was not ubiquitous. Further, Guyana and Jamaica still had to book calls and wait on the operators to make the connections.
There were those of my relatives who knew that I was to travel and concluded that I was among the dead. They tormented my mother.
Forbes Burnham hosted a large rally at Square of the Revolution. He asked Barbados to hand over the terrorists who bombed the plane. He said that het aircraft went down in Barbados territorial waters and so gave Barbados the right to try the criminals. e begged Barbados to hand over the people w But Tom Adams, who had just come to office, balked.
Burnham promised to forever remember those Guyanese who were going to study to return to help develop their country. A pity that the PPP administration did not place such an emphasis on the Cubana Disaster. The Cubans in Guyana kept it alive and for that I am grateful.
Those bodies have never been recovered. The mother of one of the victims lost her mind and for the others there may never be closure. For me, there will always be the memory of young people who did not live to see children and grandchildren because they might have been grandparents today.
Of course, Dr George Norton and Mrs Monica Sagala, two young people whom I taught science at Bartica, replaced my dead colleagues so I see these two in a different light because they are my link to my colleagues who died on October 6, 1976.

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One thought on “My friends died in a plane explosion 40 years ago”

Henry Horton October 2, 2016 at 7:35 pm

Perhaps the issue should be resurrected and IN PARTICULAR, the USA asked to EXPLAIN WHY THE PERPETRATOR OF THIS ATTACK WAS FREED BY A US COURT!! I remember reading that the VENEZUELANS were demanding his extradition,some time ago.Interestingly, the USA is always preaching about human rights in Guyana, and has never been challenged for their involvement (directly or indirectly) in this act of terrorism. In Guyana itself everyone appears to be suffering from amnesia, perhaps conveniently!!

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