Cubana disaster, the Caribbean 9/11

Oct 06, 2016 News

By George Alleyne
A Barbadian social activist, David Comissiong, has branded the Cubana air disaster of 40 years ago, the Caribbean’s 9/11 event and deemed it as important as the tragedy on American soil in 2001.
Comissiong made the comment Tuesday, at the launch of a series of activities this week, commemorating the event of October 6, 1976, that saw all 73 persons on board the Cuba-bound aircraft die after two bombs exploded in quick succession, plunging the plane, that had just departed Barbados’s Grantley Adams Airport, into the island’s coastal waters just off an area, known as Payne’s Bay.
Those perishing in the flight were 11 Guyanese, six of them students heading to Cuba to commence university studies; five North Koreans; and 57 Cubans, including the flight crew.
Two Venezuela-born men who had disembarked the flight in Barbados and later returned to Trinidad on way back to their homeland were arrested and eventually confessed to the crime.
But though imprisoned in Venezuela, two other men, the masterminds of the tragedy, were never brought to civilian trial, as they twice escaped from prison, and one eventually passed away, while the other, Luis Posada Carriles, is resident in Miami, a free man.
“We must acknowledge that the Cubana terrorist tragedy was a precedent-setting act of terrorism. It is the first time in history that a civilian airline, packed with civilian passengers was subjected to that type of terrorist atrocity,” said Comissiong, who is a member of the Barbadian-Cuban Friendship Association.
“The Americans speak a lot about the tragedy of 9/11, but we need to remember that a full 25 years before 9/11, there was the Caribbean 9/11, the Third World’s 9/11, and that is the terrorist bombing of that Cubana flight that caused the death of every single person on board.”
The Cubana aircraft was island-hopping enroute to Cuba, having left Guyana, stopped in Trinidad, then on to Barbados, with the next planned destination being Jamaica before arrival in Cuba.
“This Cubana tragedy is actually a pivotal event in world history. It is not a minor event,” Comissiong said, and added, “If 9/11 in the United States of America is an event of world significance, the Cubana terrorist tragedy is also an event of world significance.”
Also launched Tuesday was an exhibition of Guyana and Barbados newspaper clippings on the tragedy.
This exhibition will remain at the Clement Payne Cultural Centre, in Bridgetown through the week of commemoration.
On Thursday Barbadian government officials, Cuban representatives – including the son of a passenger on the ill-fated Cubana flight will lay wreaths at the shores of Payne’s Bay, where a monument to the disaster was erected in 1998.

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