Georgetown: President Irfaan Ali on Tuesday join others in commemorating the deaths of those who perished in the Cubana Air Disaster.
The 44th Anniversary of the Cubana Air Disaster was observed with a wreath laying ceremony that was held at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen campus.
Also in attendance were Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Charles Ramson Jnr, President of the Guyana Cuba Solidarity Movement (GCSM), Halim Khan; National Security Advisor to the President Gerry Gouveia, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd and special invitees.
The President and officials all laid wreaths at the monument erected in the honour of the victims. There were no speeches at the event.
All 73 passengers onboard the aircraft died. Among the victims were 57 Cubans, five Koreans and 11 Guyanese, six of whom were students on their way to study medicine and engineering in Cuba.
The Guyanese who perished in that tragedy were Raymond Persaud, Rawle Thomas, Jacqueline Williams, Rita Thomas, Harold Norton, Gordon Sobha, Ann Nelson, Margaret Bradshaw, Violet Thomas, Sabrina Harrypaul and Seshnarine Kumar. Today, we mourn this loss.
In an interview with this publication, President of the Guyana Cuba Solidarity Movement (GCSM), Halim Khan said forty four years ago a Douglas DC-8 aircraft trundled down the runway at Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados and took off, climbing into a blue Caribbean sky.
“As Flight 455 reached 18,000 feet, a bomb went off under an empty seat, the plane’s ascent slowed and it began to bank dangerously. Eight minutes later a second bomb went off in the toilet at the back of the plane and the plane plunged into the ocean. Everyone on board perished,” Khan said.
Further, he noted that the 73 persons on board perished including a girl, aged nine.
The GCSM President said Luis Posada Carriles, who was identified as a CIA-backed anti-Castro movement terrorist, was never convicted or faced any sanctions living out his old age somewhere in the US.
“This was confirmed by the CIA in 2005. The agency had concrete advance intelligence as early as June 1976 of plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups in Miami to bomb the airline,” Khan said.
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