THIRTY-FOUR YEARS after terrorists blew up a Cubana passenger aircraft off Barbados, the subject remains a very sensitive one for many Cubans.
Yesterday, during a courtesy call on the Nation, the newly appointed Cuban Ambassador Lissette Perez Perez was moved to tears as she saw for the first time unique images held in the newspaper’s?archives of the tragic episode in which all 73 people on board, mostly Cubans but including 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans, were killed on their way to Havana.
“It’s a terrible feeling for me because it was a most cold attack that not only touched Cuba but the people of Barbados also,” the ambassador said, as she reviewed the actual pictures of the October 6, 1976 Cubana crash.
She said that while the world was now quite attuned to the effects of terrorism since the 9/11 incident in the United States, the people of Cuba have been dealing with this unfortunate reality since the early 1960s.
“This is a very sensitive topic for Cuba,” she admitted, while thanking THE NATION for sharing images, never before seen in Cuba, of the incident. (KJ)
Here, Cuban Ambassador Lissette Perez Perez (second right) reviewing images of the fatal 1976 Cubana crash, along with Counsellor Orestes Hernandez Hernandez (right). Looking on are NATION Editor-In-Chief Kaymar Jordan (partly hidden) and Senior Corporate Communications Officer Marilyn Sealy (left).
