October 7, 2012, Kaieteur News, Another anniversary…Calls repeated for Cubana bombers to be brought to trial,

October 7, 2012, Kaieteur News, Another anniversary…Calls repeated for Cubana bombers to be brought to trial, 

As Guyana observes yet another anniversary of the 1976 bombing of aircraft that left 78 persons, including 11 Guyanese dead, the People's National Congress Reform (PNCR) has repeated calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

It is believed that the bomb was planted by anti-Cuban terrorists.

"The PNCR will never forget this cowardly and dastardly act perpetrated on the Cuban, North Korean and Guyanese passengers of Cubana Flight 455. The PNCR calls for those who were responsible for this criminal act to be brought to justice. The PNCR on this somber occasion, affirm our solidarity with the people of Cuba with whom we have shared a great friendship and fraternal bond."

The PNCR also called on the Government of Guyana to formally memorialize those who died on that day by erecting a permanent monument.


A clipping of the pictorial display mounted in the Cuban Embassy in Kingston in 2009 as part of the commemorative ceremony showcasing the images of the Guyanese who perished.

The Guyanese who died were Jacqueline Williams, Ann Nelson, Rawle Thomas, Raymond Persaud, Seshnarine Kumar, Sabrina Harrypaul, Margaret Bradshaw, Rita Thomas, Violet Thomas Eric Norton, and Gordon M. Sobha.

Persaud, Kumar, Norton, Thomas, Nelson and Williams were on their way to Cuba to pursue medicine.

Margaret Bradshaw was the wife of the Consular at the Guyana Embassy in Havana.

"She left not only a husband, but a two-month old child, who never knew her. Rita Thomas and Violet Thomas were proceeding to Canada, as was also Sabrina Harrypaul via Jamaica," PNCR said. The bombing was considered then the deadliest terrorist airline attack in the Western Hemisphere. Two time bombs were used, variously described as dynamite or C-4.

Evidence implicated several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan secret police DISIP. Political complications quickly arose when Cuba accused the US government of being an accomplice to the attack. CIA documents released in 2005 indicate that the agency "had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner."

Former CIA operative Posada Carriles denied involvement but provides many details of the incident in his book "Caminos del Guerrero" (Way of the Warrior).

Four men were arrested in connection with the bombing and a trial was held in Venezuela: Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano were sentenced to 20-year prison terms; Orlando Bosch was acquitted because of technical defects in the prosecution evidence, and lived in Miami, Florida until he died on the 27th of April, 2011; and Luis Posada Carriles was held for eight years while awaiting a final sentence, but eventually fled. He later entered the United States, where he was held on charges of entering the country illegally but released on April 19, 2007.

The Guyana government has also been calling for prosecution of the perpetrators.