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(Barbados Nation) Wilfredo Pérez Jr has mixed feelings about his trip to Barbados – on one hand he feels genuine sympathy and acceptance but on the other, the pain of reliving the worst day of his life.

If the name sounds familiar to those who have first-hand knowledge of the events of October 6, 1976, then that is no coincidence.

Pérez shares his name with the pilot of that fateful plane trip now known as the Cubana air disaster. He is in fact the son of that pilot, and he is here to take part in a week of activities in commemoration of that tragedy.

“When I was informed I would be coming I thought it would be a difficult trip as it would mean having to relive those sad feelings of that time,” he told the DAILY NATION after a special service yesterday at St Mary’s Anglican Church, The City, a few hours after arriving in Barbados.

Eleven minutes after take-off from the then Seawell Airport [now the Grantley Adams International Airport] at an altitude of 18 000 feet, two bombs exploded on board that fateful flight.

The plane went into a rapid descent, while the pilots unsuccessfully tried to return the plane to the airport. The captain, Wilfredo Pérez Sr, realizing this was impossible, turned the craft away from the beach and towards the Atlantic Ocean, saving the lives of many tourists. The crash occurred about eight kilometres short of the airport.

All 73 passengers and five crew members aboard the plane died: 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five North Koreans.

Among the dead were all 24 members of the 1975 national Cuban fencing team that had just won all gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship Games, as well as several officials of the Cuban Government.

Five of the 11 Guyanese passengers were travelling to Cuba to study medicine while the five Koreans included government officials and a cameraman.

Speaking with the help of Cuban consul Orestes Hernandez, who translated much of the conversation, Pérez Jr told of his feelings at the time of the tragedy and how it changed his life.

“I was 17 when it happened. Those were very terrible days which means when I think about that I have to think about those terrible days but now I am a psychologist helping others through similar ordeals,” he said.

Pérez, now 51 years old, said he juggles helping others with treating himself as sometimes he still struggles with his feelings from that time. However, he said his job was like self-therapy as dealing with other people’s problems helped him deal with his own.

As for his trip to Barbados so far, Pérez said he was impressed with the church service, especially when Reverend Dr Marcus Lashley expressed his sympathy, and by the respect shown to the memories of those who died.

Eurasia Review Newsletter

The recent deaths of two terrorists – one famous, one not so much – provides an illuminating examination of how America continues to conduct its controversial war on terror. Making headlines across the United States and called a defining moment in Barack Obama’s presidency, the dramatic raid into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden is one side of the equation. The quiet passing of Orlando Bosch in Miami that elicited scant attention outside the confines of the South Florida community, is the other.

While it would be hard to find an American who hasn’t heard of Bin Laden, the converse is true of Bosch, unless you happen to live in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. This despite Bosch’s much more protracted career of violence, stretching back to the early 1960s. His terrorism, however, was directed at the Cuban people who have, for the most part, supported the regime that came to power following the Revolution in 1959 and that has been designated an official enemy of the United States. Bosch’s actions were rarely, if ever, recognized as terrorism in the mainstream media, which generally kept silent when it came to describing the consequences of his use of violent methods to oppose the Castro regime. Orlando Bosch

Orlando Bosch

Born in 1926 in a small town East of Havana, Bosch is most infamously linked as one of the masterminds of the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 on board. It remains the second worst act of air terrorism in the Americas. The first is Bin Laden’s orchestrated destruction on September 11.

A pediatrician by profession, Bosch initially supported the Revolution but quickly turned violently against it. Implicated in a series of bombings, including a number against Cuban-Americans expressing sympathy with the Castro regime, Bosch was arrested in 1968 for firing a bazooka in the Miami harbor at a Polish vessel that was heading for Havana. Given a 10 year sentence for that act, he fled the United States while still on parole.

In his 2010 autobiography, Los Años que he Vivido (The Years I have Lived), Bosch acknowledged his violent past came from a conviction to oust the Castro regime. “The most crucial phase of my life came when I realized that violence was the only method of struggle available to us, the Cubans.’’ In the book he denied responsibility for the Cubana Airlines explosion. The book also failed to mention any of the victims of the incident, like Jorge De La Nuez Jr., who lost his father when he was five years old, or Haymel Espinosa, daughter of co-pilot Miguel.

The Cubana bombing resulted in Bosch’s incarceration in Venezuela for 11 years, until he was released on a technicality. Upon his illegal return to the United States in 1988, he was immediately detained and declared by the FBI to be the Western Hemisphere’s “most dangerous terrorist.” While plans were being made for a deportation order to be written, Bosch instead received a pardon from President George Bush Senior. The pardon was arranged through the insistence of son and future Florida governor Jeb Bush, who at the time was the campaign manager for Miami Congressman (R) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The Florida politician has been well known for her viral hatred of Fidel Castro and once publicly called for his assassination. She is now Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

When Bosch died after a long and painful illness, Ros-Lehtinen told the Associated Press that Bosch “Was a freedom fighter for Cuba and passed away without seeing his beloved homeland free of the Castro dictatorship.” Years before she had called him a hero and a patriot.

The death of these two terrorists less than a week apart did elicit something in common — anger. America’s incursion into the sovereign country of Pakistan with no prior warning in the course of conducting a military raid, as well as carrying out what some have called an extra-judicial execution, created a sense of outrage among large portions in the Muslim nation. Demands for the resignation of top Pakistani government and military officials have been heard loudly in the aftermath. American justification that informing the Pakistan government would have compromised the mission is being widely rejected, along with calls for breaking off ties with Washington.

Pakistan’s support for America’s war on terror is also being questioned. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani heatedly denounced the incursion as a “violation of sovereignty” and warned that Pakistan would retaliate against future unilateral strikes with “full force.”

Cuba’s response to Bosch’s death was relatively muted, with little official comment other than re-iterating opposition to American duplicity, allowing one genre of terrorists to live comfortably in their own backyard while another was killed in what has been described as a violation of international laws.

Throughout the time following the Bush administration, which allowed the conferring of legal residency status on Bosch in 1992, the Cuban
government consistently took issue with how Bosch was portrayed by the hard-right exile community in Miami. Often invited to civic
ceremonies, Bosch was given a day in his honor by the Miami city commission in 1982 while in Venezuelan jail. In 2002 he was photographed in the front row at a speech delivered by President George W Bush, and this past October Bosch was awarded a plaque at an event at the University of Miami to mark 50 years of armed struggle against Cuba.

The Castro regime additionally points to the stark differences in how they have tried to deal with their terrorist problem. Unlike the violence of the American option, the Cuban side has long sent agents to infiltrate anti-Revolutionary organizations in Florida suspected of conducting much of the terrorism. In the mid 1990s, after inviting and demonstrating various material pertaining to anti-Castro Cuban exile groups operating in the United States and elsewhere, the Americans thanked their Cuban hosts, then promptly went back and publicly uncovered the operation, arresting five members who are now serving long jail terms for being unregistered agents and conspiracy to commit espionage. The Cuban Five have languished in American jail for more than a dozen years, and their release remains a matter of the utmost priority for the Castro government.

It would be impossible for the Cubans to follow the American model, as one could imagine the response to a highly trained band of commandos
tracking down and killing Orlando Bosch on US soil. No doubt Americans would again take to the streets, as they did following the announcement of Bin Laden’s demise, this time not out in celebration but in demand for retribution for what would most likely be perceived as an unprovoked attack. Media and politicians would be outraged at this illegal incursion into American territory, and the history of Bosch’s multiple flood of terrorist activities would assuredly be ignored or discounted.

There is one more piece to the puzzle. Yet another Cuban born anti-revolutionary is considered to be an even more dangerous terrorist than Bosch. In fact, he’s been called “the Bin Laden of the Americas” by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. Luis Posada Carriles also lives unfettered in Miami, even though his deeds are well known to American officials, yet he receives the same level of immunity from the current Democratic administrators as Bosch enjoyed.

Posada is the other acknowledged architect of the Cubana Airlines bombing. At the time he was connected with Bosch through a group of anti-Castro organizations known as the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). Their involvement was described in a report issued by acting Associate Attorney General Joe Whitely, who detailed, “Information reflecting that the Cuban airline bombing was a CORU operation under the direction of Bosch.” A declassified CIA document dated October 12, 1976, quotes Posada as saying at a CORU meeting a month before the bombing, “We are going to hit a Cuban airliner… Orlando has the details.”

Besides the Cubana incident, Posada has been implicated in a series of other terrorist acts. He admitted to his role in coordinating a string of bombs that went off in Havana hotels and other tourist facilities catering to European visitors during 1997, outlining in detail how the campaign took place in a set of interviews he gave to the New York Times. Italian tourist Fabio Del Celmo was killed when one of the bombs exploded in the lobby of the Hotel Copacabana. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Posada commented years later.

Posada was arrested in 2000 in Panama for planning to blow up an auditorium full of students listening to a speech by Fidel Castro. Sentenced to eight years, he was scandalously paroled after four by then Panamanian President Mireya Monosco, who soon after her term ended moved to Miami, possibly considerably enriched by the passage of time.

Five years later Posada showed up in Miami, and following a series of public appearances the US government finally responded – charging him
for minor immigration fraud and perjury based on his alleged illegal entry into the United States. He was not, and never has been, indicted
for terrorist activities. And even those minor charges no longer bother Posada as he was acquitted on all counts after a three-month-trial in El Paso that ended in March.

Jose Pertierra covered the trial representing the Venezuelan government that continues to ask for Posada’s extradition in connection with the Cubana airlines bombing. The verdict came as no surprise to the Washington based lawyer.

“The United States has never done anything against its own terrorists. It’s not just Orlando Bosch or Posada Carriles. There are dozens of others who have committed acts of terrorism against Cuba, but nothing will be done. The government knows where they live, they know who they are. But they will never be brought to justice. The world understands America has no credibility in its war on terror when they let these terrorists live freely and openly in Miami.”

More than 700 acts of terrorism have been claimed by the Cuban government against its citizens, resulting in the deaths of 3,500. Incidents include biological and psychological terrorism, an assault against a remote village, the murder of more than a dozen teachers during the Literacy Campaign, explosions at department stores and even attacks on theatres and day care centers. Most of these acts have originated from anti-revolutionary organizations in Florida,  the Cuba side maintains.

Commenting on the death of the two terrorists, Pertierra said, “The US knew to kill Bin Laden instead of sending him to El Paso on some minor
immigration charges. There has always been a double standard when it comes to terrorists. Bosch was a bad guy, but even worse are the people who protected him.”

Posada, who had to drive back to Miami from El Paso because he’s on a no-fly list, is one of the last remaining of the exiles who have justified violence against the Cuban Revolution. With Bosch’s passing, there were a number of American officials who breathed a sigh of relief, “Knowing that all his secrets went with him. And they hope for the same thing to happen to Posada, for him to just go away. They have proven to be a problem and an embarrassment to the government,” Pertierra said.

Until that happens, the hypocrisy of American policy regarding its war on terrorism will continue to be alive, but growing older, in Miami.

Keith Bolender is the author of Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba. (Pluto Press, 2010)

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow Keith Bolender

It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition – except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence – which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the US invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the US and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk … It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.

Mr. Barack Obama

President of the United States of America

Mr. President,

The members of the Committee of Families of the Victims of the Cubana airliner blown-up off the coasts of Barbados, a commercial flight sabotaged in 1976 that exploded in-flight taking the lives of the 73 people on board, 57 of them Cuban, are appealing to you today because the mastermind of that crime, Luis Posada Carriles, is living in the United States where the legal authorities are reluctant to try him as the terrorist he is.

Meanwhile, Posada Carriles, the man who ordered the execution of such a horrendous violent crime, has made public statements to the media in your country where in complete disregard of life, of the US legal system and of an elementary sense of humanity he has boasted about that action, which set a precedent becoming the first terrorist action on civil aviation in the Western Hemisphere.

We had the opportunity to read your sincere and heartfelt message, of last September 11, to the American people where you said: “…we mourn today with the families of the dead. We grieve for husbands and wives, children and parents, friends and loved ones. We think of those nine years that have now passed, –of births and baptisms, weddings and graduations– where there was always an empty seat.”

That same day, at the monument built in the gardens of the Pentagon, you said referring to the victims of the terrorist actions: “…They were white and black and brown –men and women and some children made up of all races… And they were snatched from us senselessly and much too soon…”

Mr. President, the seats of our loved ones in the transcendental moments of our lives, –”births and baptisms, weddings and graduations”– have been empty for more than 34 years. Our relatives were senselessly deprived of their lives; they had a future to build and dreams to pursue but their lives and their dreams were shattered.

Last July 7, Salvadoran citizen Francisco Antonio Chávez Abarca arrived in Cuba. This man, extradited to Cuba by the authorities of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, was the self-confessed perpetrator of terrorist actions in our country consisting in the blasting of tourist facilities. He is also responsible for recruiting Central American terrorists whose mission it was to carry out terrorist actions in Cuba. Chávez Abarca has admitted that it was Posada Carriles, in connivance with the Cuban American National Foundation, who provided them with the means, the instruction and the funds to ensure the implementation of the criminal actions that took the life of an Italian citizen: Fabio Di Celmo.

On the other hand, Mr. President, while these self-confessed terrorists live with impunity in the United States, five Cuban youths, whose mission it was to prevent the perpetration of terrorist actions in Cuba –and in the United States-against civilian aircraft and other targets, have already served twelve years of unjust and cruel incarceration in American prison centers.  The possibility to put an end to such an injustice and to pardon these men who have become a symbol of the fight on terrorism and of the loftiest values cherished by human beings is in your hands.

You have received the Nobel Peace Prize; may your actions bring peace to the souls of the noble families of Cubans whose loved ones were massacred.

We request from you that, on the basis of the proofs brought against terrorist Posada Carriles, the US authorities put on trial and condemn this murderer and that all the weight of the law is brought to bear on the true culprit of so many crimes against our people and other sister nations. If your government is not prepared to take Posada Carriles to court as a terrorist, please allow his extradition to Venezuela, a country that has every right to bring charges against him as a fugitive of that country’s legal system.

Mindful of Martin Luther King, Jr, a distinguished son of the American people, who in 1963 said “I have a dream”, we, the relatives of the victims of the Barbados Crime also have a dream: We dream of the day when justice is served and the authors of such an abominable terrorist action pay for their crimes. That day, the dreams of all humanity will be spared the nightmare of living in a world where terrorist actions go unpunished.

We demand justice!

Committee of Families of the Victims of the Cubana airliner blown-up off the coasts of Barbados

Relatives of the victims of State Terrorism against Cuba,

Comrades:

As set out in the Council of State Decree-Law published today, beginning this year, October 6 will be commemorated as “Victims of State Terrorism Day.”

Exactly 34 years ago, 73 innocent people were assassinated: 11 Guyanese, 5 citizens of the Democratic Popular Republic of Korea and 57 Cubans. They were killed in midair when a bomb exploded aboard a Cubana de Aviación passenger plane that had just taken off from Barbados. Among them were 24 young Cubans from the national youth fencing team who had just swept all the gold medals at the Fourth Central-American and Caribbean Championships held in Venezuela.

For the Cuban people, who have been the target of state terrorism since the very triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the painful losses suffered that day were added to the numerous other victims for whom we are still seeking justice today.

The phenomenon dates back to 1959 when the newly-formed Revolution passed the first of a series of measures to benefit the people.

As early as March 1960, President Eisenhower approved a program of covert actions against Cuba that were declassified a few years ago. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) took over the lead role in planning, logistics, and the recruiting and training of mercenaries to carry out terrorist actions under the protection of the U.S. Government.

Fires, bombings and all sorts of acts of sabotage were carried out; airplanes and boats were hijacked; Cuban citizens were kidnapped; there were attacks against our embassies and assassinations of diplomats; dozens of our facilities were machine-gunned; multiple assassination attempts were carried out against the main leaders of the Revolution; and in particular, hundreds of assassination plans and attempts were carried out against the life of the Commander in Chief.

This year we are commemorating five decades since the brutal sabotage against the French steamship La Coubre in the port of Havana. The attack was planned to set off a double detonation of explosive charges that would greatly increase the number of victims. This crime caused the death of 101 people and left hundreds injured, including members of the French crew.

Every new aggression strengthened the Revolution across all sectors and levels. The consolidation of the revolutionary process forced the CIA terrorists and their bosses -who with their actions intended to provoke panic and demoralize the Cuban people- to draw up a plan to invade Cuba and create, in Florida, the largest intelligence center outside of their main headquarters in Langley.

The attack against Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) caused the death of 176 compatriots and left 50 others permanently disabled. The sacrifice of these citizens helped our impassioned combatants defeat the invasion in less than 72 hours, preventing the arrival of a puppet government that was being safeguarded by the CIA in a military base in Florida. After arriving in Cuba, their plan was to request the intervention of the United States with the complicity of the OAS.

The recently elected President Kennedy inherited the invasion plan from the previous government and approved its implementation. However, he refused to accept responsibility for its resounding failure and instead decided to carry out Operation Mongoose that consisted of 33 projects that included plans to assassinate leaders of the Revolution, terrorist actions against socioeconomic objectives, and the introduction of arms and agents to Cuba to be used in espionage and subversive activities.

From the approval of the Operation Mongoose until January 1963, some 5,780 terrorist actions against Cuba have been carried out: 716 of which were full-scale sabotages against industrial facilities.

In this context, US-based terrorist organizations that were financed and protected by the CIA were the precursors to the use of airplane hijackings and civilian aircraft for military actions against Cuba.

Such actions soon turned against them, leading to a world pandemic of airplane hijackings which encouraged international terrorists to employ these methods. The situation was only resolved once the Cuban government unilaterally decided to return the hijackers.

Following the assassination of Kennedy, the new US president, Lyndon Johnson, continued with terrorist plans against the island. Between 1959 and 1965, the CIA organized, financed and supplied, from US territory, an estimated 229 armed counter-revolutionary groups, and some 3,995 mercenaries. These terrorists killed 549 Cuban combatants, farmers and teachers working in the national literacy campaign; and left thousands wounded and hundreds permanently disabled.

Shortly after, terrorist actions against Cuban embassies, offices and diplomatic officials abroad increased drastically causing the deaths of several brave comrades and many material losses.

On September 11, 1980, the Cuban representative at the UN, Félix García Rodríguez, was murdered by Cuban-born terrorist Eduardo Arocena, a member of the terrorist group “Omega 7.”

On May 5 that year 570 children and 156 workers were trapped by a fire set by terrorists at the Le Van Tan daycare center. These peoples lives were saved thanks to the quick and heroic actions by specialized forces and the solidarity of the Cuban people.

At the same time, another form of State Terrorism employed against Cuba is biological warfare developed by successive U.S. administrations. These methods included introducing diseases into Cuba that significantly affected the health of the Cuban people. In 1981, agents under the service of the U.S. government disseminated the hemorragic dengue epidemic that killed 156 people, including 101 children.

Several plagues were also introduced into Cuban territory to destroy the agriculture and livestock sector, causing incalculable losses in food stocks destined for the population and significant losses of export commodities.

The U.S. intelligence services, particularly the CIA, were directly or indirectly involved in the majority of these actions, in large part under the umbrella of Cuban counterrevolutionary organizations. It would be impossible to mention the endless chain of terrorist plans, actions and attacks committed against our country in just one address.

However, the list of perpetrators is quite short, because they are always the same.

Today we are here to pay tribute to the 3,478 Cubans who have died and the 2,099 that have become permanently disabled due to terrorist acts carried out against our homeland during half a century that add up 5,577 victims. The Barbados martyrs are part of the long list of fallen comrades who we have not forgotten nor ever will forget.

Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, the authors of the Barbados crime and countless others against Cuba have lived and still live with impunity in Miami. Bosch, thanks to an executive pardon given by Bush Sr. the CIA director when Bosch´s agents committed sabotage against the Cuban plane; and Posada Carriles, thanks to the support of Bush Jr., walks freely while he awaits a trial for minor offences and not for the multiple charges of international terrorism that correspond to him.

Until very recently, these groups publicly proclaimed their crimes and cynically announced new acts of terror.

Had impunity not prevailed, 68 acts of terrorism against Cuba would have been prevented in the 1990s and we would not be regretting the death in Havana of Fabio di Celmo, a young Italian, who perished during the wave of terrorists attacks against tourism facilities in Havana in 1997.

The revealing declarations by self-confessed terrorist Chávez Abarca -broadcasted on Cuban television September 27 and 28– who was arrested by Venezuelan authorities as he planned to attack and undermine the stability of that brother country and other Latin American nations, confirm the existence of new methods of international terror and provide irrefutable proof about the guilt of Posada Carriles and his sponsors in the United States.

Despite all these crimes, Cuba has always been an example in the fight against terrorism and has ratified the condemnation of all such acts, in all its forms and manifestations.

Our country has signed all 13 existing international conventions on this issue and strictly abides by the commitments and obligations of the UN General Assembly resolutions and those of the Security Council. It does not possess nor intends to possess any type of weapons of mass destruction, and fully complies with its obligations under existing international instruments on nuclear, chemical , and biological weapons.

The Cuban territory has never been and never will be used to organize, finance or carry out terrorist acts against any other country, including the United States.

On several occasions the Cuban government has informed the U.S. Government about its willingness to exchange information regarding assassination plans and terrorist acts against objectives in both countries.

We have also provided ample information to the U.S. Government on terrorist acts against Cuba, particularly between 1997 and 1998 when we provided the FBI with abundant evidence on the bombings of several Cuban tourists resorts, and even gave them access to the perpetrators of these crimes, under arrest here, as well as to several witnesses.

In response, the FBI in Miami, closely linked to the Cuban-American extreme right that openly sponsors terrorism against Cuba, concentrated all of its efforts on chasing and prosecuting our fellow citizens Antonio, Fernando, Gerardo, Ramón, and Rene whom the US Government should have never arrested and imprisoned.

Today, thanks to international solidarity, the entire world knows about the unjust and inhumane treatment applied to the Five Cuban Heroes who fought in order to protect the Cuban people and even the American people from terrorism.

For how long will President Obama ignore international demands and allow injustice to prevail, something that is in his hands to eliminate? Until when will our Five Cuban Heroes remain in jail?

The current government of the United States of America, by their recent ratification of the arbitrary inclusion of our country in the State Department‘s annual list of “States Sponsors of Terrorism,” in addition to this infamous measure, has ignored once again the exemplary records of Cuba in this respect.

The United States of America also has disregarded the cooperation received from Cuba. In three occasions (November and December 2001, and March 2002) our representatives proposed to the U.S. authorities a draft project for bilateral cooperation to fight against terrorism, and in July 2009 reiterated their willingness to cooperate in this area without ever receiving a response.

The Cuban Government urges President Obama to abide with his commitment to fight terrorism and to act with determination and without double standards against those who from U.S. territory have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate terrorist acts against Cuba. This would be an honorable response to the open letter published today and sent by the Committee of Relatives of the Victims of the Cubana airplane that was blown up midair over the coast of Barbados.

Not for a moment can we forget that, as a result of State terrorism, the toll of dead and missing people we have suffered is higher than those who died during the attempt against the Twin Towers and the Oklahoma bombing combined.

I would like to conclude our tribute by recalling the unforgettable memorial service given to the victims of the Barbado`s crime on October 15, 1976, when we all swore to remember and condemn with unrelenting outrage the vile assassination.

Let us repeat Comrade Fidel`s statement on that occasion:
When an energetic and forceful people cry, injustice trembles!
We shall always remain loyal to those who have fallen in battle!

Glory to our heroes and martyrs!