Declaration by the Relatives of the Victims of Barbados in Support to the Cuban Five
Nov. 7, 2008
Reprinted from Ahora
Friends:
I am pleased to be participating in an event like this, one in which emanates solidarity, friendship and support for the freedom of the five heroes.
I am among the younger representation of the relatives of the 3,478 victims of terrorist acts, which includes the victims of the sabotage of the Cubana Airliner carrying 73 people aboard, several of whom were Koreans and Guyanese. This demonstrated once again that terrorism has no limits or borders. As Rene said, “The difference with the fighters against terrorism is that they defend even their enemies, while terrorists kill their own friends.
I did not experience the pain of the Cuban people when the events of October 1976 and other earlier ones occurred, but I was born and grew up among the stories, crying, and demand for justice. I know the anguish of my grandmother who never married, hoping that my grandfather would show up one day; she was like other wives. I know the lonely and silent cries of the beloved children, recalling fond moments, and the eternal suffering of mothers and fathers over the loss of a child. But I lived through the time when children like me became sick with dengue haemorrhagic fever, and they could never again play with their friends, or walk or talk. I know the terror that my people lived through when one day bombs began to explode in hotels and other tourist centers; one such explosive killed Italian Fabio Dicelmo.
All of this because the CIA, gangs of the Cuban-American mafia and the U.S. government are still bent on destroying the revolution and its leaders – a revolution bequeathed to us by our grandparents, and that we must uphold and sustain at any cost.
Our commander, Fidel Castro, once said, if we wanted to eradicate terrorism rather than denounce it, we had the task of sweeping the whole idea related to Nazi-fascism. To do this it would be necessary to ensure that perpetrators do not take ownership of the world, nor that they have the power that they have today. This must be taken into account because around our planet and across the United States, there are men who like Bush Sr., who gave a presidential pardon to a murderer like Bosh. There are women like former President Mirella Moscoso, who also gave a presidential pardon to terrorists. We run the risk that Bush (the son) will pardon the most notorious terrorist in the Western Hemisphere, the father of terrorism: self-confessed murderer Luis Posada Carriles, who today walks through the streets of Miami protected by other terrorists, who for 10 long years have managed to confine the truth behind dirty lies.
The men who today are not with us are the true fighters against terrorism. They are good men, men of peace, disinterested men who have sacrificed the happiness of their families for our people, men of ideas and thoughts so strong that they shake the walls and bars of their prisons.
That is why we need this unity, it and international solidarity are necessary in this struggle to achieve their freedom. Let us not doubt that they will return. |
