“A15 — CIA code name for Posada Carriles — is not a typical kind of ‘boom and bang’ individual. He is acutely aware of the international implications of ill-planned or overly enthusiastic activities against Cuba.”

Former CIA handler Grover Lythcott

“Our confidential source ascertained (…) that the bombing of the Cubana Airlines DC-8 was planned, in part, in Caracas, Venezuela, at two meetings attended by Morales Navarrete, Luis Posada Carriles and Frank Castro. (…) A confidential source all but admitted that Posada and [Orlando] Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline.”

FBI Declassified Reports

October 6 2021 — Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on 6 October 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack. All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed. Several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan secret police DISIP were implicated by the evidence. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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 “The CIA created and unleashed a Frankenstein.”

Peter Kornbluh — Head of the National Security Archive’s Cuba project

UPDATE (October 6 2021) — A new informative and well-researched documentary, Cubana 455, details the ties between the CIA and Cuban exile terrorists.

The film highlights interesting interviews with the relatives of those who lost their lives, government officials, and exile terrorists themselves.

This documentary makes it very clear that the Cuban terrorists have no remorse and consider civilian deaths as only collateral damage in their campaign against the Castro government.

Filmmaker Enrique Berumen — a retired California State University-Los Angeles film professor and filmmaker — is currently in the United States planning and promoting the upcoming U.S. tour. He sat down for a brief interview and took time to answer a few questions.

Q — How would you describe your new documentary? Why is it important and what would you like the public to take away after seeing it?

A — It is an activist, anti-terrorism documentary, a piece that speaks of CIA terrorism, which is always obscured and under the radar in mainstream media. This documentary sheds light on the first bombing of a civilian airplane in flight. Very few people know about this hideous event. It truly is a crime against humanity. Everyone knows about Pan Am 103 and 9/11. For those crimes, the U.S. rolled out their big guns. They punished Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. But the Cubana 455 crime went unpunished. And how could it be? It was done by CIA-trained agents, so the U.S. simply ignored it. The mainstream media ignored it. Who cares, right? Just a bunch of Cubans who lived in Cuba died. Who cares?

Terrorism is terrorism. A war, declared or not, should not include targeting civilians, and this is what Cubana 455 was: a civilian plane with 73 human beings.

Ultimately, the documentary makes a call for justice—for the public to be active, to reassess what is terrorism, and view October 6, 1976, as a day of infamy, a crime against humanity. The only thing left to do now is to have people in the U.S. and around the world know what happened on October 6th. That day should be remembered as the first 9/11 in the Americas.

The call of Cubana 455 is to advocate for October 6th to become International Day Against Terrorism. It is an idea that David Comissiong, Ambassador of Barbados to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), has been proposing for a few years. It’s a long uphill road, but it is the least we can do for those innocent victims of terrorism and bring some closure to the pain of injustice and impunity that the whole of Cuba feels, especially the families of the victims. My hope is that audiences are moved to the point of taking action and put down a grain of justice for the victims of October 6th.

END of UPDATE

“Luis Posada Carriles  died without having paid for this crime nor the many other terrorist acts that are a feature of his criminal record.”

Cuban government website Cubadebate — May 23 2018

Luis Posada Carriles was one of the most hated figures in Cuba for his alleged role in the bombing Flight 455.

“Born in Cuba in 1928, he fled the island after the 1959 communist revolution which brought Fidel Castro to power.

After serving in the US army, he was recruited by the CIA in 1965 and is reported to have worked for the agency until 1976.

His lawyer said Mr Posada Carriles died at “a government home for veterans” in Miramar, Florida, after developing throat cancer.”  [BBC]

Peter Kornbluh — the head of the independent National Security Archive’s Cuba project that fought years to declassify documents relating to Posada — viewed him as an unrepentant terrorist:

“The CIA created and unleashed a Frankenstein.”

The bombing of a Cuban airliner 455 was the deadliest in-flight explosion until the 1988 Pan Am flight ‘bombing’ over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!

QUICK NOTE — To make it easier for the readers to retrieve various chapters of this book, I have created a special page  “Lockerbie” where all the links to the chapters will be listed with a brief description. You can access that page directly as it appears at the far right of the top bar of this blog. END of NOTE

Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!

“We don’t blow up civilian airliners up in the air.”

Former CIA Director John McLaughlin

October 6 1976 — Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455

Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on 6 October 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack.

All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed. Two time bombs were used, whose explosives have been variously described as dynamite or C-4.

Several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan secret police DISIP were implicated by the evidence. 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 terrorist operative Luis Posada Carriles denies involvement but provides many details of the incident in his book Caminos del Guerrero (Ways of the Warrior). The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, of which Carriles was a member, is widely seen as responsible for the bombing.

Four men were arrested in connection with the bombing, and a trial was held in Venezuela. Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano were each sentenced to 20-year prison terms. Orlando Bosch was acquitted and later moved to Miami, Florida, where he lived until his death on April 27, 2011.

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 was released on April 19, 2007. [Wikipedia]

RECENT DEVELOPMENT

October 2015 — A declassified document from the US State Department, dated 1976, points to Luis Posada Carriles as the main suspect.

The memorandum, sent by two high-ranked officials to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, analyzes the accusations made by the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, about the possible involvement of Washington in the tearing down of the aircraft

The report, which was brought to light in 2014 confirmed Castro’s concerns about the links between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with extremist groups of Cuban exiles in southern Florida.

According to the memorandum, the CIA was linked to three of the people “allegedly” involved in the downing of a Cuban airliner. [National Security Archive]

RELATED POST: Former CIA Director John McLaughlin Tells a Whopper: “We don’t blow up civilian airliners…”

The memorandum concludes that “any role those persons may have had in the demolition took place without any knowledge of the agency.” Of course…

Peter Kornbluh on Acquittal of Luis Posada Carriles

REFERENCES

LUIS POSADA CARRILES: THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD — National Security Archive

Luis Posada Carriles: Cuba anti-communist activist dies — BBC

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Suspicious Aviation Tragedies — October 6 1976 : Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455

Suspicious Aviation Tragedies — October 6 1976 : Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455 [UPDATE : Luis Posada Carriles is Dead (February 15, 1928 – May 23, 2018)]

Remembering Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455  (October 6 1976)

Remembering Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455  (October 6 1976) [2019]

On This Day — CIA Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles Dies in Florida (May 23 2018) [Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455]

Three Years Ago — CIA Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles Dies in Florida (May 23 2018) [Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455]

45 Years Ago — Remembering the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 (October 6 1976)