Statement from the PNPYO past members association (1970 Chapter)

Today, Tuesday 6th October 2026 marks a dark half-century since October 6, 1976—a date etched in the collective memory of the Caribbean and progressive movements worldwide. 

Fifty years ago, Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was ruthlessly destroyed in mid-air by two counter-revolutionary terrorist bombs, plunging into the waters off the coast of Barbados and taking the lives of all 73 innocent passengers and crew on board.  

Among those murdered were 57 Cubans, including the young athletes of Cuba’s national fencing team; 11 Guyanese nationals, including medical students travelling to build their futures; and 5 citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The People’s National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO) Past Members Association (1970 Chapter) stands in solemn remembrance of those 73 lives, mainly young persons, who were cut down in one of the most heinous acts of state-sponsored terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. 

As comrades who stood in active political struggle during the 1970s—a decade defined by regional self-determination and deep anti-imperialist solidarity with Cuba and the wider Third World- we condemn this cowardly act of mass murder unreservedly.  The bombing of Flight 455 was a deliberate attempt to destabilise the Caribbean, punish our nations for forging independent foreign policies, and intimidate those who dared to embrace solidarity over subjugation. 

Fifty years later, we observe with both sadness and anger that true accountability for this atrocity was repeatedly denied by external powers that shielded and protected the intellectual authors of this act, including CIA-linked extremists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Justice delayed and denied remains an insult to the memory of the victims and their families.

The martyrs of Flight 455 did not die in vain. Their memory lives on in the persistent spirit of Caribbean unity, anti-imperialism, and internationalist solidarity.