Victims' wake

Few terrorist acts in the history of mankind have so outraged and moved the world's public opinion as the one perpetrated against a Cubana de Aviación (Cubana Airline) aircraft on October 6, 1976, minutes after taking off from Seawell Airport, in the Caribbean island of Barbados.

That horrendous crime, in which 73 people died, will remain a scarred wound in the very heart of the Homeland for centuries to come. Among the victims of the monstrous sabotage were the members of Cuba's youth fencing team returning home from Venezuela after winning top honors at the Central American and Caribbean Fencing Championship. There were 24 athletes, 16 of whom were in their early 20s.

Rotman, the officer in charge of the control tower at Seawell Airport in Barbados, told the press two days after the tragedy: "But who hated those guys? Almost everyone on that plane was young. No, no sir, not just the jocks, I mean almost everybody. The athletes, the crew, the Guyanese. Eight Guyanese were students and three others were grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter; the girl, only 9 years old. All innocent and healthy. And if such a thing could have happened, who can be at peace in this world?”

LEONARDO AND CARLITOS

Two of those young men were from Las Tunas. Leonardo MacKenzie Grant was just 22 years old and had a growing international prestige; Carlos Leyva González had just turned 19 years old and great hopes were pinned on him for the Olympic cycle. Their families were devastated by the tragedy.

"My mother could never recover from that blow," Maricela, Carlitos' sister, said later. She even had to quit her job! She claimed that she saw him at the office door, like when he went to see her there. She died of cerebral thrombosis, with enormous pain inside her. My father suffered a heart attack and died in 1979, three years after the sabotage. He did not manage to recover from the trauma either.

To eternally honor the memory of Leonardo and Carlitos, there is the Mártires de Barbados Memorial Museum (Martyrs of Barbados), in Las Tunas. It is the only institution of its kind in the country and embodies per se the will to propitiate to the visitor an approach to their biographies from documents, photos, trophies, medals, and personal belongings. The site is also an important source of reference regarding the atrocious circumstances in which the crime was committed.

THIS IS HOW THE MEMORIAL WAS BORN

Mártires de Barbados Memorial MuseumCommander Faure Chomón, then the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in Las Tunas, had the idea of conceiving a museum that would perpetuate the memory of both martyrs in the region. The house where Carlitos' family lived was painted beautifully for this purpose, both for its symbolism and for its construction: a two-level building, lined with wood and with a zinc roof that the fencer's father - a carpenter by trade - had built in the vicinity of the Hórmigo River, a few blocks from the historic center of the city. He discussed it with his tenants and they agreed to move to another home.

"A few days after the agreement was concluded, Faure called me to assume the restoration of the premises," the sculptor Rafael Ferrero told me before his death. The works took some time, because, as the structure was half sunk, first it had to be straightened and even the boards of the walls and the floor slabs replaced. But it was worth it because the result could not be better."

A new task awaited Ferrero: to build a fencing academy for children in the courtyard of the Memorial! It was done to link the knowledge of history with the practice of that sport- he said. And, by the way, relatives of Carlitos and MacKenzie, willing to take their places foil in hand, were among the first enrolled in the area.

RADIOGRAPHY OF THE MEMORIAL

The museum opened its doors on July 2, 1977, after an intense period of searching for information and collecting samples to feed shelves and display cases. As soon as the visitor enters receives a visual impact: the photos of the 73 victims of the sabotage, including those of five Koreans and 11 Guyanese, technicians, and athletes. It makes the skin crawl; it thrills to the marrow to contemplate so many faces full of life.

Along with the images arranged in rows, a painting imitates the Cubana's DC-843 and, next to it, the chronology since it took off in Guyana, the stops in Trinidad-Tobago and Barbados, and, finally, its fall into the sea in front of a beach full of bathers stunned by the tragedy. A sketch reproduces the path of the plane, as captured by the radar at Seawell Airport. From a simple pedestal, a piece of fuselage rescued in the ocean accuses the murderers.

Belongings of the martyrs are exhibited everywhere. A snapshot of Carlitos days after he was born. There, his card as a member of the Young Communist League (UJC), and a library user card. Also, a notebook with class notes and his training diary; a postcard dedicated to his mother, for Mother's Day, make the pupils moisten.

From a nearby mural, a certificate issued by the Mexican Olympic Committee recognizes Leonardo's foil skills. Also his trophies, plaques, clothing, a radiogram addressed to his brother, his doctor, weapons, proof of Military Service, keyrings, letters of references, his Identity Card...

MEDALS, SCULPTURES, AND ACADEMY

Mártires de Barbados Memorial MuseumThe Memorial Museum displays with particular pride the "Soles sin Manchas" medals, given to the victims' families on the 25th anniversary of the crime. In the museum's courtyard, a sculpture stands defiantly. It is the work of artist Juan Esnard Heydrich, from Matanzas, who donated it to the institution in 1978. To create it, he appealed to the famous verse of Bonifacio Byrne that identifies it, an emblem of the nobility and courage of the Cuban people. The piece is made of welded metal, whose roughness gives it a singular dramatism.

Heartbreakingly recreates a human body shattered and consumed by fire, but upright despite everything, with one arm raised and a clenched fist, ready to defend the soil, the dignity, and the sovereignty of the Homeland at all costs.

At the back of the main building, where Carlos Leyva's father's carpentry workshop once stood, the fencing area is an allegory to those who fell in that savage aerial massacre of October 6, 1976. Several generations of fencers have been formed there almost all under the expert gaze of Delio Pavón, who was also Leonardo and Carlitos' coach.

The Barbados Crime is an open wound in the sensibilities of Cubans. Remembering it every year is the way to denounce a terrorist act that marked our history, whose perpetrators did not receive just condemnation.