“The wicked ones have passed away and my son is at peace”
-says 91-year-old mom of Cubana Airline bombing victim on 47th anniversary
by Michael Jordan
The terrorists who killed her only son and ten other Guyanese 47 years ago are dead, and Mrs. Dorothy Norton is living her remaining years in peace.
Today, October 6, marks another anniversary of the Cubana Bombing Tragedy that claimed the life of her her son, Eric.
But though she’s keenly aware of the milestone, Mrs. Norton indicated that she will not spend the day dredging up sad memories.
“I just relax and take it easy and thank God for everything that He is allowing me to do,” said Mrs. Norton, who, at almost 92, is one of the surviving parents of the Cubana victims.
“The wicked ones have all passed away and I thank God for every day and that my son rests in peace.”
It was on October 6, 1976, that the Cubana Airways Flight CU– 455 was scheduled to fly a route from Guyana to Trinidad, Trinidad to Barbados, Barbados to Jamaica, and finally from Kingston, Jamaica to Havana, Cuba.
At 13:24h, some nine minutes after takeoff from the Barbados Seawell International Airport (now Grantley Adams Airport) a bomb exploded in the aircraft’s rear lavatory.
The plane began descending rapidly, as the pilot tried unsuccessfully to control and return the aircraft to Seawell Airport. Within minutes a second bomb exploded, which caused the plane to crash about eight kilometers from the airport.
All 73 people on board were killed.
They included 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans. The Cuban national youth fencing team were among the dead, as were a number of young Guyanese academic scholarship winners who were traveling to Cuba to pursue studies in medicine.
Among the Guyanese victims were Jacqueline Williams. 19, a student; Ann Nelson, 18, a student; Rawle Thomas, 18, a student; Raymond Persaud; Seshnarine Kumar, 18, a student; Sabrina Harripaul, 9; Margaret Bradshaw – the wife of a Guyanese diplomat then serving in Cuba; Rita Thomas, Violet Thomas, Eric Norton, 18, and Gordon M. Sobha – an Economist.
Mrs. Norton and her husband, Harold, had accompanied their son to the airport. They were at home when a fireman visited with the grim news.
Mrs. Norton was the stronger of the two in dealing with the tragedy. Her late husband, former Deputy Fire Chief Harold Norton, never came to terms with the loss of the couple’s only child.
He continued to wear his son’s shoes, and would even break down in church when he saw young servers going up to the altar, dressed in the vestments his boy once wore.
“My husband cried in church,” She told me in a previous interview.
“Whenever the servers were going up, I would have to hold his hand, because the tears would come.”
“My son’s room is still there. His writing desk is there; one of his school ties and his church vestments are there. His school shirts and bed are there. I have a good feeling…it’s not hard for me to go into his room. I know that he left (home) a happy child, and that is the main thing. He was a wonderful child. He never gave us any trouble.”
Four men, Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Hernan Ricardo Lozano and Freddy Lugo— were arrested in connection with the bombing. Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano were sentenced to 20-year prison terms following a trial in Venezuela.
They had joined the flight in Trinidad; then left the bombs on the plane before disembarking in Barbados. Ricardo confessed to Barbadian and Trinidad officials who were investigating the crime that he and Lugo bombed the plane and that they worked for Luis Posada Carriles.
The third man, Orlando Bosch was acquitted because of technical defects in the prosecution’s evidence. He lived in Miami, Florida until passing away on April 27, 2011.
Luis Posada Carriles was held for eight years while awaiting a final sentence, but eventually fled to Venezuela.
He later entered the United States, where he was held on charges of entering the country illegally but subsequently released on April 19, 2007. He died in 2018.
In October, 2012, that a Cubana Air Disaster Monument was unveiled by former President Donald Ramotar and Cuban Charge d’ Affaires and Economic and Cultural Affairs Officer Praxedes Nordete at the University of Guyana, Turkeyen Campus, East Coast Demerara.
.
