Venezuelan trial may heal Cuban breach

Press, 11 August 1982, Page 12

Venezuelan trial may heal Cuban breach

By

JEREMY TAYLOR,

in Trinidad

A DCB airliner of the Cuban airline, Cubana. took off from Barbados on October 6, 1976, for a routine flight across the Caribbean to Jamaica and Havana. Minutes out of Seawell Airport, an explosion ripped through the plane and it crashed into the sea killing everyone on board — 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans.

Nearly six years later the trial of four alleged saboteurs drags 'on in Caracas, Venezuela; with little prospect of an early decision. The son and chauffeur of the presiding judge have been murdered. In Miami, an anti-Castro Cuban exile has said he supplied the' explosives that blew the DCB apart, arid that he did so with the knowledge ;of the American Central Intelligence Agency.

The Cubana crash followed a series of terrorist bombings in Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, Mexico and Venezuela, apparently aimed at Cuban interests. Anti-Castro exiles in Maimi claimed responsibility in each case.

. After the crash, four suspects were picked up. Two were Venezuelans, Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lozano, who were thought to have planted explosives on board the plane; two were Cuban exiles, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posades Cariles.

In 1980 a military tribunal in Carabas cleared the four Cubana defendants. There was an immediate row between Cuban President,- Fidel Castro, and the Venezuelans: 27 Cuban embassy staff were recalled, with threats to break relations altogether.

The two Governments are still cool, but the case went on to the military supreme court in Caracas, and began another long leisurely process. ■Cuba clearly considers the four defendants guilty, and has threatened to break relations with Venezuela if they are freed. In the wake of the Falklands fighting, when Cuba and Venezuela found themselves on the same side, Venezuela is playing down its image as an American ally, and reemphasising an anti-imperialist commitment.

It has begun mending relations with Cuba and is seeking to join the Non-Aligned Movement. A speedy, well-publicised conviction of the Cubana defendants, with hint of American involvement. might speed the process along Copyright, London Observer Service