Cubana Flight 455 Bombing: 50 Years Later, a Double Standard on Terrorism

Fifty years ago this week, two bombs exploded on Cubana Flight 455 shortly after takeoff from Barbados.

All 73 people aboard were killed, including Cuba’s national fencing team and several children.

In Miami, the terrorist attack has been all but erased from public memory, rarely mentioned by politicians or the media.

In contrast, the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes remains a recurring cause célèbre—invoked by politicians, prosecutors and journalists to condemn Cuba while the history of violence and terrorism linked to South Florida is ignored.

This year, Miami’s congressional Republicans demanded that Raúl Castro face prosecution over the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down. In May, the Trump administration announced his indictment at Miami’s Freedom Tower. Rep. María Elvira Salazar celebrated the charges, while Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava declared that “the wheels of justice” had begun to move.

That demand for accountability stands in stark contrast to the treatment of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, implicated by declassified CIA and FBI records in the bombing of Cubana Flight 455. They lived freely in Miami until their deaths and were never prosecuted for their alleged involvement in the attack on the airliner.

Read our article on the double standard toward terrorism in Miami and Washington HERE.