It is hard for Dora to talk about the aunt of her daughter; visibly moved she says: “Inés and I were school mates since the time we went together to the Cerro Pelado School for Sports Initiation (EIDE by its Spanish acronym) in Camaguey. Volleyball was my sport, hers was fencing.
“She was a girl of sensibility, she was happy, optimist. She got along well with everyone. She loved to be at home with her family and wanted a lot to complete her degree to help her parents”, Dora recalls.
“When we heard the news that the plane in which she and the members of the Cuban fencing team were coming back home exploited, all of her neighbors started to cry. As her mom told me, her husband Luis learnt first about the news and then he told her: “turn on the radio for you to listen to”, because the radio was already broadcasting what had happened off the coast of Barbados, says Dora.
Dora’s daughter, Inés Indira Luaces Machado, 23, grew up hearing about Cuba’s claims for justice. She didn’t know the only one aunt on her father’s side, however each day she pays tribute to the martyr with her daily actions.
“Working at the Inés Luaces Sánchez Advanced School for Athletic Perfection (ESPA by its Spanish acronym) in Camaguey, which –as you can see- bears the name of my aunt, is a great honor for me. There I help to train new fencers, which was the sport she practiced”.
When asked about the endless emptiness and sorrow her family has endured, Inés Indira states that her grandmother never recovered herself from the loss of her daughter, she had only two children, and the other one is the father of the girl.
“My grandmother is an ailing 80 years old woman. She’s still demanding justice for her dead daughter and expects that Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosh, masterminds of that detestable murder pay for their crimes some day.
“We hope that justice prevails and the murderers receive their punishment. We also hope that the Cuban Five, imprisoned in U.S. jails for trying to avert actions like that one in Barbados, can be released from prison”, emphasizes the 23 year old girl.
The conversation with both Dora Machado and her daughter Inés Indira Luaces, friend and niece of one of the martyrs of Barbados, respectively turned out to be hair-raising.
How can these murderers sleep in peace after such an atrocity?, they said infuriatedly.
How could Salvadoran Francisco Chávez Abarca -involved in the death of young Italian Fabio Di Celmo in 1997 and trained by Posada Carriles- could collect 2,000 U.S. dollars for each bomb he set in Havana?
“We demand justice!”, were the last words they said during my interview.
