I am writing this letter to remind my parent’s generation that come 11 July it will be 44 years since they stood up to the Russians, Cubans, British and our own Cayman Islands government.
By not reminding us, your descendents, of the events that happened here in our Cayman Islands, we, your children, will not know anything about these events.
So I, Durl Ebanks, am proud to find this declassified monthly intelligent report on political affairs in the Cayman Islands on 11 July, 1963 in our Cayman Islands Archive, Colonial Report.
It goes like this:
‘On two occasions permission had been granted to Cuban Airlines to land at Owen Roberts Field, Grand Cayman, from Havana, Cuba, for the purpose of off-loading passengers for onward passage by LACSA to Costa Rica and by BWIA for the Eastern Caribbean.
‘A third request for permission to land for the same purpose having been granted, the plane a Russian built aircraft, arrived on the morning of the 11th of July.
‘No sooner had the aircraft arrived than a fairly large number of local people proceeded to the airport to demonstrate against future traffic of this nature. The demonstrators, led by a number of influential politicians virtually took over the airfield, blocked the runway and eventually the plane was forced to return to Havana with all the passengers.’
The small police was virtually powerless; fortunately no acts of violence were committed. This incident, as readers will recall, was published in newspapers worldwide.
For those of you who were there that day, it would be nice for all you to write in to this paper and tell your story about what happened that day.
We all need to know what you did for us that day so we can begin living like that today.
I have heard stories about what happened, but those who were there need to speak for themselves.
Parents need to go to our National Museum to buy the videotape Upon the Seas, an historical study of the Cayman Islands so their children, grandchildren and so on can know what Doctor Roy did for us around the same time, in 1962. His actions helped make us what we are today.
It is our history and we need to know it so we can pass it on to our children so they can pass it on to their children and so on down the line.
To know where you are going, your first have to know where you came from.
Durl Ebanks
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