Half a dozen people related to the design of the policy towards the island in both the Republican and Democratic administrations, alleged how the “consensus position” in the US intelligence community coincides in that the nation does not sponsor terrorism.

Former National Intelligence officer for Latin America, Fulton Armstrong, described the designation as “false” in an interview with the news network NBC News.

Larry Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff for then Secretary of State Colin Powell in the administration of former President George W. Bush (2001-2009), ruled that the Caribbean country is not a state sponsor of terrorism.

“It is a fiction that we have created… to reinforce the logic of the blockade,” he pointed out.

The inclusion of Cuba on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, in addition to being unjustified, harms the national security interests of the United States, also considered Ben Rhodes, who was Deputy National Security Advisor to former President Barack Obama (2009-2017).

He told NBC News that using that designation for purely political purposes of the United States is wrong with respect to Cuba and delegitimizes the purpose of the rule, designed to punish those whom Washington points to as alleged defenders of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the professor at the American University of Washington, William LeoGrande, considered that the inclusion of Cuba on that list is ironic coming from a country that does carry out attacks against the island.

“In the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsored assassination attempts, sabotage, and paramilitary raids against Cuba, what would today be called state-sponsored terrorism, and Cuban exiles trained by that organization continued the attacks. for decades to come,” he said.

Washington removed Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism in 2015 during the Obama administration, on which it had been since 1982, but the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021) included it again nine days before the end of his term. .

At the time, the White House alleged that Havana provided asylum to the leaders of the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN), who had been offered safe haven as part of the peace negotiations with the government of the South American country, facilitated by Cuba and Norway, and backed by the Obama administration and the Vatican.

The day before, the island’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, stated that the designation of Cuba as a sponsoring nation of terrorism raises the country’s risk and implies paying between a third more or double to acquire supplies for any merchandise.

He affirmed that the few suppliers that have decided to maintain relations with the Antillean territory increased prices, and at the same time, the United States applies intimidation and persecution measures against fuel supply companies.

(With information from Prensa Latina)

“Personally, in this meeting that just took place, I said that what had happened with Cuba is an injustice,” Petro said in the meeting with the head of US diplomacy, who is visiting Colombia.

A Colombian government asked Cuba to host negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Petro recalled.

He recalled that an oversight body from the Barack Obama administration participated in the talks with the FARC and then another Colombian government asked the Donald Trump government to declare Cuba a country that encourages terrorist activities for having the negotiating delegation of peace, “and that is an injustice,” Petro emphasized.

“Therefore, in my opinion, it does not depend on us, it must be corrected,” Petro stressed at the press conference at the Casa de Nariño, seat of the Colombian presidency.

He explained that his government has recovered the role of guarantor countries of the processes that are now beginning for Norway, Cuba, Venezuela and – he stressed – there are other nations such as Spain that have requested that same status.

For his part, Blinken on this issue said that “the United States has clear criteria, laws and requirements and will continue to consider and see if Cuba will continue to have such a designation.”

A few days after the end of his term, the Donald Trump government included Cuba on the questionable list and the then peace commissioner Miguel Ceballos assured that it was an accolade from the US government to the Colombian.

For its inclusion, the false argument was used of the refusal of the Cuban government (guarantor of the peace dialogue between the ELN and the Colombian State) to a request from Iván Duque, who demanded the extradition of the ELN negotiating leaders who were in La Havana after an attack on a police academy in Bogotá.

The former president made the demand, despite knowing the existence of protocols designed and agreed by the parties with strict attention to the provisions of international law for the resolution of internal armed conflicts, including the protocol for the event of the breakdown of the talks.

The concert of voices to exclude Cuba from that arbitrary list is growing in Colombia and today more than 100 well-known intellectuals and academics demanded the removal of Cuba from that list, who join the demand of more than 80 congressmen and hundreds of women, among others.

Also, some 300 faith-based organizations, churches and believers from 23 countries asked Blinken to remove Cuba from the list “of countries that sponsor terrorism.”

Yesterday, the Colombian Foreign Minister, Ávaro Leyva, told a local media outlet that the previous administration ignored this protocol against all international standards.

“We are reviving it, there is the chapter on how to return them, how to bring them, how to take them, how to restart those conversations within a legal framework that implies the suspension of legal action,” he clarified.

“You cannot talk to a person seeking peace and at the same time request his extradition, it would be a contradiction and rather it would be an alternate declaration of war,” the minister assured.

(With information from Prensa Latina)

Among the signatories of the petition are the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Japanese nun Filo Hirota, members of the World Council of Churches, the Communion of Reformed Churches of Cuba, and Chris Ferguson, reverend of the Reformed University and pastor of the United Church of Canada.

The International Christian Service in Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, and the Rev. Whit Hutchison of the United States Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church of Colombia, also signed the petition.

“We want to make a prophetic request to the Government of the United States, on the occasion of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Colombia on Monday, October 3, to remove Cuba from the list of ‘state sponsors of terrorists,’” the signatories stated in a statement.

They also urge the Biden Administration to change its perspective, and life before aggression against the peoples.

“Cuba has already been a historical victim of blockades and inhuman sanctions that affect the lives of its inhabitants, many of them sisters and brothers in faith, particularly at times like the current one where Hurricane Ian has left victims in Cuba, as well as in Florida, with the difference that their resources are scarcer for the attention of the victims”, they declared.

The believers express their adherence to the recent call of the World Council of Churches that “Cuba be removed from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, and that the churches be accompanied as prophetic voices of peace, hope, cooperation and mutual respect”.

Likewise, they support the call of Pope Francis in his speech at the meeting of Popular Movements in October 2021: “I want to ask the powerful countries in the name of God to cease aggression, blockades, unilateral sanctions against any country anywhere in the world. Earth. No to neo-colonialism”.

They also welcome in the petition the acknowledgment of gratitude that the government of Gustavo Petro made to Cuba on August 11 for hosting the peace processes between the insurgencies and the Colombian State for more than 40 years, and its rejection of being classified as “sponsor of terrorism”.

(With information from Prensa Latina)

Those who pay to unleash violence and chaos in Cuba act with total impunity from US soil. They allocate considerable funds to finance terrorist acts within Cuban society, without any foreign authority ruling on the matter.

Small anti-Cuban groups seek to recruit people in Cuba to carry out terrorist acts in national territory, financed from the United States. On this occasion, we reveal a counterrevolutionary articulation that establishes links between the New Cuban Nation in Arms (NNCA) and the “influencer” Manuel Milanés.

The NNCA has been discussed on other occasions on television. Its main leaders are Willy González and Kiki Naranjo, both residents of the United States. They incite a war in Cuban territory, for which they gather weapons and train paramilitaries in northern territory.

In this context, Amijail Sánchez González emerges, with the false profile of Alfredo González, who recruits from social networks those who will commit sabotage actions in Cuba. On the other hand, Manuel Milanés Pizonerose is classified as an influencer on social networks. He spreads false news and distorts the Cuban reality. He promotes the counterrevolutionary organization Cuba Primero and in recent months has been closely linked to the violent and terrorist wing of the Cuban community in the US He resides in Miami, Florida, since 2017.

In response to these guidelines, García Ríos launched Molotov cocktails against the archives of the Municipal Court of Central Havana and the Provincial Directorate of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Enemy propaganda? Sabotage actions? Acts of terrorism? Constitutionally established, according to the legal procedures in force in the country, with all the regulated guarantees, and on behalf of the people of Cuba, the courts will deliver justice at the appropriate time.

This anti-Cuban joint does not skimp on financing for actions that destroy the constitutional order in Cuba and threaten the lives of the island’s inhabitants.

(Taken from Reasons of Cuba)

However, this position of honoring its word and its status as a guarantor country has generated very serious problems for Havana, caused by the disloyalty of the Duque government and by the hatred of Trump and his friends, who did not rest until they managed to get Cuba was included again in the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, from which the Obama administration had removed it in 2015.

This inclusion has brought serious survival problems to the inhabitants of the island, derived from the inhumane economic restrictions that result from the condition of being considered “sponsors of terrorism”.

All of this has generated strong migratory pressure from many Cubans seeking to leave, especially to the United States, which could turn that country into a boomerang.

More than 20 months have passed since Biden took office and stated that his government was going to review that status as a “sponsor of terrorism” country, with which Cuba has been unfairly classified since when the Trump government, with only a few days left to After finishing his administration, he included it in that macabre list with the argument that giving shelter to the ELN was proof that it was sponsoring terrorists.

But since then, Biden has done little to ease the situation for the Cubans. And nothing that he has moved to remove Cuba from the list.

Now, when the Petro government has asked that of Havana to continue hosting the talks with the ELN and other countries have offered to collaborate with the process, the Biden government does not have a single argument for not taking the steps necessary in order to immediately remove Cuba from the gloomy list.

Already the pressure for Biden to act in this regard is growing. In fact, more than 10,000 people have signed an open letter addressed to President Biden asking him to reverse the measure imposed by Trump and restore Obama’s policy towards the island.

“His policies with respect to Cuba, which have been more aligned with those of Trump than with those of Obama, are affecting the well-being of the Cuban people and go against the will of the majority of Americans. We urge – the letter adds – that you immediately make an important change in policy and remove Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism”.

The Colombian foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva Durán, had also made the same request when, a few days after taking office, he traveled to Havana to resume talks with the ELN.

So it is time for President Biden to stop dwelling on the matter and act.

Two great friends left this week: former minister Jaime García Parra, whom she loved since she was a child, and doctor Rafael Carrillo, an extraordinary human being. Peace in the graves of him. And a very close hug for his families.

During a meeting of the COVID-19 prevention and control national task force yesterday afternoon, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, called for “the unity of Cubans, and respect among Cubans, freeing ourselves of any feelings of hatred, while demanding compliance with the norms that guarantee social tranquility in our society.”

Also in attendance were Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and the President of the National Assembly of People’s Power, Esteban Lazo Hernández.
Diaz-Canel referred to the current situation in the country, marked by a dangerous new wave of COVID-19, the brutally tightened U.S. blockade and disturbances by small counterrevolutionary groups orchestrated from abroad.

He explained to those present at the meeting and authorities in all provinces and the special municipality via videoconference, that there must be clarity about the programs with which the enemy “intends to destabilize our country, and how they are being sorely disappointed.”

The President recalled all that has been done in the COVID battle and efforts to keep the economy going despite the epidemic’s impact, aggravated by escalating economic aggression on the part of the United States, adding, “We do not always achieve all the results we need since we do not have the necessary resources, because of the blockade,” but our objective continues to be “the real prosperity we want for our people.”

The motivations that move the efforts of Cuba in Revolution, our efforts, he said, “disrupt, destroy all the perversity of the empire’s plans, the plans of the Cuban-American mafia that is determined to prevent the revival of a dialogue of respect, of equals, without restrictive measures, without coercive measures between two countries that are very different ideologically, but are geographically close and could develop a fully civilized relationship, based on mutual respect. These, he stressed, are the arguments, the convictions that we must continue defending… reiterating our conviction and our truths.”

Referring to recent disturbances, the President noted, “The calls on social networks are totally aggressive, calling for murder, calling for lynching, threatening, calling for the destruction of facilities, calling for attacks against people’s homes, and in particular against persons identified as revolutionaries.”

“In other words, this talk that the government is repressing peaceful demonstrations, or the requests that Cuba or the government respect the opinion of its citizens is a total lie and a total slander. Those who are demonstrating are not demonstrating peacefully. They are motivated by the hatred that has been instilled in them by the strategy of subversion so outrageously mounted, so perverse, so maliciously promoted on social networks.”

“This is media terrorism…and we will be denouncing those who have joined these campaigns for supporting terrorism,” he said.
“If anyone should be on a list of terrorists, or of countries that support terrorism, it should be those who have lent themselves to this little game of the empire’s. But, we must be very calm, patient and serene.”

Díaz-Canel explained that those who have perpetrated media terrorism “have used the very demonstrations in support of the Revolution, as if they were against the Revolution,” even using photographs of events in other countries, that have nothing to do with Cuba. He cited a photo of a demonstration in Egypt and one of soccer fans in Argentina celebrating their victory in the Copa America, posted as anti-government protest in Cuba. “This is so ridiculous,” he said, “but it poisons and the worst thing is that we have people who are so taken with all this that they believe the information. This is why I believe we must be very coherent, we must continue denouncing what occurs on the social networks, and not to let ourselves be poisoned.”

He noted the real objective of those who are perpetrating this media terrorism, pointing out that Cuba’s enemies are attempting to create a situation of chaos, rock throwing, street barricades and all the phenomena they have instigated in other countries, which are outlined in the famous U.S. manual describing how soft coups, and their different phases, are conducted.

“We must continue working to eliminate the vestiges of delinquency we have, the vestiges we may have of indecent behavior; we must continue advancing with our social programs, which have been hit hard by the economic-financial situation, and the political will to work on this is there, but we cannot lower our guard…Wherever revolutionary vigilance exists, there will be no place for provocations, counterrevolutionary propaganda or vandalism. And sometimes we are obliged to take action in the face of this aggression; we must act firmly, but always avoiding any danger to human lives.”

The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic called for “the unity of Cubans and respect among Cubans, freeing ourselves of any feelings of hatred… while demanding compliance with the norms that guarantee social tranquility in our society. And we will see, when at another time we evaluate what this moment meant and what they wanted to do to Cuba and our people, how many lies, how much hatred, how much viciousness, how much malice was calculated for all this.”

(Taken from Granma)

INTENT ON DESTROYING THE REVOLUTION, AT ANY COST

One of the first terrorist attacks against the nascent Revolution occurred on October 21, 1959. On that day, a traitor pilot exiled in Miami, Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz, who had been an officer in the Cuban Air Force, flying a twin-engine B-25, bombed several Havana neighborhoods, causing 45 injuries and the death of two persons.

Diaz Lanz himself would later confirm his responsibility for the attack. With full impunity and protection from U.S. authorities, he departed from Pompano Beach, Florida, where no one created any obstacle to his plans.

Thus began the terrorist war against Cuba, sponsored by the U.S. government and conceived as state policy, fully documented and denounced by Cuba in international forums.

A wide variety of political, military, economic, biological, diplomatic, psychological, propaganda, espionage and sabotage methods have been utilized in the attacks. Armed gangs have also been organized and logistically supported, while desertion has been encouraged and plots hatched to assassinate leaders of the Revolution.

Numerous declassified secret documents provide evidence of these crimes, along with the millions of dollars approved annually for this purpose, an amount which is published in the media as just another line item in the government budget, behind the backs of taxpayers, who are largely unaware of the allocation’s final destination.

In this regard, the Cuban people’s demand for compensation from the United States government for damages states in its first Findings, “Hostile and aggressive actions carried out by the United States government against Cuba, since the triumph of the Revolution to date, have caused enormous material and human damage to the people, and incalculable suffering to the country’s citizens, hardships due to shortages of medicines, food and other items essential to life.”

The document reports that the loss of human lives has reached 3,478 and 2,099 individuals have been permanently disabled as a result of bodily injury.

One of the bloodiest attacks perpetrated by the CIA was the explosion of the steamship La Coubre, in the port of Havana, as legitimately purchased weapons and ammunition were being unloaded, March 4, 1960.

More than a hundred Cubans died in the sabotage, including longshoremen, port workers and members of the Rebel Army. While the lives of six French crew members were lost.

It should also be recalled that when Comadante en jefe Fidel Castro attended the Ibero-American Summit on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, the military wing of the counterrevolutionary organization Cuban American National Foundation attempted to assassinate him.

Several of its members were arrested and, found on board the yacht La Esperanza, registered in the name of Francisco “Pepe” Hernández, later president of the Foundation, was a 50 caliber rifle of his, capable of perforating armored vehicles. In December 1999, they were all acquitted.

Another terrorist attack that deeply touched the Cuban people was the mid-flight bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane over Barbados, in which 73 persons perished, including passengers and crew. The intellectual authors of this terrorist attack were Orlando Bosch Avila and Luis Posada Carriles. (Both later died as free men in the city of Miami.)

They were detained in Venezuela, until the Foundation financed Bosch’s freedom and facilitated the escape of Posada Carriles, who cynically acknowledged responsibility for the sabotage, while calmly walking the streets of Miami.

Referring to the sabotage, Fidel stated: “Surely U.S. citizens will understand the attack better if they compare the population of Cuba 25 years ago with that of the United States on September 11, 2001. The death of 73 persons on a Cuban plane downed in-flight is equivalent, given the United States’ population, to the mid-air destruction of seven U.S. airliners with more than 300 passengers each, on the same day, at the same time, by a terrorist conspiracy.”

In 1997, several bombs exploded in Havana hotels, and Cuba denounced the fact that the culprits were residents in the United States. The State Department responded that it would investigate if Cuba provided information.

The FBI was forwarded a fat, secret dossier from Cuban authorities, in which the name of Luis Posada Carriles appeared as the instigator of the attacks. But nothing was done to arrest the criminals. Instead, the information provided by the island’s government was used to pursue, arrest and prosecute Cubans in the U.S. conducting surveillance to protect their people from these terrorist groups

Three years later, in November of 2000, on the occasion of the People’s Summit at the University of Panama, which was held simultaneously with the 17th Summit of the Americas, Cuban State Security agencies uncovered a terrorist plot to assassinate Fidel.

Diplomat Carlos Rafael Zamora, a witness to the events, recalled: “The Cuban side gave the Panamanian side a list of terrorists, their aliases and the types of passports they used to enter the country. All the individuals who participated in planning of the attack were identified. I witnessed the conversations held with Panamanian authorities, in which we expressed the Cuban delegation’s concern regarding the presence of these terrorists and the threat they posed to the security of the Comandante en jefe and the delegation.”

Upon arrival in Panama, Fidel denounced the terrorists’ plans in a press conference and provided information that would allow for their arrest. Posada Carriles, using the alias of Franco Rodriguez Mena, was staying in room 310 at the Coral Suites Hotel in Panama City. He was detained there. Cuban agents neutralized the assassination attempt by four terrorists in the University’s principal auditorium, where they had hidden nine kilograms of C-4 explosive. Some 2,000 people would gather there to hear Fidel. It would have been a real massacre.

The government of President Mireya Moscoso, under national and international pressure, was obliged to prosecute the four implicated, but they were given purely symbolic sentences. Messages from the Foundation in Miami poured in calling for their release. Thus on August 26, 2004, just one day before Moscoso’s term as President came to an end, she pardoned them.
A terrorist attack that deeply touched the Cuban people was the mid-flight bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane over Barbados, in which 73 persons perished. Photo: Jorge Oller

Posada Carriles took many secrets to the grave. But it is no secret at all that he was a life-long terrorist assassin in the service of the CIA.

One of the most outrageous elements of the Trump’s administration’s foreign policy was to add Cuba, once again, to the spurious unilateral State Department list of the countries they consider “state sponsors of terrorism.”

The immorality of the U.S. government is so great that the absurd accusation about Cuban support of terrorism has been passed from “one hand to another” as a political inheritance, fully aware of the dimensions of this colossal infamy, as befits the imperialists’ arrogance, to be recycled by the Biden administration and serve as a justification for more sanctions that will not take Cuba by surprise. They reflect the empire’s unchanged interest in forcing this heroic country to surrender.
The U.S. government has yet to acknowledge the terrorist nature of an assault rifle attack on the cuabn embasy in Washington, April 30, 2020. Photo: @Embacubaeeuu

It apparently does not matter that the failed attempt has been underway for more than six decades. What a fiasco.

(Taken from Granma)

On March 4, 1961, during the commemoration of the first anniversary of the sabotage of the French steamship La Coubre, Comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz stated: “When the ship La Coubre exploded, leaving that Dantesque toll of workers and soldiers torn apart by the criminal sabotage, our enemies were warning us of the price they would demand of us; but they were also teaching us that no matter how dear the price they would force us to pay for the Revolution, they were willing to force our people to pay a much more expensive price for wanting to make a revolution.”

In memory of the hundreds killed, injured and orphaned by the explosion on that Friday in the month of March, 1960, yesterday morning Party and Havana government authorities gathered at the La Coubre Docks to honor the victims.

Alongside the plaque located at the site, engraved with the names of those killed in the infamous terrorist act, was surrounded by five floral wreaths in honor of the victims, on behalf of Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Party Central Committee; Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Republic; the Council of State; the Council of Ministers; and the Port Maritime Transportation Enterprise Group.

Present at the ceremony were Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary of the Party Provincial Committee in Havana; Reinaldo García Zapata, governor of Havana, and a representative group from the Party and government of the capital, including Tamara Pláceres Pérez, first secretary of the Party Municipal Committee in Old Havana, as well as relatives of the victims.

(Taken from Grannma)

The infamous decision was condemned on Twitter by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, who described it as cynical and hypocritical.

“The political opportunism behind this action is recognized by all who are honestly concerned about the scourge of terrorism and its victims,” stated Rodríguez, also a member of the Communist Party of Cuba’s Political Bureau.

The serious accusation made by the Trump administration further discredits its immoral foreign policy, precisely at a time when the country is experiencing its open disregard for human life.

The country’s leaders who have arrogantly mounted this farce are, at the same time, promoting political extremism and encouraging armed protesters to storm public institutions; subordinating the population’s health to the market, in times of pandemic, exposing citizens to infection and death; selectively murdering, beyond the borders of their nation, those they consider enemies; and abstaining in complicit silence from condemning the assault rifle attack on the Washington embassy of the country they now shamelessly accuse of terrorism and attempt to subjugate with a blockade, using hunger and hardship to force a surrender.

The United States, the world’s most violent terrorist, describes as a state sponsor of such brutality the nation that send doctors around the world to contribute to saving lives in the battle against COVID-19. The facts reveal that imperialism has no shame.

(Taken from Granma)

For months now, there has been speculation about the possibility of including Cuba in the State Department’s unilateral list that categorizes countries, without any authority or legitimacy, lacking genuine motivation, referring to terrorism and its consequences, and as an instrument of defamation to justify coercive economic measures against nations that resist bowing to the whims of U.S. imperialism.

The announcement made by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is a superb act by a government that is discredited, dishonest and morally bankrupt. It is known, without a doubt, that the true motivation for this action is to impose additional obstacles to any prospect of recovery in the bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States.

Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism, a truth recognized by all. The official and well-known policy, and the impeccable conduct of our country, is the rejection of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, particularly state terrorism, by whomever, against whomever and wherever it is committed.

Cuba is a victim of state terrorism and our population has suffered it firsthand, at the cost of 3,478 fatalities and 2,099 disabling injuries, due to acts committed by the United States government or perpetrated and sponsored from the country’s territory, with the tolerance of official authorities. Cubans repudiate with contempt any maneuver meant to manipulate such a sensitive issue, for crude purposes of political opportunism.

Havana, January 11, 2021