Why don’t we recognize Cuba?
Statement from Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations • MINREX forcefully rejects the manipulation of an issue as sensitive as international terrorism, in order to advance a policy against Cuba, and demands that our country be definitively deleted from this spurious, unilateral, arbitrary list, which is an affront to the Cuban people, and discredits the government of the United States itself
On April 30, the U.S. State Department released its Country Report on Terrorism 2013, which repeated the absurd designation of Cuba as “a state sponsor of terrorism,” for the 32nd time.
The State Department was obliged to recognize in its own report that in 2013 Cuba supported and sponsored negotiations between the FARC and the government of Colombia, with the objective of achieving a peace agreement; that there is no information indicating that the Cuban government has supplied weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups; and that members of the ETA resident in Cuba were relocated with the cooperation of the Spanish government.
Despite this, considerations of a political nature and the need to justify at all cost the failed blockade, unanimously rejected by the international community, take precedence over rationality once again.
The only pretext to which the State Department alludes, to support this slanderous accusation of Cuba, is the presence in the country of “fugitives” from U.S. justice, none of whom, it is worth clarifying, have been accused of terrorism. Some of these citizens were legitimately granted asylum, while others who committed crimes in the United States, were duly tried and sentenced, and chose to reside in Cuba after the completion of their sentences.
The government of Cuba reaffirms that our national territory has never been utilized, nor will it be utilized, to shelter terrorists of any nationality, or for the purpose of organizing, financing or perpetuating terrorism against any country in the world, including the United States. Moreover, our government rejects and unequivocally condemns all acts of terrorism, in any location, under any circumstances, and regardless of alleged motivations.
It is the United States government which employs state terrorism as a weapon against countries which oppose its domination. It uses repugnant methods of torture and advanced military technology, including unpiloted drones, to extra-judicially execute alleged terrorists, including U.S. citizens, additionally causing the deaths of many innocent victims within the civilian population.
Cuba is one of the countries which, for defending its independence and dignity, has suffered over decades the consequences of terrorist acts, organized, financed and executed from U.S. territory, acts which have caused 3,478 deaths and 2,099 debilitating injuries.
Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean and the world will never forget that the United States continues to harbor terrorists of Cuban origin, such as Luis Posada Carriles, intellectual author of the first terrorist attack on a civilian aircraft in the Western Hemisphere, causing the in-flight explosion of a Cubana de Aviación plane off the coast of Barbados, October 6, 1976, killing the 73 passengers aboard.
Paradoxically, the U.S. continues to hold serving long, unjust prison sentences, those who struggled against terrorism, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, for crimes they did not commit.
The Ministry of Foreign Relations forcefully rejects the manipulation of an issue as sensitive as international terrorism, in order to advance a policy against Cuba, and demands that our country be definitively deleted from this spurious, unilateral, arbitrary list, which is an affront to the Cuban people, and discredits the government of the United States itself.
Havana, April 30, 2014