Should the U.S. be on Cuba’s State Terrorism List?
USA Today states in “Obama’s next Cuba step: The state terrorism list” that
“President Obama held an historic meeting Saturday with Cuban counterpart Raul
Castro, but held off on a major announcement: Whether to remove Cuba from the
U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.”
By Keith Bolender
April 13, 2015 "ICH"
- “President Obama is soon to announce the removal of Cuba from the State
Department list of states that sponsor terrorism, a designation that has long
been opposed by the Castro government for its hypocrisy based on the long
history of terrorism the United States has supported against Cuba.
The Cuban side has claimed more than 3,000 of its citizens have been victimized
by acts of terrorism dating back to the 1960s, conducted in the majority by
violent anti-revolutionary Cuban-American organizations based in Florida, often
with the backing of the American government. Acts include the destruction of
Cubana Airlines flight 455 in 1976, resulting in the deaths of all 72 on board,
as well as the bombing campaign against Cuban tourist facilities in 1997.
Cuban-American Luis Posada Carriles, the acknowledged mastermind of the Cubana
Airlines and tourist bombings, continues to reside in Miami, despite requests
for his extradition to Havana.
Other acts of terrorism against Cuban civilian targets include the torture and
killing of Cuban students for teaching adults to read and write during the
Literacy Campaign in 1961; the introduction of biological germs such as Dengue 2
that resulted in the death of more than 100 children; attacks on small villages
and the psychological terror program known as Operation Peter Pan that convinced
thousands of Cuban parents to send their children out of country.”
Keith Bolender -
bolodive at gmail.com - Bolender is a
freelance journalist and author of Voices
From the Other Side: An Oral History of
Terrorism Against Cuba (Pluto Press 2010).
