US keeps Cuba on terrorism blacklist

[Billy Burnett]

Source: AFP

The United States announced Thursday it has retained communist Cuba on a list of countries that allegedly support terrorism.

The State Department report lumping Cuba with Iran, Syria and Sudan was released weeks after US President Barack Obama made overtures to Havana, which is under a decades-old embargo, by lifting curbs on travel and money transfers.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jCC61b_2etb6q1LreN5N-AvbAsdQ

[Mika]

1. Looks like the standoff will continue.

Status quo (politics) will prevail.

[RC]

2. Why isn't the United State on the Terrorism Black List?

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. Because the USA WRITES the list?

.
.
.

If there is intelligent life out in space

USA would be #1 on the list

USA is the only,

ONLY country on the planet consistently bombing the shit out of other countries.

But we can't see that way down here on earth,

cuz we sorta lack "intelligent" life.

Just cuz we can "think",

don't make us smart

(doh)

and

(sigh)

[Mika]

5. The US is on Cuba's Terrorism Black List. The US harbors Posada & Bosch & many other active terrists

Cuba says US is 'international criminal'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3856484

[Mark Twain Girl]

3. Lovely. nt

[Judi Lynn]

6. No time like the present to start becoming aware of the deadly history of aggression

against the tiny nation. Here's a good summary which is repeated consistantly through a huge number of other sources which is a decent starting place for people who haven't forgotten about US vs. Cuba history because they never knew it in the first place:

CHAPTER II: OVER 40 YEARS OF TERRORISM AGAINST THE CUBAN PEOPLE IN VIOLATION OF THEIR MOST BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. THE US GOVERNMENT GRANTS IMPUNITY TO THOSE RESPONSIBLE
For more than 40 years, the Cuban people has been the victim of countless terrorist actions and attacks encouraged from abroad, involving substantial material and human losses and causing untold suffering to Cuban citizens. The economic cost to the nation of the series of acts of sabotage, and even biological assaults, has also been extremely high.

The terrorist actions have aimed at reversing —by creating a climate of fear, instability and uncertainty— the political and social choices freely made by the Cuban people in full exercise of their right to self-determination. US territory has been used on a systematic, long-term basis to plan, fund, recruit for, train for and support terrorist operations against the Cuban people.

The forms of terrorism employed against Cuba have included: sabotage or destruction of economic and civil targets on the island; attacks on coastal installations, merchant shipping and fishing vessels; attacks on Cuban installations, property and personnel on foreign soil, including embassies, airline offices and aircraft; assassination attempts on its leaders; introduction of germs and pests into cattle-raising and other agricultural areas; introduction of strains of human diseases among others.

The at least 681 acts of terrorism and aggression against the Cuban people which have been proven and documented have resulted in the deaths of 3,478 Cubans and the maiming of another 2,099. It is worth noting that there is no sign of a let-up with the passing years: there were 68 attacks during the 1990s and 39 during the last five years.

The victims of terrorist operations have not been confined to the Cuban population. A total of 190 attacks have targeted people or property of other nations based on US soil. Dozens of attacks on the property of foreign firms that trade with Cuba have also been targeted, as have representative offices of nations that maintain links with Cuba.

Terrorist activity increased significantly and became a routine tool of the policy of hostility to Cuba after 1961, as part of the 'Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime' approved on 17th March 1960 by the then president Dwight D Eisenhower and implemented by his successor, John F Kennedy. Among other things, the Plan authorized the setting up of a secret intelligence organization inside Cuba and allocated funds for the purpose to the CIA.

18th January 1962 marked the approval of the "Cuba Project ", a programme of 32 covert acts of aggression to be carried out by the departments and agencies participating in the so-called "Operation Mongoose".

Apart from the hundreds of operations undertaken directly by the US government's Special Services, a catalogue of terrorist attacks and similar actions, too numerous to be enumerated in this document, were executed (or thwarted in their preparatory stages) under the aegis of organizations based on US territory and composed of terrorists of Cuban origin, including many trained earlier by the CIA or units of the US Army.

In 1960, various terrorist attacks were carried out on public premises including cinemas, theatres, schools and businesses, with the aim of creating a climate of terror among the population. The vilest and bloodiest of that year's actions was the blowing up, on 4th March, of La Coubre, a French steamer, in Havana harbour, during the unloading of munitions for the Cuban Army purchased in Belgium. The toll was 101 dead, a number of French citizens among these, over 200 injured and many missing.

Other, no less murderous attacks, took place that year in Havana, including the following:

On 21st January - the dropping of four 100-pound bombs on the urban areas of Regla and Cojímar

On 11th February - the dropping of ignited phosphorus on the population of El Cano

In October and December - machine-gun attacks in the Río Cristal, Rancho Boyeros and Arroyo Arenas localities.

Notable among the attacks on economically-significant targets during 1960 was the bombing on 18th February of the España sugar refinery. The aircraft used was destroyed in the air by one of its own bombs. The American pilot, Robert Ellis Frost, was accompanied by Onelio Santana Roque, former member of the forces of repression deployed by the Batista regime. According to the plane's flight plan, it took off from Tamiami airport in Florida. Other documents found with the body of the American showed that he had participated in three earlier air raids on Cuba and was to collect $1,500 for that day's mission.

It is significant that the majority of the best-known representatives of the anti-Cuba 'exile' community were directly involved in or carried out terrorist actions against Cuba during the 1960s. The Revolución newspaper of 30th December 1960 reported a raid on a bomb-making factory and the arrest of 17 terrorists who, acting on instructions from the US Embassy in Havana, had been placing tobacco tins containing plastic explosives, in retail establishments. The Cuban terrorists involved included two individuals now calling themselves "peaceful political opponents": none other than the "journalist and publicist" Carlos Alberto Montaner (ringleader of the Madrid anti-Cuba mob) and "His Excellency the (US) Ambassador for Human Rights", Armando Valladares, bogus writer-paralytic, who was seen getting up from his wheelchair and running 400 feet of track on television. The former was not prosecuted at the time, being under age; he got asylum in a Latin American embassy and left the country.

The terrorists stepped up their campaign during 1961. Operations included burning plantations during the sugar-cane harvest, sabotaging factories and attacking farmsteads. 281 Cubans died, mostly innocent farmers, women and children, as well as members of the militia and young volunteer participants in the nationwide literacy campaign launched that year.

More:
http://www.cubaminrex.cu/English/libro%20blanco/paginas%20ingles/parte%201_cap%202%20ingl%E9s.htm

[Mika]

8. 638 Ways To Kill Castro

Thanks for the links, Judi. :hi:

--

A documentary on the numerous attempts by the US government to assassinate the Cuban Head of State since 1959.

638 Ways To Kill Castro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7zf3cUPAa8

[Judi Lynn]

9. Thanks for posting that link, Mika. It was the first time I've seen some of these people

actually moving and speaking, rather than still, as in books and magazines, etc.

I've seen this documentary on a cable station some time ago, was so pleased to be able to watch it. It's a good eye-opener to people who've never taken the time to look into this part of US "foreign policy!" I'm keeping that link you've posted so I can see it again.

[AlphaCentauri]

7. ridiculous and lack of moral justification

[Judi Lynn]

10. Miami Herald: Selling trips to Cuba once was deadly

Posted on Monday, 05.04.09
Selling trips to Cuba once was deadly

Cuba travel agencies appear to have put their troubled past behind -- and business is booming thanks to the new relaxation of travel restrictions to Cuba. But it all began with a murder 30 years ago.

BY LUISA YANEZ, DOUGLAS HANKS AND LAURA FIGUEROA
[e-mail]

There was a time when advertising Viajes a Cuba on a storefront was an invitation to a pipe bombing.

In the politically charged Miami of the late 1970s and '80s, the FBI investigated more than a dozen blasts at Cuba travel agencies -- considered nests of Communist agents by staunch anti-Castro exiles.

Selling tickets to Havana could even get you killed. That's what happened to Carlos Muñiz Varela, a 26-year-old exile living in Puerto Rico who opened the first Cuba-approved travel agency. Thirty years ago this week, he was gunned down in San Juan.

But times have changed, and the travel agencies today worry little about political retribution.

''They want to call me a communist -- thank you very much,'' said a strident Francisco Aruca, the owner of Marazul Charters. Aruca, also a Miami radio host, is one of the more outspoken of the seven agency owners who book charters to Cuba. They all have permission from Cuba and the U.S. Treasury Department.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1030958.html