Cuba Rejects Inclusion on U.S. List of State Sponsors of Terrorism

Havana, Cuba, Aug 20.- Cuba condemned its inclusion earlier this week on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism saying that this decision only aims at discrediting the Caribbean country and trying to justify Washington’s internationally and overwhelmingly rejected economic blockade of the island.

An official declaration from the Cuban Foreign Ministry published on Saturday by Granma newspaper, points out that “the Government of the United States; which has historically practiced state terrorism, extrajudicial executions, kidnapping, killings with unmanned aircraft, torture and illegal detention; which has established secret prisons; which is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people as a result of its conquest and occupation wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; which systematically bombs sovereign states like Libya; has neither the moral authority nor the right to judge Cuba, a country that has an impeccable record in the fight against terrorism and which has systematically been a victim of this scourge.”

The note adds that Washington continues to protect international and self-confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for many terrorist actions, including the 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cuban airliner off the coast of Barbados that killed all 73 people on board and a series of bomb attacks against Cuban tourist facilities in 1997 that resulted in several people injured and the death of Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo.

The declaration criticizes the U.S. Government’s double standard on this issue adding that five Cuban antiterrorist fighters —internationally known as the Cuban Five— are kept in prison in American jails for trying to protect their country and the lives of Cuban, U.S. and other foreign citizens from the attacks of extremist anti-Cuba groups in South Florida.

“As a result of these terrorist actions, which have been organized, financed and perpetrated from U.S. territory —in many cases with the complicity of the government of that country—, 3,478 Cuban citizens have died and another 2,099 have been maimed.

“The political manipulation of a sensitive issue like the fight against terrorism also offends the memory of the victims of the criminal attacks of September 11, 2001, when the Cuban people and government expressed their solidarity and offered their unconditional assistance,” the statement points out.

The declaration finally urges the U.S. Government to punish the real terrorists living in its territory, to free the Cuban Five, and to put an end to its criminal blockade policy against Cuba. (ACN)