“What is paradoxical and cynical in all this is that the U.S. government designates Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism and includes Cuba in an arbitrary and unilateral list…when any astute and impartial observer knows what government it is that actually encourages, supports, and tolerates terrorism and what country it is that confronts and fights terrorism while being the victim of this scourge for over 60 years.”
Those were the words of Josefina Vidal, vice-minister of Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, speaking at a press conference prompted by her government’s release of a report on U.S. terror attacks against Cuba. The report appears in Cuba’s “Official Gazette,” which is the means by which Cuba’s government communicates legislation, regulations, and decrees.
The report represents Cuba’s response to United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1373. Approved on Sept. 28, 2001, at the behest of the U.S. government, the resolution coincided with U.S. initiation of its so-called “war on terror” following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Resolution 1373 requires that states take “the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts” and report to the United Nations “on steps taken to implement this resolution.” Cuba submitted an earlier report in December 2023.
The transcript of the press conference has Vice-Minister Vidal criticizing “the inaction of U.S. authorities [on terror attacks against Cuba] even though Cuba offers cooperation and applies and fulfills the law.” She mentioned Cuba’s embassy in Washington having been targeted by an individual firing multiple rounds from an assault rifle in 2020 and someone else throwing two Molotov cocktails in that direction in 2023.
Another of the speakers, Col. Víctor Álvarez Valle from the Interior Ministry, called for international attention to Cuba’s report. He mentioned its inclusion of five new individuals and one new terror organization—Cuba First (Cuba Primero). Álvarez highlighted the criminal nature of cyberterrorism and of “excessive use of social media to incite violence.”
Eduard Roberts Campbell of the Attorney General’s office declared financing of terrorism to be a crime; he urged international cooperation in fighting terrorism. Alexis Batista Segrera, representing the Ministry of Justice, reported that Cuba has signed 19 international agreements on fighting terrorism.
Cuba’s recent report consists of one list of 62 individuals and another of 20 organizations. Among the crimes carried out by those named: recruitment of terrorists; supplying perpetrators with arms, explosives, and funds, carrying out destructive attacks against infrastructure, tourist facilities, and transportation services; and injuring or murdering individual citizens.
All but 10 of the persons named in the report live in the United States. Of those outside the U.S., one lives in Belgium, another in the Dominican Republic, and the rest presumably in Cuba.
Armando Labrador Coro and Seriocha Humberto Fernández Rojas register as number 61 and number 62, respectively, on the list of individuals. They belong to Cuba First, the most recent addition to the list of groups.
In an article appearing on Cuba Información, journalist José A. Amesty R. points out that the Florida-based groups carrying out anti-Cuban terror attacks in the 1960s and ’70s head the list of 20 organizations. These include Alpha 66, the Cuban-American National Foundation, Brothers to the Rescue, and the F4 Commandos. Groups formed more recently selectively attacked the island’s tourist facilities in the 1990s.
Amesty suggests the existence of “unknown perpetrators” who are close to “the U.S. intelligence community…and the Miami terrorist mafia, who flaunt and abuse their millions and their elite [political] positions.” He writes that terrorism against Cuba “has claimed the lives of 3,478 people and [injured] almost 3,000.”
A report on Cuba First appearing recently on Cuba’s Televisión News provides information about the group’s founder and leader, Cuban immigrant and Florida resident Armando Labrador Coro. It asserts that funding for Cuba First comes from Labrador’s business, “My Cosmetic Surgery,” and from his considerable rental income.
The televised news report shows a film demonstrating that Labrador pays YouTubers “for misrepresenting Cuban realities” and that Cuba First “recruits and trains individuals to attack sensitive targets like hospitals, schools, day care centers, and energy infrastructure.” Included in the video presentation is Cuban Yoennys Oro’s confession of being recruited by Cuba First and of planning to burn sugarcane fields.
According to Prensa Latina, the film emphasizes that Cuba First operatives “maintain links to extremist groups that advocate armed invasion of the United States, and maintain connections to figures such as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.”
The main purpose of Cuba First, as noted by its website, is “to gather within its ranks every person, Cuban or not, wherever they may be, who shows themselves willing to fight to put an end to the economic, political, and social system imposed on our nation for more than half a century.”
Ultimately, Cuba’s Report to the United Nations demonstrates twin U.S. hypocrisies. The U.S. government instigated UNSC Resolution 1373 despite having long inflicted terror on Cuba. It fights its “war on terror” while terrorizing Cuba and other nations and peoples. On display too is the cruel paradox mentioned by Vice-Minister Vidal, that of terror-wielding United States declaring Cuba to be a state sponsor of terrorism.
Lastly, the recent report could have mentioned U.S.-sponsored terrorists of earlier times. Some of their doings are:
- CIA blows up French ship La Coubre March 4, 1960, Havana; 101 people died.
- Jose Basulto (Brothers to the Rescue) shoots cannon at beach-side hotel, Aug. 24, 1962.
- Novo brothers fire bazooka at UN while Che is speaking, 1964.
- Ignacio Nova fires bazooka at Cuba pavilion at the Montreal World’s Fair, 1967.
- Orlando Bosch fires bazooka at Polish ship in Miami, 1967.
- Bosch, Luis Posada, and others kill Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington, 1976.
- Posada and Bosch arrange for midair bombing of Cubana Flight 455 in 1976; 73 people died.
- Omega-7 kills Puerto Rican travel agent Carlos Muniz for supporting Cuba,1979.
- Pedro Remon kills Eulalio Negrin in New Jersey, 1979, because he conferred with Cuba’s government.
- Brothers to the Rescue violate Cuban air space 20-plus times prior to the 1996 shoot-down of their planes.
- Until the 1980s, the U.S. government recurrently carries out bacteriologic war against Cuba.
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