Published Friday, October 12, 2001 in
The Miami Herald
Cuba's totalitarian government is among those on the U.S. State Department's
terrorism blacklist, and should remain there. Anyone who would suggest otherwise
is mistaken or misinformed.
Yet only weeks after the worst terrorist attacks on American soil in
history, the Cuban regime launched a campaign to erase its name from the State
Department's hall of infamy. Cuba's petition was supported by 16 U.S. groups and
individuals who signed an open letter advocating Cuba's removal of Cuba from the
list of seven governments that sponsor terrorism.
Fortunately this idea has no currency with the State Department, and with
good reason. In addition to terrorizing its own citizens, the Cuban government
has trained and harbored terrorists for more than three decades. Its students
have come from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Argentina, Peru and even include FARC and
ELN guerrillas from Colombia.
INNOCENTS TARGETED
Cuba's status as a sanctuary for Basque ETA and Colombian terrorists, among
others, isn't old history. Cuba was home to an Irish Revolutionary Army
operative who was arrested in Colombia in August and is suspected of training
FARC guerrillas in urban terrorism.
Whether Cuba currently is making bio-chemical weapons is a subject of
speculation, but unknown. As Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fl., recently told this
Editorial Board, Cuba allows no access to international inspection agencies.
Troubling, too, are the regime's 40-year ties with the Middle East that
include relations with fellow members of the terror blacklist: Libya, Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Sudan. The friendships are no accident. As recently as this
year, Fidel Castro saw fit to renew those relationships personally in a Mideast
tour.
The importance of those relations was reflected in the rushed arrest of Ana
Belén Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency analyst accused of passing
classified information to the communist country. The concern was that secrets
passed to Cuba would be shared with unfriendly Mideast states, compromising U.S.
anti-terror efforts.
Although Cuba has itself been hit by terrorists -- bombers targeted Havana
hotels, killing an Italian tourist -- such attacks don't justify in-kind
terrorism. Among the Cuban regime's most heinous acts:
The Cuban Air Force's shoot-down of two unarmed civilian planes over
international waters in 1996. That premeditated attack killed four South Florida
residents.
The 1994 sinking of a tugboat fleeing Havana Harbor packed with 72 Cubans
fleeing the island prison, of whom 41 died, including 10 children.
Both incidents earned the Cuban government condemnation from the
Organization of American States Interamerican Commission for Human Rights and
other international groups.
SEEKING REDEMPTION
As the U.S. campaign against global terrorism unfolds, Cuba's regime has
been trying to redeem itself. It rushed to sign 12 United Nations anti-terrorism
treaties last week -- 12 more documents it can ignore as it has the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements.
"Our country speaks with total moral authority in saying that it would
never undertake a terrorist act,'' Cuba's U.N. Ambassador Bruno Rodriguez said.
What hypocrisy.
If Cuba isn't actively exporting terrorism today, it's because the regime
can't afford to do so. Apologists for Cuba have it wrong. The dictatorship has
earned its place on terror's blacklist and deserves to stay there.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
