Posted on 10/12/2001 2:19:54 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Cuba's regime has long-standing ties with terrorist groups and countries.
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.
A point that needs to be made: The people of Iraq are suffering because of Sadam Hussein and not by the embargo, just as the people of Cuba are not suffering because of the U.S. embargo but because of Castro and his communist regime.
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.Here here! I agree that Cuba's communist regime has long-standing ties with terrorist groups and countries. And Castro shouldn't be overlooked. His hatred for America and his willingness to bring America down are the basic tools for terrorism -- hate and will. Castro's efforts to build an anti- American coalition has the support and financial help of communists and terrorists around the world: in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere.Both incidents earned the Cuban government condemnation from the Organization of American States Interamerican Commission for Human Rights and other international groups.
``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.
GW has said: "He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism and respond to any attacks that may come. These measures are essential. The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it and destroy it where it grows."
Now that our government has built a coalition to annihilate terrorism, and since Cuba is only 90 miles from the US, it should start with Castro and his tyrannical regime.
BUMP! Worth repeating. Thanks.
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