Posted on 03/08/2002 7:19:31 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cuba scrambled to offer condolences, blood and airports for diverted airliners after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and provided intelligence to help the United States track the culprits.
But the information proved worthless and the Caribbean island will remain on a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism, along with Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.
"We were convinced that it was deliberately of no assistance. Given Cuba's history there could have been more information at their disposal to provide us," a State Department official told Reuters.
"There is no inclination in this building or anywhere in the executive branch to consider that Cuba is anywhere near qualified to come off the terrorism list," he said.
While a Pentagon report concluded five years ago that Cuba had ceased to be a threat and no longer exported revolution, Washington continues to blacklist Cuba's communist government for harboring two dozen members of the Basque separatist group ETA and maintaining ties with Marxist guerrillas in Colombia.
That did not stop the United States from including Cuba in its global appeal for help after militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon six months ago.
Washington asked countries for intelligence that could help capture and bring to justice those responsible.
"Cuba was among them, and the response was positive. There was not radio silence on their part in this issue," the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
But the information provided by President Fidel Castro's government was of no help at all, leading Washington to suspend its contacts with Havana on intelligence sharing, he said.
"Cuba was quick to condemn terrorism, but has done nothing to assist in the global effort against terrorism," the State Department official said.
CUBA A VICTIM OF TERROR
Cuban authorities dismiss the U.S. terrorist list and maintain Havana has been a victim of terrorist actions by exiles living in the United States.
"They don't realize that we don't give a damn if they take us off their list or not," Castro said recently.
Castro has surprised Washington this year by refraining from criticizing the U.S. decision to use the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba to hold and interrogate prisoners from the war in Afghanistan.
The gesture was seen as part of an effort at rapprochement with his ideological enemy of four decades.
In December, in an about face, Cuba purchased $35 million in U.S. food products for cash. Castro had stated he would not buy a single grain of rice while a U.S. ban remained on credit financing for sales allowed under a modified trade embargo.
The State Department believes the new stance is motivated by economic need after the devastation of Hurricane Michelle.
In addition, major sources of hard currency in Cuba -- tourism and family remittances from abroad -- were hit by the fear of flying and economic uncertainty caused by the September attacks.
Some analysts say Cuba's economic plight may be the worst since the early 1990s, when the island suffered the impact of the collapse of its ally and benefactor, the Soviet Union.
The Cuban government, the State Department official said, tends to "go into the good guy mode" shortly before the annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where Castro's rights record has been criticized annually.
Havana is also hoping the U.S. Congress will lift the trade credit ban this year, a step backed by a powerful lobby of agribusiness and pharmaceutical firms, and a prohibition on Americans traveling to Cuba.
But President Bush has made it clear he will not allow further weakening of the embargo against Cuba in the absence of a rapid transition to democracy and a free market economy.
In its annual human rights report released on Monday, the U.S. government said Cuba was a "totalitarian state" that continues "to violate systematically the fundamental civil and political rights of its citizens."
Family says Cuba keeping U.S. relatives from leaving island-held against their will
Al Neuharth: Why is China OK, but Cuba 'enemy'? --Good discussion thread on keeping embargo in place.
Well, good. That should end any debate as to whether we should take them off of the list. If they don't care about being removed, I certainly don't.
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