By: Norelys Morales Aguilera
(Translated by South Journal)
The US Department of State has maintained Cuba on its list of “States Sponsors of Terrorism since 1982. Year after year, a deployment of fascist and futile rhetoric backs the false designation aimed at hiding the very US terrorist acts and at justifying its outrages and excesses.
In 2011, the arguments used by the United States include:
1.-The Government of Cuba maintained a public stance against terrorism and terrorist financing in 2010, but there was no evidence that it had severed ties with elements from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and recent media reports indicate some current and former members of the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) continue to reside in Cuba.
However, the governments of Colombia and Cuba, that would be the appropriate ones to raise such accusations against Cuba, have not done so, though if they had proofs they would do it. The United States speaks for them in what also is a tendentious argument.
2.- Cuba did not pass new counterterrorism legislation in 2010 and Cuba has been used as a transit point by third-country nationals looking to enter illegally into the United State.
Washington knows very well that Cuban laws condemn terrorism; perhaps Washington would be suggesting that these laws be approved by the US Congress, as it is the case of Puerto Rico.
3.-And the reports also says that Cuba continued to denounce U.S. counterterrorism efforts throughout the world, portraying them as a pretext to extend U.S. influence and power.
Cuba then must be punished for its denunciations that the United States hosts terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles and the recently deceased Orlado Bosch, two men that masterminded the 1976 bombing in mid air of a Cubana airliner, or that US justice tried and acquitted Posada Carriles for being a liar and not for being an assassin.
Hey, Cuba, you´d better keep silence or we can use the stick! That´s what they seem to imply. But Cuba´s denunciation is quite worth, although the United States keeps including it on its “lists”.
Cuba´s prestige and authority upsets the Imperial list makers. The Cuba policy opposes the US support of Israel; it condemns the massacre of children by drones in Pakistan and Iraq; it repudiates torture in the illegal US base in the Cuban territory of Guantanamo, and the killing of civilians in Libya by US-led NATO troops, or the US-encouraged violence in Mexico, while the United States is the major drug consumer in the world.
The imperial list makers maintain their fascist propaganda to uphold the economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba, which they call embargo, and which would classify as genocide if the Cuban people did not strive for their own survival with their courage and talent.
As an example of this, just last Thursday, reports said that the most recent Cuban pentavalent vaccine (Heberpenta), registered in 2010, and whose antigens are all included in a single bottle, is being administered throughout the island. This vaccine fights diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza type B.
While giving Cuba this false designation, the United States imposed a 374 400 dollar fine on the French CMA CGM shipping company for having provided its services to Cuba, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, PL reported.
In a reportage titled “Who benefits from the US embargo on Cuba?, analysts recognized the influence by ultra-right groups on Washington´s decisions with respect to Cuba, despite the fact that surveys keep saying that two thirds of the US population support the lifting of the embargo.
Frank Sharry, founder of “The Voice of America” which is the US government´s international radio and TV service, said that anti-Castro groups contribute a lot of money to political electoral campaigns; they have learned the rules of political game…and, in this political game the US right wing, whose propaganda is based on lies, would not exclude Cuba from being a target of such petards, futile flowers of US fascism.
Cuba Offers Scholarships to US youths, despite the economic blockade imposed by Washington on the island, which the media never say a word about. See video below:
Cuba ofrece becas a estadounidenses a pesar de bloqueo, pero la prensa no lo refleja
