In his final week in office, the outgoing administration of President Biden made the correct decision to remove Cuba from it’s arbitrary list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT), a designation that for all intents and purposes, cut Cuba off almost entirely from the global financial system and further extended the reach of extra-territorial U.S. sanctions, by threatening and punishing individuals, international entities, and countries who chose to trade or do business with Cuba, and drastically increasing sanction over-compliance by international financial institutions and corporations.
This shameful SSOT designation substantially contributed to the economic crisis that Cuba has been facing in recent years, specifically in the context of the implementation of these harsh and illegal sanctions by the previous Trump administration, while Cuba simultaneously lost nearly a year of tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic from which it is still recovering. The applications of these additional sanctions fueled an emigration crisis for Cubans, due to the serious economic hardships they were facing in their homeland as a result of this unrelenting economic pressure by the United States.
Cuba itself has been the target of numerous terrorist attacks, many of which were planned or launched from U.S. soil. These acts of terrorism have claimed the lives of at least 3,478 Cubans and injured 2,099 others. Among the most notorious and malign incidents was the October 6, 1976, bombing of Cubana Airliner Flight 455, marking the first—and to date, only—bombing of a civilian airliner in flight in the Western Hemisphere. This horrific act resulted in the deaths of all 73 passengers and crew aboard. The attack was masterminded by anti-Cuban terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both of whom maintained longstanding ties to U.S. intelligence agencies.
While the bombing of Flight 455 stands out as a particularly heinous example, it was not an isolated event but part of a larger, decades-long campaign of destabilization and aggression against Cuba. This campaign has been driven by forces intent on undermining the Cuban Revolution and punishing the Cuban people for asserting their sovereignty. Since the revolution’s triumph in 1959, the United States has waged relentless attacks on Cuba through military interventions, assassination plots, terrorist acts targeting civilians, and economic sabotage. These actions are rooted in a deep-seated hatred toward Cuba’s revolutionary project and its efforts to chart an independent path of genuine self-determination.
While the Canadian Network on Cuba welcomes this long overdue removal of Cuba from the spurious SSOT list, we emphasize that Cuba never should have been added to such a list in the first place, and that President Biden could have kept his promise to remove Cuba immediately in the early days that he took office in 2021. Not only has there never been any evidence that Cuba provides support for international terrorism, there are numerous examples of Cuba cooperating to fight against terrorism and for international peace and justice, and the application of the SSOT list designation on Cuba was nothing more than arbitrary political fodder, and more significantly, a means by the United States to put maximal pressure on the Cuban people, by asphyxiating their economy, creating an inhumane cost to Cubans due to the resulting severe shortages of basic necessities such as fuel, food, medicine, and spare parts for critical infrastructure.
The decision to remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list is, of course, a significant step towards justice for the Cuban people, and reflects their years of struggle against these punitive policies, alongside the international community. The illegal and coercive blockade against the Cuban people still remains in force, with merchant ships still facing threats and restrictions by the U.S., a lack of access to the international banking system, credit, and foreign investment, as well as a slanderous campaign to sabotage Cuba’s international medical cooperation and its tourism industry, and Cuban families still bearing the full weight of the series of punitive measures applie by the United States, as they have for over six decades.
The Canadian Network on Cuba stands in complete solidarity with the Cuban people, in the face of the imperialist injustices and economic warfare that they continue to be subjected to, and we demand an end to the violation of international law and human rights of all Cubans by the United States. While Cuba’s removal from the SSOT list is a step in the right direction, we recognize that political forces in the United States are already preparing to manufacture a new context for the case to re-add these same deleterious sanctions on Cuba, among other lies and arbitrary restrictions they may conjure up, and we are ready to fight with our Cuban brothers and sisters against these violations of the rights of the Cuban people to sovereignty, economic development, and self-determination.
¡Abajo el Bloqueo! Let Cuba Live!
Samantha Hislop, Isaac Saney, & Julio Fonseca, Executive Committee
Canadian Network on Cuba
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