By Raúl Antonio Capote on January 15, 2025 from Havana
photo: DW
Barely 24 hours after outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the fallacious list of state sponsors of terrorism, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, spoke out on the matter.
During his Senate confirmation hearing to become the next Secretary of State, he stated that Cuba belonged on the list “without a doubt. I have no doubt that they meet all the requirements to be a state sponsor of terrorism,” he said.
The worst enemy of the Cuban people, added that the next administration “was not obliged to comply with Biden’s last minute agreements”.
We know well the position of the U.S. politician, an ally of the most retrograde and reactionary forces in Florida, his career has been based on hatred against the land of his fathers, he has been one of the architects of the maximum pressure line applied by Trump against Cuba.
During the hearing, an activist stormed inside the U.S. Senate, to denounce that the sanctions promoted by Rubio against Latin American countries that do not align with Washington’s agenda, cause the death of children in those nations.
“Marco Rubio’s sanctions are killing children in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela” shouted the woman.
A little history, in 1982 Ronald Reagan’s administration designated Cuba a “state sponsor of terrorism,” citing support for revolutionary and nationalist causes in Latin America and Africa.
In May 2002, then Undersecretary of State John Bolton made the speech Beyond the Axis of Evil: Additional Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction, where he added Cuba to the axis of evil.
That intervention made it possible to establish a symbolic relationship between terrorism and Cuba, by accusing, among other things, the Island of manufacturing biological weapons of mass destruction.
On April 8, 2015, John Kerry recommends to then President Barack Obama to remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, which occurs a week before the latter’s meeting in Panama with Army General Raul Castro Ruz.
During Donald Trump’s administration, the signing of the Presidential National Security Memorandum on Strengthening U.S. Policy toward Cuba (Department of State, 2017) stands out, which accentuated the coercive measures, to limit to the maximum the entry of foreign currency as a way to achieve economic asphyxiation.
The entry of Bolton and Mauricio Claver-Carone, marked the return to the rhetoric of the Bush era and the use of terrorism to demonize the rebellious Island.
In 2019, two years after Trump took office, the State Department, once again included Cuba in its Country Reports on Terrorism, but under the general heading of Latin America.
Thus, on January 11, 2021, nine days before Trump left office, the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced once again the designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism”.
The “arguments” were: it harbors US fugitives and leaders of Colombian rebel groups, and supports the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
The discourse of power in Washington needs to symbolically construct a Cuba linked to terrorism, which served them well for years, especially while they were waging the “global battle against terror”.
Now it would not work for them in that sense, but it would work for them as an “enemy” country of the United States, we will see what pattern the real power is now managing.
The fate of Cuba will depend first of all on its capacity for resistance, on its potential to perform the miracle of rising from the economic crisis, on its alliance with the BRICS and on opening up new spaces for development, which will allow it to strengthen itself against an antagonist that believes it has it where it wants it.
No less important will be the role of international solidarity and the position of the main governments in relation to the economic war.
Faced with the dilemma of slavery, opprobrium and chains, there is no other option for Cubans but victory. History shows with absolute clarity what place belongs to the faint-hearted and to those who trust in the “good intentions” of the powerful of this world.
Raúl Antonio Capote is a Cuban writer, professor and journalist. He is the author of “Juego de Iluminaciones”, “El caballero ilustrado”, “El adversario”, “Enemigo” and “La guerra que se nos hace”.
Source: Cuba en Resumen