On 15 May 2024, according to media reports, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, released the State Department’s annual list of states that allegedly are “not cooperating fully” with the US government’s antiterrorism efforts.

Cuba was not included in this list. A state department official cited the resumption of law enforcement cooperation between Cuba and the U.S. as one of the reasons why the previous designation was deemed “no longer appropriate.”

Additionally, Secretary Blinken stated that Colombia’s cancellation of its request for Cuba to extradite commanders of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army, ELN) changed the circumstances which certified Cuba’s inclusion. Cuba had been hosting peace talks between the ELN and the Colombian government in Havana.

While this may signal some positive movement from the Biden administration on the demand for the United States government to remove Cuba from the list of States that are allegedly “sponsoring” terrorism, the official State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list continues to include Cuba. Secretary Blinken closed by stating that this list of states not cooperating against terrorism is not the same as the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which by statute establishes specific legal criteria for rescission which have not been met by Cuba.

In other words, the annual short list is not equivalent to the SSOT list, which continues to smear the Cuban government and serve as a pretext for imposing coercive economic sanctions on the Cuban people, as those ruthlessly imposed through the decades long blockade. The CPUSA affirms that Cuba’s omission from the annual short list adds to the overwhelming set of reasons justifying Cuba’s removal from the SSOT list. Its omission indicates that Cuba is helping satisfactorily in the fight against terrorism, and that its designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism” is baseless. The demand for the United States government to amend the historic injustice of its economic blockade has been globally expressed by the Cuban people and many governments, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2021, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned the U.S. embargo in a virtually one-sided 184 to 2 vote on June 23. Moreover, numerous political, social, and religious organizations in the United States, as well as several U.S. politicians, have called on the President of the United States to act immediately through swift removal of Cuba from the SSOT list to curtail the damage of the government’s coercive economic blockade.

As the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs points out, Cuba does not sponsor terrorism, but it has been a victim of it. A recent example includes the acts of Alexander Alazo Baró, who fired all 32 bullets from a magazine of an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, causing extensive material damage to the exterior and interior of the building and endangering the lives of several people inside the building. The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Statement of May 9 makes it clear: “These terrorist acts are a direct result of the aggressive policy and discourse of the U.S. government against Cuba.”

To promote peace and constructive exchange between the people of Cuba and the US, the US President must immediately remove Cuba from the SSOT list.

We ask all our members and friends to call the White House and the State Department to immediately remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

Contact information:

The White House
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Contact online: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

U.S. Department of State
https://register.state.gov/contactus/

Images: Leben in den Straßen von Havanna, Kuba by Klaus Peter Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0); Cuban workers by Juan Carlos Dorado (Creative Commons).

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