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09/17/01
Having suffered such horrific, unimaginable tragedy before the eyes of the
world, as a nation, as a people, and as individuals, the US will again lead
globally by example, not only showing its might, unity, and resolve but also
tempering with irrefutable patience, deliberation, and ingenuity.
Along with any
effective judicial and military responses, the other challenge the US
faces is a war of ideology. This "war", can only be
"won" with world-wide public relations efforts, fought
on the moral high-ground of legality and of human rights. To increase
America's leadership will thus require honest endeavors at resolution of
existing domestic and global, economic and social inequities. Along
with addressing issues of aggression and political injustice, only
such concurrent humanitarian initiatives will also effectively reduce
the fertile soil on which extreme fanatic terrorism has always
thrived.
May God Bless America.
R.L.C.
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US Department
of State: Patterns of Global
Terrorism (1997 & 2001)
Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism
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Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism
Consistently, the
Secretaries of State have designated Cuba among the seven
governments that state sponsors terrorism: Cuba, Iran,
Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. These
governments support international terrorism either by
engaging in terrorist activity themselves or by providing
arms, training, safe haven, diplomatic facilities, financial
backing, logistic and/or other support to terrorists.
The US policy of bringing maximum pressure to bear on
state sponsors of terrorism and encouraging other countries
to do likewise has paid significant dividends. There has
been a marked decline in state-sponsored terrorism in recent
years. A broad range of bilateral and multilateral sanctions
serves to discourage state sponsors of terrorism from
continuing their support for international acts of
terrorism, but continued pressure is essential.
Although there is no evidence to indicate that Cuba
sponsored any international terrorist acts in
1997. As of 2001, it has continued to provide sanctuary to terrorists from several
different active terrorist organizations. Castro also maintains
strong links to terrorists and to the other states that
sponsor
international terrorism.
(See More Below)
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NEWS HEADLINES
SPECIAL REPORT
CUBA AND THE TERROR COALITION:
The Emergence of the Terrorist International
by Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat
Center for the Study of a National Option
(with research support from Rafael Artigas and Ana
Carbonell)
It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the "Supreme
Leader" and the "Comandante" together for their
summit meeting in Tehran in May of this year. The statements made by
Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in
light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to news
reports, during the visit Iranian "Supreme Leader Khamenei"
assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat the US hand in
hand," to which Castro agreed, adding that America was
"extremely weak today," and that "we [in Cuba] are today
eye-witness to their weakness, as their close neighbors."
At Tehran University, Castro also stated
to the thunderous applause of students and faculty that "
The imperialist king [USA] will finally fall," (AFP, May 10th).
Immediately afterwards the Iranian Press Service proudly
proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that
together they can tear down the United States." (IPS, May 10th)
Some have argued that Cuba's well-documented sponsorship and
instigation of international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be
understood in light of the Cold War context. However, irrefutable
evidence indicates that to this day:
a) The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor
international terrorists,
b) The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with terrorist
states so as to create an 'anti-Western'i international front, and
c) The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks
and espionage against Americans.
There has been a recent effort
by the Cuban regime to forge an 'anti-Western' front with terrorist
states in the Middle Eastern region.
As recently as July 1999 Domingo Muchaustegui, a former Cuban
government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban
government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of
the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist
groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used
to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation
between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of
chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation
between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in
the region?" (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).
In May 2001 Castro undertook a round
of visits to Syria, Libya, and Iran. Speaking at Tehran
University, he insisted that "...people must be informed and
awakened, they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West." On
July 26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of
his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah
Khomeini's grandson, now a high ranking Iranian official.
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security
analysts in the US. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly
second-in-command of the USSR's bacteriological arms development
program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons
at its disposal. In his book Biohazard, Alibek quotes his former
boss, General Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an
active bacteriological arms program. Former Secretary of Defense
William Cohen stated in May 1998 that: "Cuba's current scientific
facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in
at least the research and development stage." In October 2000
Cuban vice president Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of
Health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development
plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed
medical objectives of the installation, since Iran already produces 97% of the medicines its population consumes.
It is feasible to both establish the links of the bin Laden network
with the Iranian government and to identify its common interests
with the Castro regime. Both Castro and bin Laden work hard to build
a common front to bring down the United States and to develop
biological weapons of mass destruction.
In its indictment of bin Laden the Justice Department stated that
the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to
"...put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist
organizations, including Iran and its affiliated terrorist group
Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States
and
its allies..."
The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "...also forged
alliances
with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with
representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated
terrorist group Hezballah." In February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced
the creation of an "international front" against the
United States.
According to a document obtained by the PBS program 'Frontline,'
bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and
China as something to be considered." A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of conspiring to murder US citizens,
seeking to penetrate US military installations, spying on members of the US Congress and providing
classified
information on Miami International Airport.
But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the
Iran link. In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported
that: "A young Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in
mountainous Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men
from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea.
As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on international
terrorism it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers,
legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba's insistent efforts aimed
precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its continued support and encouragement for
international terrorist organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its
propensity to share it with other terrorist states directly linked to US enemies.
Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century,"
would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and Fascist alliance with Japan the day
before Pearl Harbor. An enemy is 90 miles south of Key West.
And he does not hide his hatred for us.
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