COMMENTARY & UPDATES : COMMENTARY

Americans also victims of terrorism against Cuba

June 12, 2006
By Roberto Perez Betancourt
AIN Special Service

The American people themselves have suffered the consequences ofstate terrorism against Cuba, just as they have been affected by the global war policies of the George W. Bush administration.

Over 360 terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage have been directly executed by the CIA or by criminal right wing organizations created by that agency through Cuban-born mercenaries. These too have impacted the lives and property of US citizens. These horrid actions carried out by ten US presidents for more than 45 years, and which were strengthened after September 11, are still in force under Bush as part of the neo-fascist global policy of the fundamentalist right's master of the executive and legislative branches and his great degree of influence over the judicial system.

History shows a chain of events. Over and over again terrorists carried out activities against embassies, people or businesses linked with Cuba, while putting in serious risk the lives of Americans and endangering the economic interests of the nation. Criminals who have taken refuse in Florida with the authorization of local and federal authorities continue with committing illegal actions which have caused the deaths of 3,478 Cubans and injured more than 2,000 since January 1959. Although the majority of these terrorist actions have been aimed at targets inside Cuba, the streets of New York, Miami, Washington, New Jersey, San Juan and other cities in the US have been selected.

On September 21, 1976 former Chilean Foreign Minister and former Chilean ambassador to the US Orlando Letelier was assassinated. In this terrorist act US citizen Ronni Moffit was were also killed and her husband wounded. A New York and New Jersey-based terrorist group called the Cuban Nationalist Movement also participated in those actions. In 1978, the so called Hijos de la Estrella Solitaria terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the disappearance in the Bahamas of an executive aircraft in which four US citizens were travelling to Cuba. The criminal actions against the Cuban people have been documented. The executors were awarded with money and protection, typical of the mafia godfathers. Two examples of this type of conduct are Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch.

Much is known of the US press, whose silence masks the double standard of the White House. After publicly declaring the war against terrorism it protects the scum it created, strengthening them for additional destructive activities - including electoral schemes in southern Florida. The history of the CIA as trainer and organizer of Cuban-born terrorists is long. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the terrorist action against a Cubana airliner carried out by Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles and other terrorists, which killed 73 innocent people, the general wave of violence which emerged since the beginning of that year included acts against agencies which promoted travel to the island from the United States and merciless persecution of scientists, intellectuals, business executives and simple US citizens who attempted to visit the Caribbean nation. The Miami press itself published unusual reports in which the right wing terrorists referred to their crimes.

In one of those communiqués, Cuban-born terrorists announced that soon they would attack airplanes and shortly later bombed a Cubana airliner off the coasts of Barbados. It is not too much to ask for justice for the professionals of terrorism operating against a blockaded nation whose territory was never used for terrorist plots or any action against the US.

The US people, however, have been and continue to be victims of terrorism which is sheltered by its own government.