Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
DOUBLE STANDARD:
FOUR DECADES OF US-SPONSORED TERRORISM
by Simon Wallers
Havana, Sept 20 (NY Transfer)--Well, it took a little over a week but
as expected the anti-Cuba rightwingers in Miami have weighed in
against Cuba by accusing the island of maintaining contact with
today's most hated man in the world, Osama Bin Laden. The accusation
is so ridiculous that it's not worth addressing as such, but it
prompts this reminder of the terrible terrorist attacks suffered by
this country over the four decades of its Revolution. And in our
case, it wasn't one individual's maniacal crusade in opposition to
the foreign intervention policies of the world's biggest power, but
the world's biggest power in opposition to the internal
socio-political system of a small island neighbor.
The list of attacks against Cuba is so long that I had to turn to
Jane Franklin's chronological history of the Cuban Revolution [1] for
dates and to place things into proper context.
>From the outset of the Revolution, barely days after Washington
recognized the new government of Fidel Castro in January of 1959, the
CIA began a campaign to overthrow Cuba's new leader. It is a campaign
that has lasted through today, and is replete with anecdotes and
tragedy. From as early as March 10, 1959 the US National Security
Council met in secret to discuss ways to replace the new Cuban
government by any means necessary. In August two Cuban planes were
destroyed in Miami in an attack against air travel to Cuba.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. A small plane that originated in the US
was intercepted by Cuban authorities with a US citizen on board
intending to assassinate Fidel Castro. In October, the first of a
wave of attacks on sugar mills by planes flying in from the US began;
a plane from Miami bombed Havana; and a train was machine-gunned in
Las Villas -- again from a light aircraft that had originated in the
United States. All this happened in the first year of the Revolution.
The message from Washington was clear and Cuban lives had already
been lost in the process.
The following year the Belgian ship, Le Coubre, blew up in Havana's
harbor killing some 100 sailors and dock workers. Although sabotage
was never proved, it was very likely. In March of 1960 US President
Eisenhower ordered CIA director Allen Dulles to organize and train
Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba. By August of the same year the
CIA was recruiting members of US organized crime, including Santos
Traficante and Sam Giancana, to assassinate Fidel Castro who was then
Prime Minister. The FBI under Hoover was fully aware of the plots and
provided logistic support. The assassination attempts were later
published in a damning report by the House Select Committee on
Assassinations in the late seventies.
By the end of 1960, 17 former Cuban police/army members under the
Batista dictatorship were arrested for throwing sticks of dynamite
into stores and theaters, and the year was seen out with a fire that
destroyed a famous Havana department store -- all done with money and
support from terrorist groups operating openly in Florida as they do
to this day.
By this time Cuba had obviously got the message and was aware of the
plans to invade the island. However, although the island presented
ample evidence of Washington's intention to the United Nations, the
General Assembly rejected a debate on the issue. Clearly Cuba was on
its own. The year 1961 brought on further bombings, as well as the
despicable torture killings of a number of 17- and 18-year-olds who
were teaching Cubans in the provinces how to read. They were murdered
by groups funded by the CIA in an attempt to destabilize the
government in Havana and destroy a massive literacy campaign underway
across the nation.
By April, and the fatal blowing up of another Havana department
store, the pending invasion was obvious to Cuban authorities. It
began on April 15, with B-26 bombers attacking the island's defenses,
killing a number of civilians. Two days later the Bay of Pigs
invasion began. Cuba defeated the US backed forces with the loss of
yet more Cuban life: 176 people.
The attacks, the bombings, the assassination attempts went on. Over
600 plans or attempts on Fidel Castro's life alone are known to
authorities -- from exploding cigars, to his wet suit lined with
poison, to a pistol hidden in a camera. Two of the most recent have
been the snipers arrested before attempting to kill the president on
Venezuela's Margarita Island in 1997, and the bombing plot in Panama
City in 1999 which netted international terrorist Luis Posada
Carriles, who awaits trial in a Panamanian jail. Things got to the
point where the US allowed ships at sea to openly shell residential
districts in Havana, as on August 24, 1962.
Who outside Cuba knows of the slaughter of half a million pigs after
African swine fever was introduced into the island by the CIA in
1971? Who knows of the deaths of 81 children after their deliberate
infection with dengue fever ten years later in 1981? Both instances
were proven to be as a result of CIA operations in later declassified
documents. And who can forget the bombing of a Cubana flight in 1976
with the loss of all 73 passengers and crew and the subsequent
freeing of Orlando Bosch in 1990 by a US court, after he was found to
be the principal terrorist responsible for the crime?
More recently, in 1997, came the bombings of tourist hotels in an
attempt to destroy the tourist industry in Cuba. An Italian tourist
was killed in one of the explosions. Subsequent investigation
uncovered the hand of Posada Carriles with the financing of US
government-sponsored organizations based in Miami.
These Cuban exile terrorists have been allowed to operate openly
within the United States, where they are presented as heroes who are
to be emulated. When Cuba legitimately attempts to defend itself by
infiltrating these organizations to prevent further terrorist acts
against it, the United States government punishes those they catch
with long prison sentences for combating the very same kind of
despicable terrorism that has so stupefied the world after its use
against the World Trade Center.
If there's to be a serious effort made to bring an end to terrorism,
it needs to be based on broad ethical and moral principles. Many in
the world today ask how the US government can complain of Afghanistan
harboring terrorists, when this very same government allows
terrorists to operate openly on its own soil.
Havana, Cuba
September 20, 2001
[1] For further details: Franklin, Jane, The Cuban Revolution and the
United States: A Chronological History. Ocean Press, 1992 and 2000.
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