GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. August 22, 2011
Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/cuba-i/22agost-Statement.html
On August 18, for the 30th time, the U.S. Department of State included
Cuba on the spurious list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, with the sole
objective of discrediting our country and having a continued
justification for the cruel and repudiated blockade policy against Cuba.
The government of the United States, which has historically
practiced state terrorism, extrajudicial executions, the kidnapping of
persons, murder using drone aircraft, torture and illegal detentions;
which has established secret prisons; which is responsible for the death
of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians as the result of its
wars of occupation and conquest in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which is
systematically bombarding sovereign states such as Libya, does not have
the minimum moral or any other right to judge Cuba, a country which has
an impeccable history of combating terrorism and which has been,
moreover, a systematic victim of this scourge.
The U.S.
government is acting as if it had not constantly protected the
self-confessed criminal Luis Posada Carriles, an individual whom it has
not wanted to try on terrorism charges, despite the overwhelming
evidence in its possession.
Posada Carriles, in conjunction
with Orlando Bosch Avila, the recipient of a presidential pardon by
George Bush Senior, is the mastermind of the horrific sabotage of a
Cuban passenger plane in full flight, which caused the death of 73
innocent people. He is also directly responsible for the death of
Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo during the bomb attacks on Cuban tourism
facilities in 1997. Today Luis Posada Carriles is free to walk the
streets of Miami, after having been absolved from any terrorism charges
in a farcical trial in El Paso, Texas.
At the same time, as
irrefutable evidence of its double standards, the U.S. government
continues to unjustly hold and punish our five Cuban anti-terrorists in
its prisons.
As the result of acts of terrorism organized,
financed and perpetrated from U.S. territory – in many cases with the
complicity of the U.S. government itself – 3,478 Cubans have lost their
lives and another 2,099 are living with disabilities.
This
political manipulation of an issue as sensitive as combating terrorism
is also an insult to the memory of the victims of the criminal acts of
September 11, 2001, an event which prompted solidarity and the offer of
unconditional aid on the part of our government and people.
Cuba demands that the government of the United States punish the real
terrorists currently resident in that country, free the five Cuban
heroes and end its policy of blockade and hostility toward our country, a
policy which militates against the legitimate interests of both
peoples.
Havana, August 19, 2011
Translated by Granma International
