By Brian Armas
On Wednesday, May 13th, 2020, Cuba was added to the US Department of State’s list of states that do not cooperate fully with counterterrorism efforts. Apart from this designation being based on falsehoods, slanders, and a particular political agenda carried out by the Trump administration, it comes after a mere two weeks since the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC was violently attacked by a gunman with diplomats working inside.
The government of Cuba naturally expected a collaborative investigation into the case, as well as a clear denunciation from the government of the United States of an armed attack against a diplomatic headquarter in its nation’s capital. What was given instead was a deafening silence that reads almost as an endorsement. No denunciation was ever made and the attack itself seems to have gone unacknowledged.
This would also not be the first time a Cuban diplomatic mission was attacked on US soil. One must not forget the merciless assassination of Cuban diplomat Félix Carlos García Rodríguez in Queens, New York on September 11th, 1980 carried out by the CIA-backed group “Omega 7” largely based in Miami, Florida.
The timing of this designation also comes at a peculiar time, when Cuba is leading the world in medical internationalism, assisting in the fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As Fidel Castro put it when giving a speech in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2003: “Our country does not drop bombs on other people; nor does it send thousands of planes to bomb cities. Our country does not have nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons! […] Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors have taken their services internationally into the most remote and inhospitable places… Doctors, not [bombs!].”
The message here is quite clear: each country exports what it produces best. Cuba is faithful to its own history and is committed to social justice on earth. No amount of defamations will ever change that.
I wholeheartedly condemn this State Department designation, and I additionally stand in solidarity with, and likewise condemn, the designations of other states placed on this list: Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea. The struggle for a better world has no borders.