Non-governmental and solidarity organizations in the United States reiterated their demand for the exclusion of Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, on which it arbitrarily remains today.
The Interfaith Foundation for Community Organization IFCO-Pastors for Peace, the Cuba Sí Coalition of New York/New Jersey and the December 12th Movement agreed in recent public statements on the harm caused to the Cuban people by such a disposition in the midst of an intensified blockade.
They also agreed that the U.S. government has no moral or legal capacity to include Cuba in its unilateral list, when the Caribbean nation has been the victim for decades of terrorist attacks by violent individuals based or trained in this country.
Last May 15, the State Department announced that Cuba was not included in its 2023 report of "countries that do not fully cooperate in the fight against terrorism," IFCO recalled, noting that the document was sent to the federal Congress.
But it clarified that the removal of Cuba from this list "initially appears to be a retreat by the U.S. government from its aggressive policy of suffocating Cuba throughout its 64-year history of sanctions and blockade."
However, this is not the case. Cuba suffers "the brutal extraterritorial sanctions of the United States" and "still remains on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT)," he argued.
The Cuba Sí NY/NJ Coalition stressed that the fact that the United States keeps Cuba on the list while admitting that it "cooperates in the fight against terrorism" means that it actually fears the continued example and resonance of the Caribbean nation in world politics.
He said they will continue to "fight with the worldwide movement of solidarity and anti-blockade towards Cuba until the country is completely removed from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism and the brutal blockade against Cuba ends."
The aforementioned designation and the U.S. unilateral siege of more than 60 years continue to "severely affect the Cuban economy, costing Cuba billions, while suffocating the Cuban people and preventing essential medical supplies, food and technology from entering the country," they stressed.
For the December 12th Movement, the United States must stop using Cold War period tactics to try to promote so-called regime change in Cuba.
Days before leaving office in January 2021, then-President Donald Trump re-designated Cuba to his list of state sponsors of terrorism, from which it was excluded in 2015 during the Barack Obama administration.
Trump added to his policy of maximum pressure a coercive measure that he bequeathed to his Democratic successor Joe Biden.