Cuba must remain designated state sponsor of terrorism
OPINION:
In the last few days, the U.S. sent a delegation of officials from the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security to engage in a “law enforcement dialogue” with members of Cuba’s military dictatorship.
While the State Department says the dialogues are a way to “enhance the national security of the United States through improved international law enforcement coordination … and bring transnational criminals to justice,” those of us in Miami’s Cuban exile community who participate in the island’s pro-democracy movement are concerned these dialogues could set the stage to remove Cuba’s rightful designation as a state sponsor of terrorism (SSOT).
When The Washington Times inquired as to whether the dialogues would include discussion about removing Cuba’s SSOT designation, the State Department opaquely responded that “the dialogue does not impact the administration’s continued focus on critical human rights issues in Cuba.”
Another journalist received a similar, contradictory answer at a Jan. 13 news conference when he asked, “How do you justify having this kind of meeting on specifically law enforcement issues while at the same time keeping the country on the terrorism list?”
While the State Department insists the U.S. can walk these diverging paths and arrive at the same destination, many of us in the opposition do not believe this is possible, which is why we are concerned the U.S. may make the mistake of removing the regime from the SSOT list.
We do not believe the United States can logistically or morally coordinate law enforcement efforts with a state sponsor of terrorism. Coordinating transnational law enforcement efforts often requires sharing of U.S. national security capabilities, which will benefit Cuba’s intelligence community and improve its standing in the international community.
This would be a grave mistake since Cuba has wreaked havoc throughout the Western Hemisphere by conspiring with Nicaragua and Venezuela to coordinate mass migration crises aimed at the southwestern border, engaged in drug trafficking, spied on U.S. agencies and attacked our diplomats with directed energy weapons, provided sanctuary for terrorists who have committed murder on American soil, and trained terrorist operatives abroad.
In 1996, Cuba killed four volunteers with Brothers to the Rescue by downing two private planes patrolling the Florida Straits for stranded refugees. It has also engaged in acts of hostility against U.S. citizens in the opposition — including documented death threats against one of the authors of this column, Orlando Gutierrez. Most recently, Cuba provided diplomatic and informational support for Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. Removing Cuba’s terrorism designation could make it easier for its allies in Moscow to use the regime to circumvent their own sanctions.
“For decades, the Cuban government has fed, housed, and provided medical care for murderers, bombmakers, and hijackers,” says the State Department’s own website, which documents the regime’s protection of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, as well as “several U.S. fugitives from justice wanted on or convicted of charges of political violence, many of whom have resided in Cuba for decades.”
Separate from the logistical dangers, and to many, more importantly, there are moral risks. While U.S. engagement with Cuba’s military dictatorship sends mixed messages to our international allies, it also undermines what little hope the opposition clings to.
Since the July 11, 2021 protests, democracy activists have suffered a brutal escalation of human rights abuses in the form of extrajudicial punishment, torture and overburdensome prison sentences. Many Cubans have suffered “acts of repudiation,” home invasions organized to intimidate accused “counterrevolutionaries,” often dehumanized as “worms.” These acts of repudiation are committed by state-sponsored gangs that act under the authority of communist party-affiliated “neighborhood committees.” Others have been imprisoned in grueling conditions or endured electroshock torture.
These are not stories we read in the news, but rather the subject of midnight phone calls from friends facing regime agents pounding down their doors.
These same concerns are shared by Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, who on Jan. 17 sent a letter to all three U.S. departments to remind officials that “past experiences have shown that dialogues with authoritarian regimes, especially ones that do not respect the rule of law detrimentally affect the Cuban people’s wellbeing and desire to live freely.”
The letter adds that “while the prospect of cooperation with a close neighbor may seem appealing at first glance, it is imperative to go into this dialogue knowing that you will be meeting with the security forces of the same regime that favors to imprison, torture or kill its own people, harbor terrorists that threaten our own allies, and has provided safe haven to those who break our laws. Due to these actions against our country, your predecessor re-designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terror.”
It should come as no surprise so-called law enforcement dialogues began in 2015 during the Obama administration, now saddled with the dark legacy of warming relations with Cuba in a naive attempt to improve human rights by making concessions and lifting sanctions. Cuba never improved its conduct, and the U.S. should learn from its mistakes.
The Cuban communist regime is a brutal military dictatorship and criminal cartel concerned only with power and profit. The U.S. should not negotiate with terrorists nor remove Cuba’s designation as a sponsor of terrorism just to make it convenient to do so.
• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is the former director of the U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting and now serves as a Washington Times editorial board member. Marcell Felipe is founder of the Initiative for Democratic and Economic Alternatives for Cuba, a project of the Inspire America Foundation. Orlando Gutierrez Boronat is the coordinator of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, a U.S.-based nonprofit, pro-democracy organization. Johnny Lopez de la Cruz is a retired Army colonel and former president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association Brigade 2506.
