Cuba Puts Obama on the Blacklist

Havana believes that its inclusion in the group of countries whose travelers will be subject to additional controls erases all of the U.S.’s efforts at reconciliation.

The government of Raúl Castro has blacklisted Obama. This is not a bad joke; Havana believes that, one year after arriving at the White House, the first African-American U.S. president has shown himself to be as much of an enemy of the revolution as any of his predecessors, and that the time for compliance with Washington is over. Yesterday Cuba demanded from Obama its “immediate exclusion” from the list of terrorist countries and condemned as “unjust and arbitrary” the measure to submit Cuban travelers to additional controls.

The Cuban government had already met with the Chief of Mission in the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Jonathan Farrar, to protest the measure it considers a “new hostile action by the government of the United States.” In Havana’s judgment, the U.S. decision is politically motivated “and has as its only purpose the justification of the embargo which the international community unanimously rejects.”

Along the same line, the Minister of Foreign Relations issued a long press release [on January 8] that criticizes Obama for his “arbitrary” and “manipulative” attitude in keeping the island on the terrorist list. The Cuban Minister recalls that it was the government of Republican Ronald Reagan that added Cuba to the list of terrorist countries in 1982 “to try to discredit the image of the revolution.” He says that every U.S. president since then, including Obama, has ratified the classification, which mandates the application of economic sanctions, the prohibition of technology transfer, and other restrictive measures against the country and its citizens.

The foreign service of Raúl Castro rejects the Obama administration argument that the island should be on the list because in 2008 it sheltered members of the Basque terrorist group ETA, Colombian FARC and ELN guerrilla groups.

According to the press release, the presence in Cuba of various “members of the Basque organization ETA, which were in exile” was due to a 1984 agreement with the Spanish government, and that this is a bilateral matter in which the U.S. has “no authority to interfere.” Havana affirms that the ETA members living on the island have “never used” Cuban territory in the organization’s “activities against Spain or any other country.”

Furthermore, he maintains that the role of Cuba as a facilitator in the Colombian peace talks is internationally known and “respected,” and he therefore considers the accusation of collusion with FARC and ELN ludicrous. Regarding the accusation that the island “continues to permit some U.S. fugitives to live illegally” on Cuban territory, the Minister maintains that “never has a terrorist from any country received shelter, nor a place to live [in Cuba].” Cuba has, however, “offered legitimate protection and political asylum to some fighters for U.S. civil rights,” admits the official.

In contrast, the Castro government maintains that “terrorist murderers” wanted in Cuba “go unpunished” in the United States. He gives the example of the anti-Castro figures Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, living in freedom in Miami, who are accused of an attack on a Cubana de Aviación plane in 1976, in which 73 people lost their lives. “Those who wrote the reports designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism must have known some of these facts,” concludes the press release.

The decision to include Cuba on the list of 14 countries whose travelers will be subjected to additional security controls was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Raúl Castro. Tensions between the two countries were easing during the first half-year of the Obama presidency, but the friction has increased dramatically in recent months. In December, Castro reported the detention of a United States citizen accused of distributing computers and satellite equipment under U.S. orders to “promote democracy in Cuba.” “The enemy is as active as ever (…) and still seeks the destruction of the revolution and the removal of our government,” he said at that time. Obama was about to be honored with a place on Cuba’s private blacklist.