On the 25th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez recalled the words spoken by Fidel Castro that day, relating them to the history of terrorist attacks that Cuba has faced for more than six decades.
“I believe that this unusual fact should serve to create an international fight against terrorism,” said Fidel Castro on that fateful day.
Fidel added that “the international fight against terrorism is not resolved by eliminating a terrorist here and there; killing here and there, using similar methods and sacrificing innocent lives. It is resolved by putting an end, among other things, to State terrorism and other repulsive forms of killing, putting an end to genocides, loyally following a policy of peace and respect for moral and legal norms that are inescapable.”
Recalling those words, Díaz-Canel denounced that Cuba is currently suffering “a genocidal plan to starve the people”, in reference to energy asphyxiation and the expansion of economic war policies that the country has faced since the end of January this year.
“Cuba, which has suffered terrorist attacks of various types for more than 60 years, with more than 3,400 deaths and 2,099 injured, is today facing a genocidal plan to starve the people to death. This is also terrorism, state terrorism”, stated the Cuban president through his social networks.
The terrorist attacks suffered by Cuba
Since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, Cuba has had to face attacks, sabotage and even armed incursions against the revolutionary process.
The explosion of the French ship La Coubrein 1960; the store fire The Charmin 1961; and the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, that same year, were some of the first episodes in a long chain of violent actions directed against the Revolution since its early years.
After the defeat of the mercenary forces that attempted to invade the island through the Bay of Pigs, the United States imposed the blockade as its main policy of aggression against Cuba. At the same time, they supported, directly or indirectly, counterrevolutionary organizations based mainly in the United States, which, in the following decades, carried out armed actions and attacks against Cuban targets inside and outside the island.
One of the most serious episodes occurred on October 6, 1976. That day, shortly after taking off from Barbados, two bombs placed on board a commercial flight run by the state-owned company Cubana de Aviación exploded mid-flight. The 73 people on board died. Among the victims were 57 Cubans, including 24 members of the national youth fencing team.
The attack was carried out by the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), a clandestine alliance of paramilitary groups created in June 1976, in the Dominican Republic, with the approval of the CIA and with the aim of coordinating armed actions and attacks against the Cuban government and its representations abroad.
Among the main leaders linked to CORU were Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Bosch was detained in Venezuela after the attack, but later regained his freedom. In 1990, then US President George HW Bush granted him an administrative pardon, after an intense political pressure campaign promoted by right-wing groups in Florida.
Bosch later settled in Miami, where he lived for years. He died of natural causes on April 27, 2011, aged 84.
Posada Carriles, in turn, moved to El Salvador and used the false identity of Ramón Medina while participating in supply networks linked to the Nicaraguan Contra during the Iran-Contra scandal. In the 1990s, he was one of the main responsible for a series of explosive attacks against tourist facilities in Havana.
Between April and September 1997, in the middle of the so-called Special Period, Cuba suffered a series of explosive attacks against tourist facilities in Havana. In those years, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the country had begun to develop the tourism sector with the aim of earning foreign exchange.
The attacks had a clear objective: to terrorize tourism to prevent the country from consolidating this industry. The Copacabana, Capri, Nacional and Tritón hotels, in addition to the emblematic La Bodeguita del Medio restaurant, were some of the facilities that suffered attacks. At the Copacabana Hotel, one of the explosions caused the death of Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo and left around a dozen people injured.
The campaign of attacks was organized by a network of right-wing Cuban organizations in Miami, linked to the Cuban-American National Foundation (FNCA) and again to Posada Carriles, who died in Miami on May 23, 2018, at the age of 90, after living with impunity for years in South Florida.
On February 25 of this year, shortly after the United States government threatened to sanction any country that “sells or supplies oil” to the island, a unit of the Cuban Border Guard Troops detected a speedboat with registration from the state of Florida that was sailing illegally in Cuban territorial waters. Upon being intercepted, the vessel’s occupants opened fire on the Cuban military.
As a result of the confrontation at sea, four of the boat’s occupants died and six were injured. Subsequently, the survivors were detained and taken to health facilities. The vessel was carrying assault and precision rifles, pistols and Molotov cocktails, as well as various assault and night vision equipment, bayonets, camouflage clothing and ammunition of different calibers, among other materials. The Cuban government classified the episode as “infiltration for terrorist purposes”.
Source: www.brasildefato.com.br
