Why the government of Cuba belongs on the list of terror sponsors

A trial balloon is being floated by elements in the Obama Administration to remove the dictatorship in Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This is a bad idea for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, that does not guarantee that it will not come to pass. For example during the George W. Bush Administration both Libya and North Korea were taken of the list of state sponsors of terrorism. In the case of Libya there was an attempt to normalize relations with Qaddafi and describe him as reformed.

Nevertheless one must make the case, even if it is only to later tell officials, I told you so.

First, the regime in Cuba has over a half century of not only sponsoring terrorism but also engaging in acts of international state terrorism that led to the loss of American lives and property.

Secondly, the official press channels celebrated a terrorist that the Cuban government had trained and prepared in the past to attack targets on the United States mainland as recently as 2010:

Radio Havana Cuba published an article online titled "Political Activist Marilyn Buck Dies at 62" in which it referred to Marilyn Buck as an "activist and former political prisoner". In reality she was an American terrorist who bombed the U.S. Capitol in 1983 to protest the Grenada Invasion, and on October 20, 1981 as part of a group of Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army members assaulted a Brink’s armored car carrying $1.6 million in Nanuet, NY. Buck was a member of the Black Liberation Army. Two police officers and a guard were murdered in the course of the armed robbery. Buck also pleaded guilty to the bombing of the US Capitol in 1988.

The international terrorist Carlos the Jackal claimed to have killed less people then Fidel Castro, a man that he admires.

Finally, the Castro regime has operational relations with other state sponsors of terror such as Iran and Syria. It is important to recall that months prior to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that Fidel Castro speaking at the University of Tehran on May 10, 2001 said: "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees." ... "The U.S. regime is very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up." Relations between Cuba and Iran have not cooled over the past decade as can be gleaned from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,'s January 12, 2012 statement in Havana, Cuba, "Our positions, versions, interpretations are alike, very close. We have been good friends, we are and will be, and we will be together forever. Long live Cuba!"

The same is true with regards to Syria. The Cuban government has had close relations with both Assads and backed their bloody crackdowns in the official media and at the United Nations Human Rights Council. 

The Obama Administration has been right to maintain Cuba on the list of terror sponsors in previous years and should do so again this year. Wikileaks revelations have also offered further evidence for keeping the Castro dictatorship on the terror sponsor list because the regime has turned the island into a safe haven for terrorists.

There are troubling signs that the Castro regime is getting a free pass. Despite setting up a policy to refuse visas to gross human rights violators the U.S. State Department has been granting visas to regime thugs such as Adalberto Sánchez Sorit and Reynaldo Perez Iglesia to enter the United States. These men should be detained and tried for crimes against humanity not granted visas.  At the same time Alan Gross, an American citizen, continues to rot in a Cuban prison for having attempted to provide uncensored internet to a local Jewish community.

Wikileaks, the Cuban regime's terror safe haven, operations in Venezuela and the media's amnesia

On December 3, 2010 blogger Yoani Sanchez made the following observation: "Until 2 days ago official media in Cuba applauded Wikileaks, but with new revelations they've already begun to criticize. Wikileaks revelations about Cuba leave government of the island badly positioned, they have not been published in national press."

What are these revelations?

Ties to terrorists

Wikileaks leaked the February 27, 2009 cable below published in its entirety in El País that the US Interests Section in Havana has evidence that Cuba continues to be a safe haven for terrorists:

DEPARTMENT FOR DS/TIA/ITA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/27/2024

TAGS: ASEC, PTER
SUBJECT: USINT HAVANA RESPONSE TO SPRING 2009 SEPQ

REF: STATE 013023

[...]

-----------------------
TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISM
-----------------------

7. (U) TRANSNATIONAL TERRORIST INDICATORS

A. (C) Yes. We have reliable reporting indicating the presence of ELN, FARC and ETA members here in Havana. That said, they are unlikely to conduct terrorist operations in Cuba.

B. (C) The specific activities of these groups are largely unknown but Post was able to corroborate that ETA members assisting the FARC had spent time in Cuba and some even had family members in country. There is little chance of any operational activity given the need for safe haven.

C. (C) Yes. The GOC allows these groups to enjoy R&R in Cuba and receive medical care and other services (NFI). Reporting also indicates that the GOC is able to influence the FARC. The Cuban Communist Party International Department (PCC/ID) has close relationships with the Clandestine Communist Party of Colombia (PCC) which serves as the political wing of the FARC, and to some extent the ELN as well.

D. (S) Yes. The Al Ma'Sumin (Shia) Islamic Center located in Havana has established ties with, and receives support from, the Government of Iran.

[...]

Reporting on this revelation in the media fails to provide the historical context for this relationship between the Cuban dictatorship and international terrorist movements. The documentation and archival footage is readily available but there appears to be some sort of media amnesia about the Cuban regime's role first in extensively using terrorist tactics in their struggle against Batista in the 1950s and second in organizing a Tricontinental movement in the 1960s to coordinate and train both guerrillas and terrorists in their efforts to subvert the established order in pursuit of their ideological aims. Nor is their much mention of the reasons why Cuba was placed on the State Department's list of terror sponsors on March 1, 1982: The US State Department had confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government.



The Cuban regime also operated in the United States training radicals in terrorism and viewing it as a political tactic. When one of their assets died earlier this year, Radio Havana Cuba published an article online titled "Political Activist Marilyn Buck Dies at 62" in which it referred to Marilyn Buck as an "activist and former political prisoner". In reality she was an American terrorist who bombed the U.S. Capitol in 1983 to protest the Grenada Invasion, and on October 20, 1981 as part of a group of Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army members assaulted a Brink’s armored car carrying $1.6 million in Nanuet, NY. Buck was a member of the Black Liberation Army. Two police officers and a guard were murdered in the course of the armed robbery. Buck also pleaded guilty to the bombing of the US Capitol in 1988.

Cuban Intelligence Service has deep involvement in Venezuela

In another Cable leaked by Wikileaks dated January 28, 2010 also published in its entirety in El País that the Ambassador to Venezuela indicated that Cuban agents controlled spying operations against the US embassy in Caracas:

DE RUEHCV #0107/01 0281832
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
R 281832Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY CARACAS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0378
INFO RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS

S E C R E T CARACAS 000107

SIPDIS
NOFORN
DS/ICI/CI, DS/IP/WHA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/01/28
TAGS: ASEC
SUBJECT: January 2010 Caracas CIWG

(S/NF) RSO stated the current threat levels for post and stressed that Caracas is critical and high in 4 of the 6 threat categories. RSO and other sections confirmed that Venezuelan Intelligence Services (Directorate of Military Intelligence-DIM and the Bolivarian Intelligence Service-SEBIN formerly DISIP) are conducting HUMINT and TECH operations against Embassy staff, as well as political opposition leaders and are controlled by the Cuban Intelligence Service operating in Venezuela. While the collection priority appears to be for political opposition leaders, RSO reminded everyone that the VIS have the capability, means and
desire to monitor and target Embassy staff.

Another cable leaked by Wikileaks from January 30, 2006 raised concerns about Cuban spies and their relationship with Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan intelligence service describing it as an "Axis of Mischief":

SUBJECT: CUBA/VENEZUELA AXIS OF MISCHIEF: THE VIEW FROM
CARACAS

REF: A. A: HAVANA 00118
B. B: HAVANA 00697
C. C: TD-314/63777-05 LIMITED DISTRIBUTION
D. D: IIR 6 902 9698 06

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4 (D)

-------
Summary
-------

1. (S//NF) As noted in REF A, the Venezuelan relationship with Cuba continues to intensify. Thousands of personnel sent by the Cuban Government are involved in the Venezuelan health sector and other BRV social missions. Cubans cooperate extensively with Venezuelan intelligence services. Cubans may also participate heavily in the BRV's efforts to naturalize foreigners and provide documentation for citizens, according to various reports from Embassy contacts. Cubans' roles in the military are less clear but probably are also less significant.

2. (C) Venezuelans' views of individual Cubans are mixed. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appears to be trying to promote the involvement of Cubans in Venezuelan society, although he has proceeded slowly and carefully. Anti-Chavez politicians have barked up the wrong tree by decrying Cuban communism and sovereignty violations, issues that simply do not resonate with poor Venezuelans. While the economic impact of Cubans working in Venezuela may be limited, Cuban intelligence has much to offer to Venezuela's anti-U.S. intelligence services. End Summary.

----------------
How Many Cubans?
----------------

3. (S) Although the numbers of Cubans sent by the GOC to work in Venezuela are significant, the exact figures are difficult to establish. Embassy officers have noted regular flights of Cubans--or Venezuelans returning from official visits to Cuba--at Caracas's Maiquetia airport. According to a DOD analysis of flight activity, an average of about 350 people arrive on three to five commercial or military flights from Cuba to Venezuela per day. Most of these flights land at Maiquetia, but Barcelona and Maracaibo are also common destinations. Post cannot determine how many Cubans are on the flights or how many passengers stay in Venezuela permanently. Airport officials spirit passengers through the building without stopping in customs or immigration. ONIDEX, Venezuela's National Office of Identification and Immigration, reports that it naturalized only 12 Cubans out of a group of 22,664 persons naturalized in December 2005. Whether or not they enjoy Venezuelan citizenship, however, thousands of Cubans have Venezuelan documentation. In addition to the over 20,000 Cubans involved in the Venezuelan health sector (see below), less reliable reports indicate that thousands more are active in the Venezuelan interior. Manuel Rosales, the opposition Governor of Zulia State, told the DCM in October 2005 that 20,000 Cubans resided in Zulia alone. Former National Assembly deputy Pedro Pablo Alcantara (Accion Democratica) told us in October that Lara State had the most Cubans per capita in Venezuela. He claimed more flights from Havana arrived in Barquisimeto, Lara than in Caracas. Complicating the matter further are some 30,000 Cuban exiles in Venezuela, the Cuban exile NGO Net for Cuba estimates.

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Health
------

4. (C) The BRV created Mision Barrio Adentro (Inside the Neighborhood Mission) to provide basic health care for disadvantaged neighborhoods in December 2003, shortly after signing a bilateral agreement with Cuba to swap oil for medical services. As of mid-2005, about 21,000 Cuban physicians, nurses, and support staff along with some 6,000 Venezuelan personnel staffed the mission, according to the Ministry of Communication. Mission clinics are small, two-story hexagonal structures that also house two to three doctors. The BRV provides the clinics' equipment and reduced-cost medicines. Through Barrio Adentro, the BRV identifies patients eligible for Mision Milagro (Miracle Mission), which flies Venezuelans to Havana for cataract surgery. Anecdotal reporting suggests the care Cuban doctors provide is often lacking and that many "physicians" are actually medical students. The BRV has recently begun Mision Barrio Adentro II, a network of more advanced diagnostic centers and inpatient clinics to be administered and staffed mostly by Venezuelans.

5. (C) Notwithstanding the 90,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil Venezuela provides Cuba per day on barter terms, Cuban doctors earn relatively little. According to press reports, Cuban doctors receive salaries of up to USD 400 per month, a figure slightly lower than local averages. A Cuban physician told Post's medical advisor, however, that he received room, board, and toiletries but that the Cuban Government was "holding" his salary until he finished his two-year tour. Some Cuban doctors have "deserted" and fled. A European diplomat told polcouns in mid-January 2006 that the number of Cuban asylum requests received by EU missions in Venezuela had increased over the past few months. A local legislator with extensive contacts in poor neighborhoods told us in November 2005 that Cuban doctors complained bitterly that the Cuban regime held their families hostage while the doctors relied on local donations to survive. In contrast, according to REF B, the GOC receives from Venezuela between USD 1,000 to 5,000 for each Mision Milagro cataract operation, which is comparable to the roughly USD 3,500 that a Venezuelan private clinic would charge for the procedure.

------------
Intelligence
------------

6. (S//NF) Sensitive reports indicate Cuban and Venezuelan intelligence ties are so advanced that the two countries' agencies appear to be competing with each other for the BRV's attention. Cuban intelligence officers have direct access to Chavez and frequently provide him with intelligence reporting unvetted by Venezuelan officers. Venezuela's Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP), moreover, may be taking advice from Cuban intelligence on the formation of a new intelligence service (REF C). Cuban intelligence officers train Venezuelans both in Cuba and in Venezuela, providing both political indoctrination and operational instruction. They also may work in other Venezuelan government ministries, unconfirmed sensitive reporting suggests.

Hopefully the next time there is a public debate about the threat the Cuban regime poses to the United States that all of this will be taken into account along with placing it in a historical context.

Why is Cuba on the state sponsors of terrorism list?

NY Daily News Photo By Harry Hamburg

1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing committed by Cuban backed FALN

Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”

Federal Bureau of Investigation Counterterrorism Division

"If we decide to carry out terrorism, it is a sure thing we would be efficient. But the mere fact that the Cuban revolution has never implemented terrorism does not mean that we renounce it. We would like to issue this warning."

Fidel Castro, Address to the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) 1976

On March 1, 1982 the Cuban dictatorship was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government. Despite the dictator's claim in the above quote and video the Cuban dictatorship has a long and shameful history of sponsoring and taking part in terrorism including utilizing the tactic in the struggle against dictator Fulgencio Batista. On New Year’s Eve in 1956 members of the Castros 26th of July movement set off bombs in the Tropicana, blowing off the arm of a seventeen-year-old girl. From bombings, killings, and arson in 1957 to a botched hijacking to smuggle weapons to the Cuban guerrillas that led to 14 dead and the night of the 100 bombs in 1958 . The organizer of the bombing campaign Sergio González López nicknamed “El Curita” and the terrorist action itself are remembered fondly by the dictatorship that named a park in his honor along with a plaque pictured below. Regime apologists now deny that anyone was wounded or killed but the memories of those who lived through this say otherwise. González López was captured, tortured, and killed by agents of the Batista dictatorship on March 18, 1958. A pro-Cuban dictatorship website recalls some of El Curita's actions:

“He actively participated in the actions of the burning of Standard Oil; the bombing of Bejucal Railway Station cable, the cable from the Bus Station, the explosion of Vento, in the action of the Tunnel and the explosion of 120 coordinated bombings in Havana, which in a telephone phone call on this occasion to the chief of police, he told him “Coward, prepare your ear tonight ... we are going to explode 100 bombs under your own noses.”

The dictatorship has practiced, trained, and even published manuals with chapters on how to engage in terrorism and to never renounce it, and on more than one occasion has targeted the United States.

Sergio González López nicknamed “El Curita” (1922-1958)

Plaque erected by Cuban dictatorship to honor
terrorist bomber Sergio González López nicknamed “El Curita”

On November 17, 1962 the FBI seized a cache of explosives and incendiary devices in a Manhattan loft, arresting three Cubans, Roberto Santiesteban Casanova an attaché of Cuba’s United Nations mission, whose application for diplomatic immunity had not yet been approved, Jose Garcia Orellana, 42 who operated the Manhattan jewelry manufacturing shop where the arsenal was seized, and Marino Antonio Esteban del Carmen Sueiro y Cabrera 22, a college student who worked part time at the shop. and charged them with planning to place bombs in stores, oil refineries, and the New York subway system. The State Department requested that two Cuban diplomatic attaches, Jose Gomez Abad, 21 and his wife Elsa, 20, leave the country because they had supplied weapons but could not be arrested they both had diplomatic immunity. According to the Associated Press story dated November 20, 1962 they had planned to unleash a reign of terror in metropolitan New York. This incident was prevented but at least one other terrorist act on American soil documented later in this paper was executed by Cuban agents and the terrorist group to which the Cuban government provided financial and logistical support.

The Cuban government has an effective propaganda and intelligence apparatus that it deploys not only to deny its own past but to smear their opponents. The fact is that Cuba's democratic opposition on the island since the mid-1970s abandoned political violence and began with the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights the long non-violent struggle against a brutal and violent dictatorship. There are a large number of prisoners of conscience recognized by Amnesty International and the third largest number of imprisoned journalists in the world. The issue of terrorism is in the news again along with dictatorship's place on the list of state sponsors of terrorism which has generated another public debate over whether or not the Cuban regime merits being placed on the list. The answer in short: It does. Before briefly reviewing some of the regime's past bad practices it is worthwhile to review what brought us into this public conversation.

On Christmas day 23-year old Nigerian student Abdul Farouk Mutallab on Flight 253 of Northwest Airlines flying to Detroit set himself on fire while trying to blow up the commercial jet. According to the Nigerian paper Compass less than 72 hours, after the arrest of Farouk Mutallab, another suspected Nigerian terrorist was arrested on the same aircraft carrying 256 passengers after engaging in suspicious behavior. Later it was learned that the father of Farouk Mutallab had reported his concern that his son had been "radicalized" to the U.S. Embassy there and that intelligence officials in the United States deemed the information insufficient to pursue. According to the Washington Post Farouk Mutallab's name was added to a half-million entries in a computer database in McLean and largely forgotten. Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum has raised important questions about the Department of Homeland Security and accountability resulting from this latest episode.

On January 3, 2010 the Transportation Security Administration released a new directive outlining new security measures which in part states:

Because effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders, and as a result of extraordinary cooperation from our global aviation partners, TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening.

According to the US State Department countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are considered state sponsors. Below is the current list of countries and the dates they were added to the list:

Country	Designation Date
Cuba	March 1, 1982
Iran	January 19, 1984
Sudan	August 12, 1993
Syria	December 29, 1979

In addition to the four listed above ten additional countries are considered by US authorities to be prone to terrorism and will also be subject to heightened security measures: Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan.

The Cuban regime has denounced the measure as "anti-terrorist paranoia", and in today's Washington Post there is an opinion column by Eugene Robinson taking issue with Cuba being on this list arguing that the dictatorship is not a failed state where swaths of territory lie beyond government control and that there is no history of radical islam there.

The timing of the opinion piece is unfortunate considering that the imprisoned Cuban trained terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez known as Carlos the Jackal in a January 3rd interview in Spain's El País stated that he regretted nothing and later on in the same interview described Osama Bin Laden as an idealist expressing his respect for the author of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Ramírez Sánchez, Venezuelan by birth, was described by Venezuelan "president" Hugo Chavez as a "revolutionary fighter" in November of 2009. According to French intelligence services Ramírez Sánchez is responsible for more than 80 deaths. He is not a practitioner of militant Islam nor does he come from a failed state he is a militant Marxist Leninist and an avowed terrorist. Ilich Ramírez Sánchez attended and is a product of a Cuban initiative held in Havana in 1966 called the Tricontinental Conference where Fidel Castro insisted that "conditions exist for an armed revolutionary struggle." The aim of the Tricontinental, according to Georges Fauriol in Cuba:the international dimension, was to promote violent revolution in Africa and Asia as well as Latin America: “At this conference, Cuba and Latin American Marxist Leninist terrorist groups began their collaboration with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and other radical Arab groups in the training and arming of terrorists."

Gerardo Jorge Schamís in his book War and terrorism in international affairs describes how in the summer of 1975 the disappearance of “Carlos” who killed his assistant and two members of the French secret service led to the expulsion of three Cuban diplomats from Paris and greater surveillance of the activities of Cuban agents in Europe. According to Jorge Schamís the terrorists had concealed their “modus operandi” since 1976 in Paris in offices of the Revolutionary Coordination Board (JCR) which on the surface sought to obtain solidarity from European democracies to condemn authoritarian regimes in Latin America but in reality it was a documentation center producing forged passports; raise money for clandestine operations and were connected to terrorist training camps in Cuba: “opened in 1966 by the Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) , the Cuban regime's main intelligence agency, under the supervision of the Soviet KGB after the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, to "organize anti-imperialist forces.”

There are links between the Cuban dictatorship and international terrorists such as Uruguayan Tupamaros, the Argentinian Montoneros and ERP , the Chilean MIR, the M19, a Colombian guerilla group that captured the Dominican embassy and Justice building in Bogota assasinating several prominent judges, FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) in 2003, the FARC conducted a February car-bombing of a Bogota nightclub that killed more than 30 persons and wounded more than 160, the Basque terrorist/separatist organization ETA, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which has its Latin American headquarters in Havana and has been linked with the FARC.

The dictatorship a few years later had Cuban agents assisting the Macheteros (FALN) who committed terrorist attacks and bank robberies in the United States including bombings; among them the 1975 bombing of Fraunces Tavern in New York which killed four instantly and injured 63. On December 31, 1982, New York City was the scene of a wave of bombings by the Macheteros (FALN): Federal Courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza; a Police Officer at One Police Plaza lost part of his leg when another bomb went off there; a bomb tore into the Federal Courthouse at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn; two other devices were discovered in St. Andrew's Plaza beside the Federal Courthouse at Foley Square, the NYPD Bomb Squad sealed off the area and was preparing to disarm the device when it exploded severely injuring two officers were. In 1983 the Cuban government provided financial and logistical support for the Wells Fargo armored car robbery which netted the Macheteros $7.1 million dollars of which $2 million made its way back to Cuba via a diplomatic pouch. The whole story is detailed in a Hartford Courant investigative piece published in 1999.

The University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies in 2004 published a chronology of Cuban government involvement in terrorism covering between 1959 and 2003. For example, their report lists how in 1970 the Cuban government published the "Mini Manual for Revolutionaries" in the official Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO) publication Tricontinental, written by Brazilian urban terrorist Carlos Marighella, which gives precise instructions in terror tactics, kidnappings, etc. and translated into numerous languages which were distributed worldwide by the Cuban dictatorship. There is a chapter on terrorism:

Terrorism is an action, usually involving the placement of an explosive or firebomb of great destructive power, which is capable of effecting irreparable loss against the enemy. Terrorism requires that the urban guerrilla should have adequate theoretical and practical knowledge of how to make explosives. The terrorist act, apart from the apparent ease with which it can be carried out, is no different from other guerrilla acts and actions whose success depends on planning and determination. It is an action which the urban guerrilla must execute with the greatest calmness and determination. Although terrorism generally involves an explosion, there are cases in which it may be carried out through executions or the systematic burning of installations, properties, plantations, etc. It is essential to point out the importance of fires and the construction of incendiary devices such as gasoline bombs in the technique of guerrilla terrorism. Another thing is the importance of the material the urban guerrilla can persuade the people to expropriate in the moments of hunger and scarcity brought about by the greed of the big commercial interests. Terrorism is a weapon the revolutionary can never relinquish.

Incidentally an online copy of the above mentioned text is displayed on the website of fugitive Assata Shakur who fled to Cuba in 1984 for the murder of a police officer.

"These are the victims of the tugboat! Victims of a cruel tyrant that claims to be the defender of women and children in Cuba" - from poster made by relatives of the 37 victims of the July 13, 1994 tugboat sinking carried out by government agents.

State terrorism and sponsorship of terrorism is not just an export but has also been used against Cuban nationals. Government organized lynchings in the 1980 Mariel Crisis would become known as Acts of Repudiation and used repeatedly up and until the present day with Rapid Response Brigades organized in 1991 to systematize the brutalization and intimidation of Cuban nationals who do not follow the government line. When Cubans have tried to leave as in the case of the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre in which 37 where extrajudicially executed or the murder in international airspace of four members of Brothers to the Rescue, an organization that provided humanitarian assistance to fleeing rafters blown to bits by Cuban MiGs on February 24, 1996. Both crimes have been documented and reported on.

The revolutionary values that inspired Carlos the Jackal continue on today and have a popular icon, Che Guevara, who at that same 1966 Tricontinental conference made the following call to arms: "We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centers of entertainment; a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be; make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move."

The relationship between the Cuban dictatorship and Middle Eastern groups and regimes organized at the Tricontinental are profound. Cuba cooperated with Libya in the founding of the World Mathaba, a terrorist movement. This relationship extended beyond terrorism when 500 Cuban tank commanders participated in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, a surprise attack on Israel, on the Syrian side. The Cuban dictatorship has had close relations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and others in the Middle East. This led in the 1980s to PLO and Libyan support for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and in 2010 it is seen in the close network of alliances between Iran, the PLO, Cuba, Nicaragua and most visibly with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

In the case of sub-Sahara Africa the Tricontinental Conference had a major impact according to Sulayman S. Nyang, Professor of African Studies at Howard University stated before a Congressional Subcommittee:

Yet, until the Tricontinental Conference of 1966 in Havana, Cuba, sub-Sahara Africa did not witness any major forms of political violence one can now, retrospectively, call terrorism. Up until the Havana conference, which declared the justifiability of violence in waging wars of national liberation, the African liberation movements took the path of nonviolence to fight for political independence.

All this information is publicly available, but you won't find it in threat assessments prepared by the US government. Why? Because the author of the last threat assessment is Ana Belen Montes who worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency but in reality had been working for the Cuban intelligence service since 1985 until her arrest on September 21, 2001. Not to mention the recent arrest and prosecution of Walter Kendall Meyers who had spied for the Cuban government from within the US State Department for thirty years.