TerrorismU.S. to keep Cuba on list of states sponsoring terrorism

Published 3 May 2013

The State Department said Wednesday that the Obama administration will not remove Cuba from the list of states sponsoring terrorism. Other countries on the list include Iran, Syria, and Sudan. The list is updated annually. Cuba sheltered Colombian and Basque terrorists, but with peace negotiations in Colombia, and with the Basque separatists announcing the end of their armed struggle, some analysts thought Cuba would be removed from the list this year.

The State Department said Wednesday that the Obama administration will not remove Cuba from the list of states sponsoring terrorism. Other countries on the list include Iran, Syria, and Sudan. The list is updated annually.

The State Department report, which includes the list, was supposed to be published Tuesday, but has been delayed until late May.

ABC News reports that Cuba has repeatedly denied any links to terrorism, and the Cuban government argues the United States has placed Cuba on the list as part of a political vendetta against the Cuban regime.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), a Cuban-American, said keeping Cuba on the list “reaffirms that the Castro regime is, and has always been, a supporter and facilitator of terrorism.”

Ros-Lehtinen went on to criticize Obama administration for not returning North Korea to the list, from which it was taken off in 2008.

Before the State Department announcement, there were speculations in Washington that the administration would take Cuba off the list in an effort to improve relations between the two countries.

“It’s a missed opportunity. There’s no doubt about it,” Lexington Institute’s Philip Peters, a longtime Cuba analyst, told ABC News. “It would have been an important step. It would have removed an accusation that the whole world knows is false.”

Peters said that keeping Cuba on the list will only prolong the mistrust between the two countries.  

Analysts say that has been placed on the list because, for years, it gave shelter to Colombian and Basque terrorists. With peace talks now going on between the rebels and the government in Columbia, and with the  Basque militants having announced that they were giving up their armed struggle, some thought the time was right to remove Cuba from the list.

Others note that whether it meant to or not, the Cuban government has met another requirement for countries on the list to be removed from the list: explicit renunciation of terrorism.  

Last month, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, the Cuban government sent its condolences to the American people, saying that Cuba “rejects and condemns unequivocally all acts of terrorism, in any place, under any circumstance, and with whatever motivation.”

Still, Patrick Ventrell, the State Department spokesman, said there were no plans to remove Cuba from the list in the near future.