PATTERNS IN TERRORISM

Patterns In Terrorism: Should Cuba Be Removed From US Terrorist List

Patterns In Terrorism: Should Cuba Be Removed From US Terrorist List

Introduction

Cuba is an island between the Caribbean and North Atlantic, 150 kilometers south of Florida. It has an area of 110,860 square kilometers and 11.3 million inhabitants (July 2003, estimate). It was a Spanish colony until 1902. In 1959, a revolution led by Fidel Castro brought communist rule to the island (Simons, 2006).

Cuba's modern justice system is influenced by Spain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, mirroring major stages in the island's history. An inquisitorial system of criminal procedure and emphasis on written codes rather than precedent as the source of law originates from the time when Cuba was a Spanish colony. American influence (the first half of the 20th century) is reflected by habeas corpus and a separation between the courts and prosecutors.

Background

In the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the twin towers, U.S. foreign policymakers spoke of the conflict with Cuba in much the same old Cold War terms, although they added a few new elements. Cuba's image was that of a "backlash-- state" accused not only of supposed spying for strategic military secrets and trafficking in Chinese arms, but also of harboring Basque ETA terrorists and Colombian FARC guerrillas.

In the post-Cold War era, the Pentagon certainly recognized that Cuba no longer represented the threat it did during the Cold War, but at the same time it warned that the island maintained the Lourdes electronic intelligence station, run jointly by Havana and Moscow. And the U.S. government seemed to be haunted by old ghosts, as with its preoccupation with the possible continuation of the Juragua electronuclear plant in Cienfuegos Bay, as well as Cuba's alleged supply of necessities to Russian submarines. The United States also complained that the island maintained relations with other "backlash-- states" such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya. (Afghanistan's Taliban was never listed among those that sheltered terrorist networks, as Cuba was) (Roth, 2008).

And in the same 1997 report in which the Pentagon concluded that the Cuban Armed Forces did not constitute a threat, it pointed to the island's scientific knowledge and potential capacity to research and develop biological weapons. Most recently, the Cuban government was even accused of Internet hacking.

Data and Analysis

According to U.S. government documents that were declassified during the post-Cold War era, counterrevolutionary terrorist actions were sponsored by U.S. security agencies since the beginning of the 1960s, as part of a foreign policy planned and coordinated at the highest level of successive U.S. administrations. By 1975, the Senate Intelligence Committee had documented at least eight assassination attempts against Fidel Castro; according to Cuban sources, there were in fact a few dozen attempts. At the beginning of the 1980s, some Cuban diplomats, and even certain individuals in the Cuban exile community who favored dialogue with the Cuban government, were killed by counter evolutionary Cuban exile ...