CUBA MUST BACK CLAIMS OF TERRORISM

For immediate release

February 7, 2006,  Summit, New Jersey.   Yesterday in Havana, the Cuban government declared that 3,478 Cubans had been victims of state terrorism sponsored by the United States.  Cuba Archive has been unable to corroborate this claim with verifiable data.

In 2002, the Cuban government claimed that “more than 3,000 terrorist acts” had been committed against Cuban citizens,” and attributed them all to the United States.  At the time, Armando Lago, Ph.D., Research Director for Cuba Archive, reviewed the only document publicly available to substantiate the claims. An inquiry to the Cuban government for information was referred to this document.  Following are his conclusions:

1.       The names of only 46 victims were cited.  20 had never appeared in previous known publications of the Cuban government; 26 were known cases already documented by Dr.Lago.  Data given for many of the victims –such as names and dates- contained discrepancies with other publications sanctioned by the Cuban regime.

2.       Cuba classifies two military/combat events as terrorist attacks against civilians.  Of the 551 incidents cited, 400 took place at the Bay of Pigs.  This was a military invasion by Cuban exiles seeking freedom and democracy for the people of Cuba that was financed and supported by the U.S. government.  Other cited incidents occurred during the Escambray civil war. This internal uprising against the Castro dictatorship took place in the early 1960s and was led by small farmers resisting confiscation of their land by force by the Castro government. The United States government delivered some material support to local insurgents fighting military forces of the Castro regime.

3.       Cuba Archive has not found direct involvement by the U.S. government in the extrajudicial assassination of Cuban civilians. An indirect link exists in its financing and coordination of anti-Castro infiltration teams whose members, in certain instances, killed civilians outside of the objective of their mission.

4.       199 victims claimed by Cuba as victims of terrorism cannot be responsibly attributed to a particular cause or perpetrator.  This number includes Cuban exiles assassinated in the United States and 73 persons killed in the Cubana de Aviación plane that exploded upon leaving Barbados for Cuba (52 Cubans, 11 Guayanese and 5 North Koreans).  

5.       Regarding the 1976 explosion of the plane from Barbados, unless more conclusive determination of cause becomes available, the victims of this incident appear in Cuba Archive’s lists under unknown cause. .  The plane was never lifted from the ocean for a determination of cause, as Fidel Castro refused an offer from the British government to do so.  It is said to have been carrying arms on its return from the war in Angola; the following year a plane of the same characteristics, carrying arms to Nicaragua, exploded under similar circumstances.  In addition, suspicious events that contradict allegations of cause are associated with the explosion and courts in Venezuela exonerated the two accused men on two separate occasions.  

For the Castro period, from 1959 to the present, Dr. Lago has documented 149 extrajudicial assassinations in actions against the Castro regime attributed to anti-Castro insurgents inside the island or by Cuban exiles.  For a full review of claims of terrorism, the Cuban government must provide a full list of victims, with adequate and verifiable data.   

Cuba Archive is an independent and non-partisan initiative that upholds the intrinsic right of all people to live safely and in freedom and rejects terrorism in all its forms. In documenting the cost in lives of the Cuban Revolution from 1952 onwards, it conducts its work with academic rigor and impartiality, documenting all deaths irrespective of the social, political, and other attributes or affiliations of the victims.   For additional information, please visit www.CubaArchive.org.