We can use a colloquial phrase: “We are healed of fright.” But the reality is that no one is ever ready for all the horrors that exist, on the contrary, I think it is better to say that: “There is always room for astonishment”, very regrettable, but true.
The exoneration of the terrorist Alexander Alazo of his brutal attack against the Cuban embassy in the capital of the Potomac, leaves us stunned, I really confess that I thought they would give him at least a light sanction, something to save face.
Declaring him innocent of shooting 32 times at the Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C. is a new shameless descent that shows that U.S. “Justice” is a joke in bad taste and its Constitution only a dead letter.
Terrorism remains a serious challenge to the international community. It cannot be eliminated if double standards, manipulation, political opportunism and selectivity prevail. There is no good terrorism and bad terrorism. Terrorist acts are crimes against humanity. It is necessary to respond to this phenomenon in accordance with the norms and principles of international law. For more than six decades, Cuba has been the target of continuous acts of terrorism that have cost the lives of many people.
We have not forgotten a long history of painful events against our diplomats abroad, including on U.S. soil.
One of the most recent acts against Cuba was the attack, in the early hours of April 30, 2020, on the Cuban diplomatic headquarters in the capital of the United States, perpetrated by an American citizen of Cuban descent named Alexander Alazo, who indiscriminately fired 32 shots with a semiautomatic assault rifle.
In 2023, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the same venue. Cuba, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, condemned this attack from the beginning, describing it as a “terrorist act with the intention to kill.”
Such action was possible only because of the aggressive policy of the Government of the United States against Cuba and the instigation of violence by hostile anti-Cuban extremist politicians and groups based in that country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at the time:
“At the time of the events, there were 10 officials in the building. If the attack had happened at a different time, the story would be different. A massacre could have occurred.
“As a result of the impacts, material damage to the building was reported. The bullets hit the front of the embassy, mainly the entrance door and columns. Several projectiles penetrated the interior of the building, damaging the main staircase, roof and walls.
“To add to the seriousness of the act, the Cuban embassy is located on a busy avenue in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. It is located between the embassies of Poland and Lithuania, just three km from the White House.
“The perpetrator of the act, a citizen of Cuban origin named Alexander Alazo Baró, was arrested at the scene by local authorities. He had planned the attack in advance. He had ties to groups and individuals inside the United States, with a known history of hatred and incitement to violence and terrorism against Cuba.
“It is a deeply serious crime, of international concern, that an embassy has been the target of a terrorist act. However, nearly six months after the attack, the U.S. State Department has not issued any official public statement on the matter.
“The U.S. government has chosen not to recognize, let alone reject, this terrorist attack. It seeks to disregard its legal responsibility to protect all diplomatic missions in its territory, as established by the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It has not even recognized the attack as terrorist in nature. This is demonstrated by the charges against the aggressor.
“The complicit silence of the U.S. government encourages the continuation of similar actions in the future. This terrorist act is a direct result of the aggressive official policy and the growing hostile rhetoric of the U.S. government against Cuba.
“It is fueled by the permanent and open instigation of violence by U.S. politicians, including senior officials at the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Havana, as well as anti-Cuban extremist groups in that country, who have made such attacks their livelihood.
“Anyone who listens to the frequent falsehoods of the State Department and the Secretary of State himself will observe that there is constantly an appeal to resentment and hatred of Cuba.”
During Donald Trump’s administration, 243 anti-Cuban measures were taken and huge amounts of money were given to destabilize Cuba. When Joe Biden was elected in 2020 I thought that those policies were going to change, at least not increase, but it has not been like that, his stance against Cuba has been arrogant and as brutal as that of Trump and his MAGA fascists.
This was not the first time, nor the last, that the Cuban Embassy in Washington, the Mission at the UN headquarters in New York and Cuban foreign service officers are the object of aggression on U.S. soil, a country where there are more than 200 million weapons “on the street.” Some examples:
• An explosive device launched on 8 May 1979 by the terrorist organization Omega 7 against the same building of our Embassy in Washington, causing serious damage.
• On September 11, 1980, Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez was shot dead in New York.
• Three attempts have been made to assassinate the Ambassador of Cuba to the United Nations and 17 acts of aggression, including direct attacks with explosive devices, against the Cuban Mission to the United Nations.
• So far, there have been almost 90 officially registered attacks on Cuban embassies around the world and 29 attacks on diplomatic officials of our country (eight of them dead) due to terrorism. Terrorism encouraged, financed and/or tolerated by Washington.
• Terrorist acts against Cuba have cost the lives of at least 3,478 people and maimed another 2,099. In addition, groups and individuals who have committed terrorist acts against our country in the past have operated for years and continue to operate with impunity on U.S. soil.
All good Cubans demand that the U.S. government immediately act in the same way and comply with its international obligations in the fight against terrorism.
A VERY BRIEF ACCOUNT OF TERRORISM AGAINST CUBA
Since before the triumph of the Revolution, terrorist acts were carried out against Cuba and its people, from the supply of bombs and rockets to Batista’s Air Force at the illegal Guantanamo Naval Base, to many other things. Since January 1, 1959, armed counterrevolutionary groups, financed and trained by the U.S. CIA, have conceived and carried out numerous terrorist acts that have cost Cuba valuable lives and considerable resources.
They also planned various actions to physically eliminate Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and other leaders of the Revolution. The formalization of anti-Cuban terrorist activities occurred with the approval, on March 17, 1960, of the so-called Covert Action Program against Cuba; The position that the U.S. government would maintain toward Cuba was clear, and since then, it has been nothing more than cynical tolerance and support for those who are willing to take actions to destroy the Revolution.
Alexander Alazo’s case is nothing more than an ad nauseam reiteration of what has happened without exception for many decades.
A minimum of 3,478 Cubans dead (the real figure will ever be known and I predict it will be much higher) is the balance of more than half a century of U.S. hostility against Cuba, currently the target of a new phase of media attacks by Washington and its European allies. That figure includes more than a hundred children affected by Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (1981), victims of the machine-gunning of coastal towns, the Bay of Pigs attack, economic sabotage, the bombing of cities and towns in the 1960s, the explosion of the steamship La Coubre, the bombing of the Cubana de Aviación plane in Barbados and an infinite list of cruel acts. Heartless and unquestionably terrorist.
The CIA man, Luis Posada Carriles, from his position as a repressor in the Venezuelan intelligence service at the time – and then as head of an alleged detective office in the city of Caracas, from where he carried out his acts of terror against Cuba – was undoubtedly part of the brain, inspiration and executor of those bloodthirsty actions that had been taking place on the continent since the end of the 1960s. mandated by the United States. Luis Posada had a solid record in the service of the CIA and although the agency, then led by George Bush (senior), acknowledges only “sporadic contacts” with Posada at that time, the facts allow us to affirm that this terrorist constituted an important piece in the CIA’s operational apparatus in the region.
On October 6, 1976, the horrendous crime of the Cubana de Aviación plane in Barbados took place, organized from Venezuela by criminals Orlando Bosch Ávila and Luis Posada Carriles.
In the 1990s, encouraged by the collapse of the socialist camp, counterrevolutionary organizations intensified and continued to carry out with impunity, from U.S. territory and other bases of operations, numerous terrorist actions against Cuba.
In addition to the facts and actions included in this report, the Cuban security and intelligence agencies were aware of another 140 plans for terrorist actions, 16 plans to attack Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and eight plans to attack other leaders between 1990 and 2001 alone, which gives an idea of the danger and intense actions of the organizations and individuals mentioned.
The variant of the use of Central American mercenaries, acting from those countries, but financed from Miami, to sow terror in Cuban tourist facilities, would be a new idea proposed at the time by Luis Posada Carriles from El Salvador, which was immediately accepted by the CANF and its accomplices in the United States administration, well into the 1990s. In 1997, bombs exploded in several hotels in the Cuban capital and in two Cuban tourist companies abroad. One of these monstrous acts blinded the life of the young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo
For trying to prevent crimes like these, the Cuban Five Cuban Heroes were imprisoned for a long and unjust time in U.S. prisons, for fighting terrorism from the bowels of these criminal groups.
A few comments to conclude these notes:
1. The acquittal of Alexander Alazo goes far beyond a vulgar travesty of justice. Like Fidel Castro, history absolved him, the gang of assassins such as O. Bosch, L. Posada Carriles, A. Alazo and others; “HISTORY WILL CONDEMN YOU ETERNALLY”!
2. It is a very dangerous act that encourages other irresponsible people who have dared to attempt such highly criminal misdeeds and commit terrorist acts, thinking that they will not be prosecuted by the judicial system of the United States. Also by individuals eager for “fame” (not knowing that being abominated is not synonymous with being famous) and/or money or simply poisoned by hatred. Alexander Alazo must go to jail where he belongs!
3. Cuba’s permanence as a sanctioned party in the SSOT (countries sponsoring terrorism) reaches a new level of impudence and ignominy.
4. As we saw in Ukraine in the days of the Maidan (organized by Cuba’s own enemies) in Kiev, and the mass murders in Odessa, Donetsk and Lugansk, I do not consider false flag actions against Cuba (which have happened before, of course) impossible, to create chaos inside and outside the country.
5. Every time a serious action occurs, it is necessary to see who is in the best interest, the sworn enemies of Cuba, haters without limit, want to see diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States broken. Actions such as that of Alazo and then in 2023 those who threw Molotov cocktails at the diplomatic headquarters itself, are aimed at creating a crisis that causes an even greater sharpening of hostility between the two countries. Let’s not forget that for a moment!
6. Fascism is on the loose in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Anti-Cuban terrorism has always had and still has neo-fascist characteristics today
7. Fascism is behind the horrific wars in Ukraine and Palestine, genocide and terrorist massacres are always, from Guernica onwards, a favourite instrument of fascism.
In view of this, it is necessary to strengthen the national unity of the Cuban people in Cuba and in their increasingly close emigration of good. In the U.S. and other countries, the unity of progressive forces in a broad anti-fascist front must be strengthened, which has already been incipiently initiated, but with many forces in the student demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza. We call on all friends of Cuba, of the peace movement and all decent and good people in the United States and the world, to denounce this new baseness of declaring innocent a savage and confessed terrorist!
DOWN WITH TERRORISM! DOWN WITH FASCISM! CUBA OFF THE LIST OF SPONSORS OF TERRORISM!
jg/jro
