During a meeting with journalists, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary General António Guterres, said in response to a question from Prensa Latina, “We welcomed the announcement by the United States on January 14 on Cuba’s withdrawal from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, among other measures.”
On January 14, then President Joe Biden unilaterally removed Cuba from the list – in a late act, at the end of his term, but in the right direction – on the basis of the consideration of several agencies of the Government of the United States itself, which validated what is an open truth: Cuba does not sponsor terrorism.
However, as its authorities have denounced, Cuba has been the victim, for decades, of violent acts, many of them planned from within the United States.
After taking office on January 20, in his first hours in the White House, Trump reversed Biden’s decision with an executive order without presenting any new evidence and ignoring the work and criteria of his own state agencies.
The reactions were not long in coming. The UN secretary general even acknowledged at the time that Cuba’s conduct in some mediation processes, such as the peace process in Colombia, contradicts its ongoing presence on such a list.
In June 2024, Dujarric praised Cuba’s efforts with Colombian political stockholders that led to the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2016.
“That is not the type of behavior that one would expect from countries accused of being sponsors of terrorism,” the spokesman stressed at the time.
Cuba was first included on the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list in 1982, during the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan. In 2015, then Democratic President Barack removed that designation, considering that it lacked merit.
However, Trump re-included Cuba on that list eight days before leaving the executive mansion in 2021, in line with the policy of maximum pressure on Cuba during his first term.
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