Cuba sees Obama terror promise as healing of historic wound

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Cuba sees Obama terror promise as healing of historic wound
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, Associated Press | February 19, 2015 | Updated: February 19, 2015 8:02pm

HAVANA (AP) — A year after he took office, President Ronald Reagan placed Cuba on a list of state sponsors of terror for backing leftist guerrilla groups in Central and South America.

Cuba remained on the list as the Soviet Union fell, Fidel Castro stopped aiding insurgents and the global focus on terrorism turned to the Mideast. For outside observers, Cuba's place on the list was a Cold War relic that showed the power of the communist government's enemies in Congress. For Cuba, it became the most potent symbol of what many here call five decades of bullying by the superpower to the north.

Now, as the two countries move to end a half-century of acrimony, President Barack Obama has made clear that he will take Cuba off the terror list, saying in a televised address on his new Cuba policy late last year that "at a time when we are focused on threats from al Qaeda to ISIL, a nation that meets our conditions and renounces the use of terrorism should not face this sanction."

Cuba's top diplomat for U.S. affairs heads to Washington next week for a second round of talks on restoring ties. Cubans ranging from President Raul Castro to ordinary citizens describe their country's removal from the list as one of the most important elements of that detente, one that could help heal a great injustice. In Cuban eyes, they are the victims of terror, not the U.S.

For Cubans, the worst act of aggression against the island since its 1959 revolution occurred when 73 people aboard a Cuban passenger flight from Barbados to Havana died in a 1976 bombing blamed on exiles with ties to U.S.-backed anti-Castro groups. Both of the men accused of masterminding the crime took shelter in Florida, where one, Luis Posada Carriles, lives quietly to this day.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Cuba-sees-Obama-terror-promise-as-healing-of-6089751.php

[forest444]

1. Luis Posada Carriles must not have liked the sound of that.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/

[Judi Lynn]

3. No kidding! The Associated Press should avoid plane trips for a while!

On edit:

Forgot to thank you for sharing that excellent resource link on this REAL terrorist. What a hideous, grotesque, twisted former C.I.A. agent, monster Luis Posada Carriles.

[Hekate]

2. 5th Rec. It's time for major reconciliation.

[freshwest]

4. Agreed. The man in the White House is taking us to a better place on this.

[moniss]

5. Daddy Bush

I recall reading an in-depth series of articles about Bush setting up various CIA connected front businesses in FLA and Louisiana in the 80's whose sole purpose was to facilitate this kind of activity in Latin America. They were various so called "import/export" businesses and various aircraft/airport "services" companies.

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. That terror designation was always a joke. Reagan had him some chutzpah.

He sicced the Contras on the Sandinistas and helped bathe El Salvador in blood.

I was in Nicaragua at various points in the '80s. The Cubans were there. Yeah, there were Cuban intelligence guys, but there were also Cuban doctors, nurses, engineers, architects, and the like.

The Cuban dudes would wear speedos for swimming. The Nicaraguans found them brash.

I once met a peasant farmer there who guessed I was Russian. Go figger.

[Cha]

7. Thank you, President Obama! mahalo Judi

[Judi Lynn]

8. He's the only one who had the guts to do something about this! Mahalo Cha.

[Cha]

9. Indeedy!