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