(Editor’s note: Just a few hours into the new Trump administration, the White House announced that Cuba is back on the list of “terrorist countries.”)
The U.S. State Department maintains a list of countries it designates as countries where the government supports terrorism.
- The Reagan administration put Cuba on the list in 1982.
- Obama removed Cuba in 2015.
- Trump put Cuba back on the list in the last week of his first term.
- Biden took Cuba off this list in his last week in office.
This is not the blockade (“embargo”) that can only be lifted by Congress. That is still in place. Bad as the blockade is, the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) List has made things even worse.
With Cuba on this SSOT List, banks won’t handle Cuban financial transactions, even for food and medicine. The SSOT List signals to anyone that does business with Cuba that the U.S. government might try to retaliate against them.
Being on this list has caused terrible harm to Cuba, especially the healthcare system. Even the shipment of humanitarian aid is impeded. Companies worldwide that wanted to sell medicines or food to Cuba can’t because their own banks refuse to accept Cuba’s payment under threat of enormous fines from the U.S. Treasury for dealing with “terrorists.”
Locking Cuba out of the international banking system is intended to cause shortages of everything and problems in every sector of the economy and of people’s lives. It has been effective in carrying out this goal and causing suffering.
Cuba has endured 64 years of a U.S. economic blockade. This intensified when Trump unjustifiably put Cuba back on the SSOT list.
The most recent State Department report on Cuba as a so-called state sponsor of terrorism cites two, and only two, bits of evidence for this designation. One is Cuba’s refusal to extradite Colombia’s ELN leaders after peace negotiation broke down, but the report admits that “pursuant to an order from Colombian President Petro, the Attorney General announced that arrest warrants would be suspended against 17 ELN commanders, including those whose extradition Colombia had previously requested.” Obviously, this is null and void as a reason.
The only other justification noted is that “Cuba also continues to harbor several U.S. fugitives from justice wanted on charges related to political violence, many of whom have resided in Cuba for decades.”
In other words, Cuba’s designation as an SSOT is entirely and completely based on Cuba offering asylum to U.S. political prisoners of the COINTELPRO war on Black America.
Cuba did not sell out Assata Shakur, who is the person this is primarily aimed at. Indeed, Cuba did not make any deals with the U.S. government to get off the SSOT List: neither selling out Assata nor abandoning the full support of Palestinian liberation. This is entirely consistent with Cuban support for the liberation of Angola, Namibia and South Africa.
At one point, back-channel negotiations with Cuba during the Carter administration offered easing of restrictions, maybe an end of the blockade, in return for Cuba abandoning the support of liberation forces in Angola—Cuba sent troops that were absolutely essential in that struggle. Cuba refused.
On Jan. 10, Cuba, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).
It’s no surprise that Cuba has put liberation and ethics above everything because that is in Cuba’s history.
Cuba has an internationalist viewpoint. (It hasn’t just been healthcare, though it has done tremendous work in sending doctors to post-colonial and other countries in times of peace as well as in times of epidemic and disaster.) Cuban intervention (1975–1991) not only secured the independence of Angola’s government but also had profound regional meaning, leading to the independence of Namibia and the destabilization of the apartheid government in South Africa as well.
Let’s go straight to Nelson Mandela, speaking in 1991 about Cuba and Angola:
“The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanvale was a victory for the whole of Africa! The overwhelming defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanvale provided the possibility for Angola to enjoy peace and consolidate its own sovereignty! The defeat of the racist army allowed the struggling people of Namibia to finally win their independence! The decisive defeat of the apartheid aggressors broke the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressors! The defeat of the apartheid army was an inspiration to the struggling people inside South Africa! Without the defeat of Cuito Cuanvale our organization [the ANC] would not have been unbanned! The defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanvale has made it possible for me to be here today! Cuito Cuanvale was a milestone in the history of the struggle for southern African liberation! Cuito Cuanvale has been a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!”
Shakur, living in freedom in Cuba, refers in her autobiography, ASSATA, to the Cuban people. “They stand with their hands on their hips, acting like they own the place. I guess they do. They’re not afraid.”
Cuba, beyond its general internationalist goals and ideals, is aware that the whole world owes a debt to Africa. Not in any way incidentally, a high percentage of Cubans have some recent African descent—mainly people stolen from West Africa.
When enslaved African people were brought to Cuba, Yoruba people from the area that is now northern Nigeria and Carabalí people from further south, they brought their religion and culture though they could bring nothing else. These cultures have developed in resistance to slavery, in escape, in communities of free people in armed struggle—they constitute a culture of resistance and a revolutionary process, and Cuba is Africa in diaspora to an extent you would never guess by looking at Miami.
There is a saying “En Cuba, quien no tiene de congo, tiene de carabalí”—it means that everyone has some African heritage.
This is a source of strength and revolution. This is the culture of resistance that makes it possible for Cuba to be free. And that’s why it’s important for all of us to support Cuba’s struggle for freedom.
Now we have a small victory in a long and difficult ongoing struggle.
On Jan. 14, the Biden administration announced these actions related to Cuba:
- Removal from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism List
- Suspension of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act
- Elimination of the list of restricted entities (in Cuba) with which financial transactions are prohibited for individuals and companies
It is a victory for the solidarity activists, for the people of Cuba, for the hundreds of civil society organizations in Cuba ranging from the Council of Churches to the Federation of Cuban Women, from the Canine Federation of Cuba to the professional associations of every medical specialty, from the Network of Lesbian and Bisexual Women to the Barrio Network of Afro-descendants, all of which signed a letter to Biden a few months ago.
It’s a victory for the thousands of organizations and noted intellectuals worldwide who signed the Ignacio Ramonet letter to Biden recently. It’s a victory for the 123 countries that demanded this action in June 2024 in a joint statement in the 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council and for the 187 countries that voted against the blockade of Cuba at the United Nations in October of this year.
However, the illegal U.S. blockade of Cuba remains intact and if the banks and other financial systems believe that Trump will return Cuba to the SSOT, and reverse the other Biden moves, they will be unlikely to dismantle their Cuba-related risk avoidance policies.
We’ve still got work to do.
