After a five-year hiatus, the State Department returned Cuba on Monday to its list of state sponsors of terrorism. What took so long?
The State’s practice of listing countries that “have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism” has been in place since 1979. President Reagan added the tropical communist regime in 1982. Cuba remained so designated until President Obama removed it from the list in 2015 in its campaign to normalize relations. But Havana does not want to be normal and has deepened and broadened its commitment to terrorism.
The collapse of Venezuela’s democracy over two decades was carried out in Havana by Cuba’s military intelligence apparatus. The once sovereign South American nation is now essentially a Cuban satellite used as a base for transnational crime and terrorism. A 2019 report by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau concluded that “Cuba and Venezuela continued to provide permissive environments for terrorists”.
The report noted that “individuals linked” to dissident members of the Colombian drug trafficking group FARC, “who remain committed to terrorism despite the peace agreement”, as well as the smallest rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) and “Hezbollah sympathizers” were in Venezuela. Venezuelan fort Nicolás Maduro, who survives in power thanks to Cuba, “has openly welcomed former FARC leaders who have announced the return to terrorist activities,” the report said.
Cuba also welcomes and protects terrorists at home. “ELN members who have been in Havana to conduct peace negotiations with the Colombian government since 2017 have also remained in Cuba,” the report found. “Cuba, citing peace negotiation protocols, rejected Colombia’s request to extradite 10 ELN leaders after that group took responsibility for the January 2019 bombing of a Bogotá police academy, which killed 22 and wounded 87 others.”