By Maria Josefina Arce
The number of Cubans killed by the aggressions of the United States, which has supported and financed far-right groups of Cuban origin for more than sixty years, rises to more than 3,400, a sign that state terrorism is a permanent tool of Washington’s foreign policy.
During these six decades, there have been several terrorist attacks perpetrated from US territory, under the complicit gaze of the various governments that have even given sanctuary to notorious criminals like Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosh.
Posada Carriles and Bosh were the very intellectual masterminds behind the mid-flight explosion of a Cubana de Aviación plane in October 1976. The criminal act claimed the lives of 73 people.
While in the service of the CIA, the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency, these two terrorists were never held accountable for their crimes. They lived quietly on American soil until their deaths, although there was no doubt about their involvement in those events.
Even Posada Carriles is called the “worst terrorist in the hemisphere” in documents declassified by the CIA and the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The crime of Barbados, as this sad event is called, is perhaps one of the events that most shocked international public opinion, but not the only one. Economic, military, biological, diplomatic, espionage aggression and attempts to assassinate leaders add to the long list.
Let’s not forget dengue hemorrhagic fever, which was introduced to the Greater Antilles in the 1980s and killed 158 people, including 101 children.
In 1997, a series of terrorist attacks against hotels in Havana, led by Posada Carriles, resulted in deaths and extensive property damage. A bomb explosion in Copacabana caused the death of young Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo.
The aim of these actions was to hit the Cuban tourism sector, which is one of the main sources of foreign exchange in the country.
Much earlier, in the 1970s, Bosh admitted sending packet bombs to Cuban embassies in Peru, Spain, Canada and Argentina.
Adding to these and many actions supported by Washington is the maintenance of a genocidal blockade by the various US administrations, which has been even tightened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This Sunday, August 21st, is the International Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism and Cuba commemorates its children killed or injured by the criminal actions perpetrated against our country from North American territory with the consent of Washington.