To promote a nonviolent transition to a Cuba that respects human rights, political and economic freedoms, and the rule of law.
Setting the record straight on opening secure facilities, sharing intelligence with Cuban officials, and Cuba on the state sponsor of terrorism list
Cuban dictatorship officials visited control areas of Miami International Airport on May 20, 2024, in what was described as an exchange between the Transportation Security Administration and its "counterparts" on the Island.
This language downplays the threat the dictatorship in Havana poses to U.S. national interests, and the reality that Cuba today is not Costa Rica. Cuba is a state terror sponsor with a history of supplying U.S. secrets to America's enemies.
More reason for concern was the revelation by Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava that "the decision to allow Cuban officials to tour secure areas at MIA was made without the knowledge of the Miami-Dade Aviation Department."
Worse yet, this has been going on elsewhere in the United States for some time. For example, on February 26, 2023 the Biden Administration had Cuban officials tour U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. and the Port of Wilmington. The Port visit raised security concerns at the time from Representative David Rouzer and other Members of Congress.
The Obama Administration in its drive to normalize relations with the communist dictatorship in Cuba set up these visits beginning in 2011. Cuban aviation officials also visited Miami International Airport in 2011 and 2015, again without notifying local officials.
Granting Cuban officials access to U.S. facilities and ports where they have access to secure areas where they can gather information to provide to their allies in North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Russia should raise red flags.
Especially after Cuban officials were caught smuggling tons of weapons, including missile system components, to North Korea in July 2013 in violation of international sanctions, then "U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power described the North Korean ship incident as a 'cynical, outrageous and illegal attempt by Cuba and North Korea to circumvent United Nations sanctions,'" but the Obama Administration downplayed this incident and continued to provide officials more access to U.S. facilities.
On March 2, 2015 news broke that the government of Colombia had seized a shipment of ammunition bound for Cuba on a China-flagged ship due to a lack of proper documentation. The BBC reported that "Officials said about 100 tons of gunpowder, almost three million detonators and some 3,000 cannon shells were found on board. The ship's records said it was carrying grain products." Blogging by Boz, founder of Hxagon, a consulting and technology company that provides risk assessments and predictive analysis in emerging markets, reached a reasonable conclusion: "Two big shipments of weapons seized in 20 months means that this is probably a regular occurrence."
On May 29, 2015, despite a long history of sponsoring terrorism, and recent bad actions the Obama State Department removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Raul Castro had conditioned normalizing diplomatic relations with Washington on removing Havana from the terror sponsor list.
The Obama White House on October 14, 2016 made public a Presidential policy directive (PPD) on United States-Cuba Normalization. Despite the above mentioned history the Obama PPD called for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to "support broader United States Government efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, with Intelligence Community elements working to find opportunities for engagement on areas of common interest through which we could exchange information on mutual threats with Cuban counterparts." A former National Security Agency official wrote that "Obama just opened the door for Castro's spies."
To claim that this approach did not compromise U.S. national security and interests is disingenuous.
The Obama Administration's Cuba policy marked two years on December 17, 2016 and U.S. diplomats in Havana had already started suffering brain injuries from attacks that began in November of 2016. Despite that on December 7, 2016 the United States and Cuba held their fifth Bilateral Commission meeting where they celebrated progress on U.S.-Cuba relations, and signed 11 non-binding agreements on health, the environment, counter-narcotics, and other areas of cooperation.
On January 2, 2017 Cuban troops in Havana marched in a parade over which Raul Castro presided, chanting that they would repeatedly shootPresident Obama in the head so many times that they would make a “hat of lead to the head.” Despite that on January 12, 2017 the Obama Administration provided further concessions to Cuba gutting the Cuban Adjustment Act and ending the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program that had bothered General Castro for years, but had helped many Cubans.
ELN fighters in Catatumbo in 2019, Source: TV San Jorge
On January 11, 2021 Secretary Michael R. Pompeo announced that the"State Department has designated Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism for repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists." He cited three reasons:
Havana has fed, housed, and provided medical care for murderers, bombmakers, and hijackers, while many Cubans go hungry, homeless, and without basic medicine. Several of them are U.S. fugitives from justice wanted on or convicted of charges of political violence (i.e. terrorism )
Citing peace negotiation protocols, Cuba has refused Colombia’s requests to extradite ten National Liberation Army (ELN) leaders living in Havana after the group claimed responsibility for the January 2019 bombing of a Bogota police academy that killed 22 people and injured more than 87 others.
The Cuban intelligence and security apparatus has infiltrated Venezuela’s security and military forces, assisting Nicholas Maduro to maintain his stranglehold over his people while allowing terrorist organizations to operate. The Cuban government’s support for FARC dissidents and the ELN continues beyond Cuba’s borders as well, and the regime’s support of Maduro has created a permissive environment for international terrorists to live and thrive within Venezuela.
Three years into the Biden Administration, and Cuba policy appears to be following the path of the Obama Administration.
The Biden State Department removed Cuba from the list of countries not cooperating in the fight against terrorism on May 15, 2024. On the same day Joseph Connor, whose father Frank Connor was murdered in a 1975 terrorist attack in New York City by a Cuban backed group, in a letter addressed to Secretary Antony Blinken asked for one of the terrorists involved in the bombing, and now harbored by Havana, to be returned to the United States to face justice. Six days later, and Mr. Connor has not received a response.
The reason given by Vedant Patel, the principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department on May 16, 2024 "that the circumstances for Cuba’s certifications as not fully cooperating country have changed from 2022 to 2023" does not stand up to scrutiny. Patel cited "Cuba’s refusal to engage with Colombia on extradition requests for National Liberation Army members supported Cuba’s NFCC certification for 2022."
What change took place? Not the behavior of the Cuban dictatorship.
The Colombian terrorists harbored by Havana were not extradited. The new duly elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, a past member of the terrorist group M-19 in Colombia with close ties to the Cuban dictatorship, ordered his attorney general to suspend the arrest warrant "against 17 ELN commanders, including those whose extradition Colombia had previously requested from Cuba." There is also a bit of historical irony. Cuba was first placed on the state sponsor of terrorism list in 1982 when Havana was implicated supplying weapons to the M19 terrorist group from profits raised from trafficking narcotics. Patel also cited that "the U.S. and Cuba resumed law enforcement cooperation in 2023, including on counterterrorism." First, the phrase “law-enforcement dialogue” is inaccurate. In Cuba, there is no rule of law. "To keep power, the dictatorship maintains a repressive security apparatus that murders nonviolent dissidents extrajudicially. This is not ‘law enforcement.’ The Cuban dictatorship is a transnational threat, and legitimizing it does not enhance U.S. advocacy for human rights.”
What has that meant in practice?
Giving legitimacy to the Cuban dictatorship through this sham "law enforcement cooperation" led Cuban officials meeting with their American counterparts to accuse the United States of "supporting people in Miami plotting 'terrorist' actions against Cuba." Biden administration officials rejected these claims, but the actions of Havana could not be described as a good faith effort, or a reason to cite the dictatorship as fully cooperating in anti-terrorism efforts. Much less grant them access to secure facilities that are of great importance to America's infrastructure.
The exchange yesterday at the Budget Hearing for the Fiscal Year 2025 Request for the Department of State Meeting, Subcommittee Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart and Secretary of State Antony Blinken had an exchange of views on terrorist fugitives in Cuba, and the circumstances for Cuba’s certifications as not fully cooperating country having changed from 2022 to 2023. Secretary Blinken restated the official position of the State Department.
One of the fugitives highlighted by Congressman Diaz-Balart in the hearing that Havana still harbors today is William “Guillermo” Morales, a member of the "Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional" (FALN), who made the bomb used in the Fraunces Tavern bombing of January 24, 1975 in New York City that killed four, and wounded over 50 more. FALN was started in the mid-1960s and its members received advanced training in Cuba. According to the FBI, one of the authors of this attack, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos "spent several years in Cuba in the 1960s and received training from the Government of Cuba as an intelligence officer."
Joseph Connor, whose father Frank Connor was murdered in the 1975 terrorist attack in New York City, asked for Morales to be returned to the United States to face justice in a May 15th letter addressed to Secretary Antony Blinken in which he wrote "I am writing because my father Frank Connor was murdered by Cuban sponsored terrorists at Fraunces Tavern on January 24, 1975 in New York City that killed three others, and wounded over 50 more. The news that Havana is now willing to cooperate with the United States on the issue of terrorism should bring accountability for this crime that I have fought for over the last three decades."
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