Is Cuba a State Sponsor of Terrorism?

Officials in Thailand (after being tipped off by American intelligence officials) recently seized a Georgian-registered aircraft loaded with over 35 tons of North Korean weapons. Where the weapons were bound for is unclear. However, Iran, Sri Lanka, or the African Horn countries would all be good guesses. Counterterrorism Blog’s Douglas Farah reports:

The Thais stopped the aircraft because U.S. intelligence warned them of the North Korean weapons on board, listed in the cargo manifest as oil drilling equipment. North Korea, although under an international ban on exporting weapons, makes an estimated $1 billion a year from the industry, attracting the least savory of the world’s characters as clients.

This sort of behavior is not uncommon for the North Korean regime and didn’t surprise me at first. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a state sponsor of terrorism. Then it occurred to me – North Korea is NOT a state sponsor of terrorism. Not if we go by the official U.S. State Department list. In fact, North Korea is one of the only countries to ever be removed from the list (we also removed Iraq in 1982 so it would be eligible for direct U.S. military support in its war against Iran). The Bush administration removed Libya in 2006 and North Korea in 2008. Why? According to the State Department:

On October 11, the United States rescinded the designation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a state sponsor of terrorism in accordance with criteria set forth in U.S. law, including a certification that the Government of North Korea had not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period and the provision by the government of assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.

Obviously, removal from the official list is something that we use as a bargaining chip while conducting statecraft with rogue regimes. And I’m glad that we do this because, if used correctly, it can incentivize states to curb their behavior instead of just trying to compel them through sanctions that inevitably end up hurting the populace more than the regime. Clearly, that was the Bush administration’s rationale for removing Libya and North Korea. Which brings me to Cuba.

Does Cuba deserve to be on this list? Our economic sanctions have done little to thwart the “Revolution,” except cause Cuba to seek closer relations with other “rogue” regimes (the former Soviet Union, Iran, and Venezuela come to mind). And including Cuba on the “terror” list doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much either. It seems to me that even maintaining such a list works against our foreign policy by showing our blatant inconsistencies. How can we include Cuba while we exclude states like North Korea and Venezuela? (Chavez had been directly linked to numerous terrorist organizations, including the Colombian FARC.)

I would argue that the full repeal of economic sanctions on Cuba, and its removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, are both long overdue. Obviously, many others would disagree with me. Henry Gomez is one of those people. Long-time readers of this blog will recall our exchange back in May of 2008: 6 Questions with Castro’s Worst Nightmare. I recently floated my ideas his way and asked him to tell me why I’m wrong. Here is his response:

The economic sanctions currently in place on Cuba were put in place when the Castro regime expropriated $1.8 billion in U.S. business assets. To date the regime has made no attempt at restitution or settlement. The lifting of the sanctions would be a de facto amnesty for these violations of the norms of international trade and send a signal that American assets can be stolen as long you are stubborn enough and belligerent enough for long enough. The Castro regime talks about “trade” but what they really want is credit. Currently dozens of countries do business with Cuba and the regime owes billions of dollars around the world. Note this recent article about Spanish businesses that have found their investments in Cuba frozen by the Castro regime. So, the sanctions that are in place with regards to Cuba currently protect U.S. business interests from being similarly taken advantage of by an outlaw regime. Also, the U.S. is already currently Cuba’s largest food supplier but, by law, the sales must paid for with cash. Lifting sanctions on the regime will open the door to the Castro getting credit from taxpayer-funded institutions like the Export-Import Bank of the United States. I know we’ve gotten into the business of bailouts lately, but do we really want to subsidize a murderous regime with taxpayer dollars?

The idea that the sanctions hurt the Cuban people more than the regime is laughable on its face. The U.S. did not impose a Marxist economy on the Cuban people. The U.S. did not outlaw private property and enterprise in Cuba. The U.S. did not impose food rationing on the Cuban people. The regime did all that. And they did it when they had the handsome subsidies of the Soviet Union. The only time the regime has liberalized its economy was when its back was against the wall in the early and mid 90s (after the fall of the USSR and before the arrival of the new sugar daddy, Hugo Chavez). You have to understand that this regime lives by skimming off of the top of any revenue it can generate. And the more it generates the more it will skim and spend on what it has always spent money on: weapons, repression and subversion of other countries. Who is going to guarantee that the Castro brothers will take the new influx of dollars (that removing sanctions will represent) and use it to benefit the Cuban people? Are you?

As a practical matter we have diplomatic contact with Cuba through “Interest Sections” in each country. We have negotiated immigration accords and other agreements with the regime without full diplomatic relations. What is the benefit of establishing them now? On the contrary, the drawback is that the United States would be recognizing as legitimate a regime which has never been legitimate.

Cuba should remain on the list of state sponsors of terrorism for one simple reason: it is a sponsor of terrorism. Cuba has and continues to be a safe haven for the likes of FARC terrorists from Colombia, ETA terrorists from Spain, IRA terrorists from Ireland and even American fugitives such as the renown cop killer Assata Shakur. The annual state department reports on the matter couldn’t be clearer.

I’ll let Henry have the final word. If you want to read more of his work, he blogs regularly at Cuban American Pundits and the Babalu Blog.

Comments and criticism are welcome.

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