The U.S. State Department last week released the 2010 edition of their reports on the state sponsors of terrorism and included the Castro regime in Cuba on the list. This marks almost three decades of Cuba being recognized as a state sponsor of terror.

The State Department released a full report on state sponsors of terrorism Thursday. Besides communist Cuba, included on the list were the nations of  Iran, Sudan and Syria.

“Besides filling a congressional requirement, this publication aims to enhance the public’s understanding of the international terrorist threat,” noted the State Department in a statement issued with the release of the report. “The report focuses on policy-related assessments, country-by-country breakdowns of foreign government counterterrorism cooperation, and contains chapters on WMD terrorism, state sponsors of terrorism, terrorist safe havens, and foreign terrorist organizations.

“The statistics show more than 11,500 terrorist attacks occurred in 72 countries during 2010, resulting in more than 13,200 deaths,” continued the release. "Although the number of attacks rose by almost 5 percent from the previous year, the number of deaths declined for a third consecutive year, dropping 12 percent from 2009. For the second consecutive year, the largest number of reported attacks occurred in South Asia and the Near East, with more than 75 percent of the world’s attacks and deaths occurring in these regions.”

Florida Republican Congressman David Rivera, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had this to say on the report:

“Cuba was first designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1982, but the reality is that Cuba has been sponsoring acts of terrorism since the Castro brothers took power 52 years ago,” said Rivera. “The Castro regime’s well-established history of supporting terrorist groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN) and Spain’s Basque Homeland and Freedom Organization (ETA) are the State Department’s official reasons for including Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. In recent years, the Castro regime has also established and developed ties with Iran, another state sponsor of terrorism, as well as a deep-seated relationship with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez -- both of which are considered threats to the United States.

While pleased that Cuba was included on the list, Rivera took aim at the policies that President Barack Obama was pursuing with that island nation.

“There is an inherent contradiction in the Obama administration lifting sanctions on and giving unilateral concessions to the Castro brothers, while the State Department is designating the same regime as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Rivera insisted. “The reasons for Cuba’s continued inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism are precisely why the Obama administration should not be relaxing economic sanctions that only serve to line the pockets of the Castro brothers and their allies with American dollars.”

Rivera called for the Obama administration to get tougher with the Castro government.

“We should treat the Castro regime as the terrorism sponsors they are,” said Rivera. “The Obama administration should not encourage the free flow of American dollars to support a brutally oppressive regime that we count among the four most dangerous dictatorships in the world.”


Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.