Cuba rejects US terrorism label, vows to triumph!

IN response to US president Donald Trump's redesignation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, reversing his predecessor Joe Biden's move to remove Cuba from the list, the Cuban government issued a statement on January 21, signed by “the Revolutionary Government.”

The statement declared, "In the face of the imperialist offensive, Cuba will triumph," and described Trump's actions as an attack on Cuba without pretext.

The redesignation took place hours after Trump's inauguration on January 20, where he issued a series of executive actions. These orders included a crackdown on immigration, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO), and pardons for approximately 1,500 people charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The Cuban government said the decision to re-establish harsh measures of economic warfare against Cuba, which had been eliminated days before, demonstrated the aggressiveness of US imperialism toward the sovereignty, peace, and well-being of the Cuban population.

The Biden administration announced on January 14, it would remove Cuba from the list after an assessment revealed no information supporting Cuba's designation. Cuba had been one of four nations designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, alongside North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

In December, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel, alongside former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, led a march of thousands of Cubans in front of the US Embassy in Havana, calling for Cuba's removal from the "terror list."

The statement said the country being put back on the list of countries that supposedly sponsored terrorism showed a complete disregard for the truth.

Reflecting on Trump's decision, it described it as not surprising and referred to an earlier statement issued by Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 14, which had already warned of the possibility.

"The government of that country could reverse the measures adopted today in the future, as has happened on other occasions, as a sign of the lack of legitimacy, ethics, consistency, and reason in its conduct against Cuba."

The statement added, US politicians do not usually stop to find justification, saying, "This is how they govern in that country."

It said Trump interpreted his rise to power as the coronation of an emperor, with ambitions including "the conquest of Canada, the unlawful taking of Greenland, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, and the dispossession of the Panamanians of their canal."

It believes groups and politicians have made aggression against Cuba a way of life and have profited for decades from the anti-Cuban business, and "who today share the new president's drunkenness" bear a heavy responsibility for the country's difficult economic situation and increase in migration to the US.

It further calls the move an act against the Cuban people, showing the true, cruel, and ruthless objective of measures of encirclement and asphyxiation, saying the measures were applied against Cuba to dominate it.

“It is the reaction of impotence in the face of the inability to bend our will and in the face of the respect, sympathy, and support that the Revolution commands among the peoples of the world.”

The statement noted the economic blockade, its reinforcement, and the new "aggressive" measures that would continue to weigh heavily on the Cuban economy, its standard of living, and its potential for development.

“They will not divert us from our socialist course, from our determination to recover the economy, foster the greatest solidarity, creativity, talent and spirit of work and defend freedom, independence, sovereignty and the privilege of building a future without foreign interference as an impregnable bastion.”

It concluded by expressing gratitude for support and solidarity received from around the world, including: governments, Cubans living abroad, parliaments, political, religious and social organisations and political figures in the US.

“Cuba will win. Homeland or death, we will win.”