Cuba: Terrorist Training Ground for Russia and China
No, Cuba should NOT be removed from the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
On April 28th, U.S. and Cuban officials met in Havana to discuss anti-terrorism measures to address “the hijacking of aircraft and maritime vessels and the use of digital networks for violent purposes.”1 Terrorism is a contentious issue for Cuba, since it is listed as a State Sponsor of Terror along with Syria, Iran, and North Korea.
Nine days before Trump left office, his administration announced on Jan. 11 it was returning Cuba to that particular U.S. list, citing its harboring of American fugitives and Colombian rebel leaders and security support for socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.2
Although Biden promised to reverse Trump’s Cuba policy during his 2020 presidential campaign,3 Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in March the administration has no plans to remove Cuba from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
(Just another example of blackmailed presidents doing as they’re told.)
Cuba and China
China’s ties to the Castro regime run deep. After all, it was three Chinese Cuban generals — Choy, Moisés Sío Wong, and Gustavo Chui —who fought with Castro to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. Chinese state-owned banks are money laundering Latin American drug profits.
In 2018, Cuba officially joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative which focused on infrastructure, biotechnology, renewable energy, health, economy, trade, finance and cyber security.
Both countries have recently vowed to “strengthen coordination in international and regional affairs as well as jointly build socialism with local characteristics.” Cuba reiterated its position of abiding by the one-China principle by opposing Taiwanese independence.
Cuba as a Russian Proxy
Recently, I have been seeing numerous articles calling for President Biden to remove Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism here, here, and here. We need a reminder of Cuba’s vital role in terrorism.
Russia and Cuba have both historical ties since the days of the Cuban Revolution and currently as one of the few supporters of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba's secret service DGI (Dirección General De Inteligencia) was established with the help of the Soviet KGB following Fidel Castro’s rise to power. Moscow saw the revolutionary government in Cuba as a proxy agent in areas where Soviet involvement lacked local support. Nikolai Leonov, the KGB chief in Mexico City, was one of the first to recognize Castro's potential. Leonov urged the Soviet administration to strengthen ties with his regime and saw Cuba as having more appeal with new revolutionary groups, western intellectuals, and members of the New Left.
Initially, the Kremlin used Eastern Bloc Czechoslovak intelligence (StB) as their proxy in their aim to bring the Castro regime to power. Communist Czechoslovaks provided Cubans with intelligence reports, spying equipment, and training at the Lourdes SIGINT station. The head of the DGI, Manuel Piñeiro, was in regular contact with the StB station chief in Cuba and their intelligence reports were vital in sustaining the Cuban revolution.
Cuba’s Terrorist Training Camps
Starting in 1962, Czechoslovak (StB) cooperated on top secret ‘Operation Manuel’ which falsified the passports of 1,179 Latin American guerrillas by moving them through Prague after undergoing extensive military and political training in Cuba.
The 1966 Tricontinental Conference, held in Havana, provided the organizational structure to support terrorists, anti-American groups in the Middle East and Latin America. A 17-year-old Carlos the Jackal attended the event with his father. After the conference, Sánchez spent the summer at Camp Matanzas, a guerrilla warfare school run by Cuban DGI.
According to Cuban defector Hildago Castro, he stated how his service ran the terrorist training camps.4 The camps were described as having 15 to 25 men in each group and instructed as many as 1,500 men per year in guerrilla and terrorist techniques. Once in Havana, the trainees were grouped by nationality and generally were kept apart for security reasons.
Soviet Czechoslovak defector General Jan Šejna interview confirms the establishment of paramilitary terrorist and drug trafficker training camps in Cuba and his home country. He stated the DGI was under complete control of the KGB and Russian military intelligence (the GRU) by the mid-60s. When Sejna was asked about the degree of Soviet control, he said: "The budget came from the Soviet Defense Committee decisions, and we had to account for the funds on the basis of the defense committee plan. Under no circumstances can this be considered an autonomous Czech program. It was a coordinated program."5 He also elaborated on the role of the drug trade as Soviet unconventional chemical warfare against the West in the book 'Red Cocaine.'
GRU defectors Viktor Suvorov and Stanislav Lunev described Soviet intelligence as "the primary instructors of terrorists worldwide." Terrorism was seen by the Soviets as the only way to reduce the imbalance between USSR military and economical power against the West.
According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, KGB General Aleksandr Sakharovsky once said: "In today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon." Sakharovsky claimed, "airplane hijacking is my own invention." In 1969 alone, 82 planes were hijacked worldwide by KGB-financed PLO.
Some of the Cuban and Soviet terrorist groups and people:
National Liberation Army (ELN)
Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Black Panther Party members from the United States were trained in Canada by Cuban personnel. Black Panther leaders and other African Americans “received weapons and explosives training in Havana.”6
The Kremlin invited 1,500 Cuban DGI agents, including Che Guevara, to the KGB's Moscow Center for intensive training in intelligence operations.
Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs
The “Cuban Program” dubbed by the Department of Defense and the CIA involved the torture and murder of 19 American POWs during the Vietnam War. Under diplomatic cover in Hanoi, Cuban officials brutalized American servicemen to death in a submissions program ordered by Fidel Castro and sanctioned by the North Vietnamese.
Colonel Earl Cobeil, a Navy F-105 pilot, was the worst recorded case of the program and he was beaten to the point of a complete catatonic state, incapable of responding to any command. He was listed as having died in Vietnam captivity.
The worst Cuban crime in my opinion is the mass murder of innocent non-combatants by using drugs as unconventional warfare. They don’t even bat an eye at killing our children. The Leninist-Marxists are killing the exact same people they claim they want to protect from American “imperialism.” If Cuba, China, and Russia are these great bastions of “equity,” then why do they have the highest levels of income inequality? As the U.S. became more socialist since 1933, Americans’ standard of living has dropped significantly. Corporations and banks love socialism because they no longer have to compete in the free market. ‘Too big to fail’ is communism for the rich and powerful.
-D.C.
“We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Soviet Government and of the new order of life. We judge quickly. In most cases only a day passes between the apprehension of the criminal and his sentence. When confronted with evidence criminals in almost every case confess; and what argument can have greater weight than a criminal's own confession?” ― Felix Dzerzhinsky
Additional Articles:
CNN - Former U.S. POW accuses Cuban official of torturing him in Vietnam - November 3, 1999
Cuban War Crimes in Vietnam - American Thinker November 24, 2017
FACT SHEET: CUBAN SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM — Center for a FREE Cuba (cubacenter.org)
Cuba to deepen ties with Russia as Ukraine tensions mount | Reuters February 19, 2022
Russia and Cuba will deepen ties and explore collaboration in transportation, energy, industry and banking, Cuba's Foreign Ministry said late on Friday following a visit from Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov.
Russia threatens military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela as diplomacy stalls | Ukraine | The Guardian January 13, 2022
In an apparent attempt to up the ante with the Biden administration, Sergei Ryabkov, who led Russia’s delegation in a meeting with the US on Monday, told Russian television he could neither confirm nor exclude sending military assets to Cuba and Venezuela if talks fail. Asked about these steps, he said “it all depends on the actions by our US counterparts”.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative Expands to Cuba - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics November 27, 2022
Cuba wins China debt relief, new funds | Reuters November 27, 2022
Testimony from an ex-member of Cuba's intelligence service (DGI) indicates that the DGI is an organizational extension of the KGB, with the KGB using the DGI in intelligence activities designed to destabilize and subvert United States influence and power in Central and South America and to some extent in other parts of the world. Special agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement testify about intelligence and terrorist activities conducted by Castro agents in South Florida, largely through personnel coming to Florida through the Mariel boatlift. Cuban agents are also indicated to be funnels for bringing Russian-made explosives into the United States to be used in terrorist activities. One agent is identified as having taught young Miami blacks to firebomb schools in their communities, and he is also alleged to be associated with an organized effort to encourage young men not to register for the military draft. Ways in which DGI agents work through the Hispanic and Cuban exile community are also described. Testimony by the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and accompanying officials provides a perspective on how Cuba is being established as a military power through Soviet subsidy so it can act as a Soviet surrogate in various strategic areas throughout the world.
The KGB in the Third World : NPR October 6, 2005
Why Cuba Belongs on the Terrorism List – PJ Media January 16, 2010
How the Soviet Union Transformed Terrorism - The Atlantic December 23, 2011
Terrorism and the KGB - The Washington Post Saptember 23, 1981
Former Communist spy: KGB created Catholic liberation theology | The Spectator May 02, 2015
In it, he says that Soviet Union – and the KGB in particular – created liberation theology, the quasi-Marxist movement that flourished in Latin America from the 1960s to the 1990s and is still a powerful influence on the Catholic Left.
The interview provides fresh evidence of the infiltration of liberation theology by Russia – a subject Catholic liberals would much rather not discuss, just as they don’t want to know about the heavy Soviet investment in CND.
Cuban War Crimes in Vietnam - American Thinker November 24, 2017
As a former Marine, Mike Benge believes that there were seventeen Americans held in the Villa Marista prison and confirms that there were Cubans who tortured American POWs in Vietnam. In 1968, he worked for the Agency for International Development, serving as a civilian economic and community development advisor.
Cuba Using Venezuela for Terrorism, Drugs | Breitbart April 12, 2019
In Cubazuela: Chronicle of a Cuban Intervention, authors Juan Antonio Blanco and Casto Ocando concluded that Cuban government agents control Venezuela’s politics, economy, healthcare infrastructure, drug trade, and ties to terrorism. Venezuela, now a “failed state,” they wrote, proves useful to deflect blame from Cuba from those who consider Venezuela a separate state from Cuba. In practice, however, the authors conclude that Venezuela and Cuba operate as one state “controlled by a transnational criminal group associated with terrorist organizations such as the FARC, the ELN and Hezbollah.” The FARC and ELN are Marxist Colombian narco-terrorist organizations known to generate much of their revenue through cocaine and other drug trafficking. The report explains:
Cuba - United States Department of State 2020
Did Vladimir Putin support anti-Western terrorists as a young KGB officer? – POLITICO June 20, 2020
U.S. declares Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism (nbcnews.com) January 11, 2021
The Trump administration declared Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday, the latest in a series of actions aimed at undoing the Obama-era legacy of opening U.S. relations with the island nation just weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
"The Trump Administration has been focused from the start on denying the Castro regime the resources it uses to oppress its people at home, and countering its malign interference in Venezuela and the rest of the Western Hemisphere," said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement. "With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice.”
FACT SHEET: CUBAN SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM — Center for a FREE Cuba (cubacenter.org) March 12, 2021
Cuba - International sponsor of terrorism for more than six decades
On March 1, 1982 Cuba was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This was less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that Havana was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government.
The Cuban government’s behavior did not change and Havana remained on the terror sponsor list for thirty three years, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
On May 29, 2015 the Obama Administration removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The underlying reasons Cuba had first been placed on the list had not changed, but was driven by the White House's desire to normalize diplomatic relations with Havana, and the Castro regime conditioning it on being taken off the list. It was a political decision, not one based in a change in regime behavior.
Cuba’s Strategy in Latin America: Intelligence Estimates and the Historical Record (cia.gov) December 04, 2021
Additionally, an NIE published in November 1962 judged that the Castro regime was committed to fomenting revolutions throughout Latin America and was providing support to its allies in the region.16 Analysts wrote that “thousands of Latin Americans have been brought to Cuba; about 1,200 foreign trainees are believed to be there now” to learn guerrilla warfare and revolutionary techniques…
One scenario supposed that if the Soviet Union withdrew all of its support, Castro’s capabilities to export revolution would be considerably reduced, while a second scenario presumed that if Kremlin increased its support, Castro could use the additional resources for more external operations. The point was clear for readers: the Kremlin’s assistance to Havana was important for Castro’s agenda in Latin America. Additionally, CIA assessments published in 1962 and 1963 in the PICL also regularly discussed Cuban support for, and training to, revolutionary movements in Latin America…
The PICL also noted in early 1963 that Cuba increased the budget for a front organization covering the expenses of Latin Americans brought to Havana for training and in the summer of that year, analysts wrote that Guevara had a plan for subversion in at least five Latin American countries…
On specific issues, such as Castro’s efforts to bring Latin Americans to Havana for training, documents from Cuba’s foreign ministry and Colombia’s national archive also support IC assessments. Cuban diplomats based in Guatemala noted in 1961 that the several members of a pro-Cuba group traveled to Havana and received training in guerilla warfare…
Cuba, US officials meet in Havana to discuss anti-terrorism measures | Reuters April 28, 2023
HAVANA, April 28 (Reuters) - Cuban and U.S. officials met on Friday in Havana to discuss anti-terrorism measures, Cuba's interior ministry said, broaching a particularly thorny subject between the two long-time rivals in the latest in a series of bilateral talks.
Cuba, US Officials Meet in Havana to Discuss Anti-Terrorism Measures (usnews.com)