June 19, 2024
In the US State
Department’s toolkit, unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) are used to
blackmail, bully and intimidate States that do not readily accept US hegemony.
Placing a country in the US list of countries sponsors for terrorism is
intended to lend some phony legitimacy to UCMs imposed against targeted States.
Unilateral
Coercive Measures are not “sanctions”, since the US has no legal or moral right
to sanction or “punish” other states.
Nor do the American UCMs satisfy the legal criteria to be considered
“retorsion” or “countermeasures” for purposes of the International Law
Commission’s code on State responsibility[1].
UCMs constitute the use of force prohibited in Article 2, paragraph 4,
of the UN Charter[2], violate numerous international treaties and basic
principles of international law including the sovereign equality of states, the
self-determination of peoples, freedom of trade and navigation, and cause
economic chaos and humanitarian crises that can amount to crimes against
humanity within the meaning of article 7 of the Statute of Rome[3]. UCMs kill.
For decades the
United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council have adopted
yearly resolutions condemning the imposition of UCMs as incompatible with the
UN Charter,[4] according to which the only legal sanctions are those imposed by
the Security Council under Chapter VII.
The US commercial and financial “embargo” against Cuba has been
condemned by the General Assembly in 31 resolutions[5], which the United States
has violated and continues to violate. Far from lifting the UCMs, the US has aggravated
the “bloqueo”. Notwithstanding the
draconian regime that over the past 64 years Cuba has had to endure, the UCMs
have failed to deliver the desired effect:
regime change. Because of the
systematic abuse of the veto power by the United States in the Security
Council, the US continues to violate international law in total impunity.
The first list
of countries allegedly sponsors of terrorism was issued in 1979[6]. The list
originally included Iraq, Libya, South Yemen (dissolved in 1990), Sudan and
Syria. Cuba was added to the list in
1982 under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.
As of 2024 the list consists of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria, all
countries targeted for regime change.
Countries that have since been removed from the list are Iraq, Libya,
South Yemen and Sudan. The US State
Department maintains the list under section 1754 of the National Defense
Authorisation Act, the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act.
Many countries
have demanded that Cuba be removed from the list of States sponsoring
terrorism[7], and indeed, on 15 May 2024, Cuba was delisted from a separate
list of countries “not fully cooperating” with the United States in
counter-terrorism. Yet, this is NOT the
same as being delisted from the “states sponsors of terrorism” club, which has
been and is being used as a pretext for UCMs.
It sounds incoherent because it is.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez tweeted “US gov. Announcement is
a limited step in the right direction.
This decision in no way modifies the blockade, Cuba’s fraudulent
inclusion in the list of countries sponsors of terrorism or most of Trump’s
maximum pressure coercive measures that sill affect the Cuban people.” On 15 June 2024, the Non-Aligned Movement and
the Group of 77 and China issued a declaration[8] urging the immediate
delisting of Cuba, and further demanded a halt to UCMs targeting the Cuban
population. The statement denounced the inclusion of Cuba on the terrorism list
as lacking factual, legal or moral basis[9].
The
arbitrariness of the US list is obvious to any observer. Indeed, none of the US allies and friends are
on the list. The US itself is a
principal sponsor and practitioner of terrorism as we know from many
whistleblowers, from the work of the CIA and the revelations before the US
Congress. The US supported Israeli terrorism since its inception in 1946-48. It
can be said without fear of contradiction that Israel was born in terrorism. One remembers the indiscriminate killings by
Zionist paramilitaries, the Nakba, the terrorization of the Palestinian
population of the former British mandate, the terrorist bombing of the King
David Hotel[10] on 22 July 1946, the assassination by Zionist extremists of UN
Security Council Mediator Graf Folke Bernadotte on 17 September 1948, a
terrorist act that was the subject of an advisory opinion by the International
Court of Justice[11] in 1949, etc.
Today we witness
an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, notwithstanding SC
Resolution 242, pertinent General Assembly and Human Rights Council
Resolutions, the ICJ Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004[12], and the three
separate “provisional measures” orders issued by the ICJ in January, March and
May 2024 in connection with the genocide case brought by South Africa against
Israel[13] under article 9 of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Indeed, the US has been the principal sponsor
of Israeli terrorism against Palestinians since 1946, providing military,
political, economic, financial, technical and propagandistic support, rendering
the US complicit in the Israeli genocide, pursuant to Article III e of the 1948
Genocide Convention. Countries that have asked to join South Africa in its ICJ
case against Israel include Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Ireland, Libya,
Maldives, Mexico, Nicaragua, Palestine, Spain and Turkey[14]. Countries that
have condemned Israel as a state sponsoring terrorism include Bolivia, Iran,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen.
US weapons and
intelligence assisted Israel in the targeted assassination of four Iranian
nuclear scientists, Masoud Alimohammadi, Majid Shahriari, Darioush Rezaeinejad
and Mostafa Ahmadi. Another scientist
Fereydoon Abbasi was wounded in an attempted murder. At the time, unnamed US
officials confirmed that the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) had been
financed, trained and armed by Israel.
If US laws were to be applied objectively, that would have rendered
Israel (and the United States) a state sponsor of terrorism under the then
Foreign Terrorist Organization designation of the MEK.
The examples of
Israeli state-sponsored terrorism include the 1954 Lavon Affair, an
unsuccessful bomb plot in Egypt that led to the resignation of the Israeli
minister of defence.[15] In the 1970s and 80s Israel was a major supplier of
arms to dictatorial regimes in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In Indonesia, as reported by Noam Chomsky,
Israel served as a proxy of the United States, providing aircraft used by
Indonesia to massacre the Timorese[16]. More recently Israel has been accused
of sponsoring and supporting several terrorist groups in its proxy wars against
Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
The US has been
an active sponsor of terrorism in Latin America, Africa and Asia, participated
in the overthrow[17] of countless governments in Latin America, Africa and
Asia, supported military juntas that terrorized their own populations,
organized and financed “color revolutions” in Europe to install US-friendly
governments in the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and
Georgia[18]. In October 1965 the US
supported the coup d’état against the leader of the Indonesian independence
movement, President Sukarno and imposed the genocidal regime of Suharto, who
carried out widespread murders and purges that may have numbered a million
murdered victims. In the 1970’s, 80’s
and 90’s, the US supported Miami-based terrorist cells that conducted bombings
and other terroristic acts in Cuba. The
US gave safe-haven to the Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles[19], a CIA
operative, who was responsible for the blowing up of Cubana Airlines Flight
455, on 6 October 1975, causing 73
civilian deaths[20]. Posada later
admitted responsibility in a string of bombings in 1997 targeting fashionable
Cuban hotels and nightspots. Protected
by the US, Posada died in Miami, Florida, in 2018, aged 90.
In the 1980s the
US financed terrorist groups in Nicaragua (the “contras”), which used terror
methods against the government of Daniel Ortega[21]. Also in the 1980’s the US financed terrorist
groups in Afghanistan to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The record of US involvement with radical
Islamist groups is endless.
Why was Cuba
ever put on the list of state sponsors of terrorism? The Department of State tries to explain it
with Cuba’s support of national liberation movements in Africa and Latin
America. However, national liberation
movements are recognized as legitimate in countless UN resolutions, for
instance, Res. 2625 which stipulates:
“in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination,
peoples are entitled to seek and to receive support in accordance with the
purposes and principles of the Charter.”
National Liberation Movements have received wide recognition from the
international community[22] and must not be branded “terrorists”. Indeed
Article I(4) of the 1977 First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions
extends protection to members of NLMs, including “armed conflicts in which peoples are
fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist
regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in
the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of
International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States
in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”[23]
The US has
unjustly accused Cuba of giving support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), which had a legitimate goal of national liberation against
dictatorial, corrupt and thoroughly undemocratic governments subservient to the
United States.
On 14 April
2015, President Barack Obama announced that Cuba was being removed from the
list. But on 12 January 2021 the then
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleging “repeatedly providing support for acts
of international terrorism” by giving refuge to US fugitives and Colombian
rebel leaders, put Cuba back on the list.
Does this sound hypocritical?
In a note
addressed to the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, Cuba noted that it had
codified the fight against terrorism in its 2019 constitution: “In the new national Constitution, adopted by
referendum on 24 February 2019 following a process of constitutional reform and
broad popular consultation, the commitment of Cuba to the fight against
terrorism was elevated to constitutional status. Article 16(l) of chapter II,
which is dedicated to international relations, states that: the Republic of
Cuba … “rejects and condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, in
particular State terrorism”. This decision reaffirms the long-standing
rejection and condemnation by Cuba of all acts, methods and practices of
terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including when States are
directly or indirectly involved, by whomever, against whomsoever and wherever
committed, regardless of motivation. In a fair decision taken in 2015, our
country, which has been the victim of hundreds of terrorist acts that have
claimed the lives of 3,478 persons and incapacitated another 2,099, was removed
from the list of State sponsors of international terrorism, a unilateral
mechanism in which it should never have been included. Terrorism continues to
be a serious challenge facing the international community. We would therefore
like to reiterate that it is the duty of the United Nations to take the leading
role in international counter-terrorism efforts.”[24]
It is time for
the US to do away with its arbitrary and imperialistic list of “countries
sponsors of terrorism” and to lift all UCMs that have been based on this
political and defamatory designation. Ultimately, the list is a scam sustained
by US propaganda, a scam that the Global Majority in Latin America, Africa and
Asia are no longer willing to accept.
Notes.
[1]
https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft_articles/9_6_2001.pdf
[2] Alfred de
Zayas, Security Council, Arria Formula meeting, 25 March 2024
UN Charter, UN Credibility and Unlawful
Unilateral Coercive Measures
[3]
https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/rome-statute-international-criminal-court
[4]
https://www.ohchr.org/en/unilateral-coercive-measures. GA Res 78/202 of 19 December 2023
https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n23/423/58/pdf/n2342358.pdf?token=R2W4iUoezC3VbNtjVS&fe=true
[5] Most
recently Resolution 78/7 of 2 November 2023
https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n23/336/44/pdf/n2333644.pdf?token=XVrKJbxgcrfN0zgLOS&fe=true
https://press.un.org/en/2023/ga12554.doc.htm
[6]
https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/
[7]
https://vietnamnet.vn/en/vietnam-calls-on-us-to-remove-cuba-from-state-sponsors-of-terrorism-list-2289148.html
https://eng.belta.by/politics/view/belarus-insists-on-cubas-exclusion-from-state-sponsors-of-terrorism-list-159060-2024/
[8]
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2024/06/nam-and-group-of-77-demand-the-exclusion-of-cuba-from-the-list-of-terrorism-sponsors-countries/
[9]
https://cubasi.cu/en/news/intl-organizations-call-removal-cuba-us-terrorism-list
[10]
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-07-23/ty-article-magazine/.premium/70-years-on-perpetrator-and-victim-recall-king-david-hotel-bombing/0000017f-e739-d62c-a1ff-ff7b96bc0000
https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/king-david-hotel-focal-point-british-mandate-jerusalem-whose-bombing-was-watershed-moment
[11]
https://www.icj-cij.org/case/4
[12]
https://www.icj-cij.org/case/131
[13]
https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192
[14]
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/6/which-countries-have-joined-south-africas-case-against-israel-at-the-icj
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spain-applies-to-join-south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel-at-top-un-court/
[15]
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/publications/the_lavon_affair_how_a_falseflag_operation_led_to_war_and_the_israeli_bomb
[16]
https://archive.org/details/NoamChomsky-05-21-82-IndonesiaAndTimor
[17] Stephen
Kinzer, Overthrow, America’s Century of regime change from Hawaii to Iraq,
Times Books, New York 2006. William
Blum, Killing Hope, Zed Books, London 2014.
[18]
https://chomsky.info/the-leading-terrorist-state/
[19]
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/
[20]
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/us/cuban-exile-could-test-us-definition-of-terrorist.html
[21]
https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70/judgments
[22]
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0072.xml
[23]
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/icrc_002_0321.pdf
[24]
https://www.un.org/en/ga/sixth/74/int_terrorism/cuba_e.pdf
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