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U.S.-Led Terrorist Attacks Against Cuba

Immediately following the success of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, the United States began a program of terrorist attacks against Cuba. Some of these were carried out directly by CIA operatives, while others were carried out by Cuban expatriates based in Miami and financed by the CIA. One of the earliest forms of terrorism was aircraft hijacking. The first instance took place in April 1959, when former members of Batista's corps took over and diverted a Cuban plane to Miami. The perpetrators were never punished.

A total of 51 hijackings of Cuban planes took place from 1959 to the present, with the majority between 1959 and 1973. Several people, including pilots and guards, were murdered or injured in these hijackings. There were also cases of the hijacking of American and other planes in which the hijackers demanded that they be flown to Cuba. Cuba took measures to put an end to these hijackings and all American planes were returned to the U.S.. However, the reverse was not true. When Cuban planes were hijacked and diverted to the U.S., they were often seized for non-payment of debts claimed by American firms against the Cuban government. While Cuba opposed all the hijackings, the U.S. only took a stand against them when it served its interests. For example, it was Cuba which initiated an agreement with the U.S. to take measures against aircraft hijacking as well as maritime piracy in February 1973.

In 1975, the U.S. Senate's Church Commission issued its report about assassination attempts on the lives of the leaders of Cuba and other countries. This report put the CIA in a bad light. As a result, it changed its tactics from direct action to establishing a network of terrorist groups, ostensibly acting on their own behalf, but coordinated by CIA operatives. This initiative led to a new wave of terrorist attacks, unprecedented in their violence. In the space of four months in 1976, the following terrorist attacks took place against Cuba:

- On April 6, a pirate attack by speedboats from Florida against two fishing boats, leading to the death of a fisherman and serious damage to the boats;

- On April 22, the bombing of the Cuban embassy in Portugal, causing the death of two diplomatic officials, serious injuries to others, and the total destruction of the premises;

- On June 5, the bombing of the Cuban U.N. Mission, causing serious material damages;

- On July 9, the detonation of a bomb on the cart carrying the luggage that was about to be loaded on a Cubana Airlines flight at the Kingston, Jamaica;

- On July 10, the bombing of the British West Indies Airways offices in Barbados, which represented Cubana Airlines in that country;

- On July 24, the murder of a fishing industry specialist during the attempted kidnapping of the Cuban Consul in Mérida, Mexico;

- On August 9, the abduction and disappearance of two Cuban embassy officials in Argentina;

- On August 18, the bombing of the Cubana Airlines offices in Panama City.

Declaring that they were at war with Cuba and would soon be blowing up Cuban planes in mid-flight, the terrorist groups established and financed by the CIA issued public statements in the United States claiming responsibility for every one of these attacks.

Only eight weeks later, a Cuban jetliner with 73 people aboard was blown up in mid-air off the coast of Barbados. Two Venezuelan mercenaries confessed to the crime and all investigations showed they were working for the CIA. Nonetheless, as a result of American intervention, they were jailed for only a few years. A Venezuelan judge who tried to prosecute them to the full extent of the law was punished by right-wing Cuban exiles based in Miami by the assassination of his son.

Beginning in 1962, another front of attack against Cuba was launched by the U.S. - the use of chemical and biological weapons. Cuban livestock was infected with Newcastle disease and there were also cases of sugar exports from Cuba to other countries being contaminated while docking en route. In 1969-70, the CIA deployed futuristic weather modification technology to disrupt Cuba's sugar crop. Planes from a high-tech naval weapons centre in California overflew the island seeding rain clouds with crystals which subsequently caused severe rain damage. In 1971, the CIA turned over to Cuban exiles a virus which causes African swine fever. Six weeks later, there was an outbreak of the disease in Cuba and 500,000 pigs had to be slaughtered to contain the epidemic. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called this event the "most alarming" of the year.

In 1981, an outbreak of dengue fever in Cuba (more than 300,000 cases were reported) was linked to U.S. Army testing of specially-bred mosquitoes in Georgia and Florida.

These are only a few of the terrorist attacks which have been perpetrated against Cuba by the United States. They have continued to this day, including the bombing of hotels in Havana in the summer of 1997 by Cuban expatriates based in Miami, and the assassination plot against Fidel Castro at last year's Ibero-American Summit in Panama by CIA operatives.

Including casualties during the Bay of Pigs invasion, since 1959 a total of 3,478 Cubans have been killed in terrorist attacks perpetrated by the United States. During that same period, Cuba has not carried out a single attack against the United States or its citizens. Nevertheless, the U.S. State Department has included Cuba on its list of "terrorist states".