World personalities call for removing Cuba from list of sponsors of terrorism

HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 11 (ACN) Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism, it is a state sponsor of global welfare, stresses an article published in Peoples Dispatch, which advocates eliminating the Caribbean nation from that unilateral list of the U.S. government.

Authored by Roger Waters, Vijay Prashad and Manolo De Los Santos, the text is published in this international media project and highlights that Cuba, instead of exporting arms all over the world, has a long history of health internationalism with Cuban doctors and medicines that are a familiar sight from Pakistan to Peru.

The basic idea behind this list is that the U.S. State Department determines which countries have supported acts of international terrorism, the article refers, adding that the U.S. government does not provide evidence of such acts.

The authors stress that designating Cuba as a U.S. state sponsor of terrorism profoundly damages the ability of the island's government and its people to carry out the basic functions of life.

The enormous power of the U.S. government over the world financial system means that banks and traders refuse to do business with Cuba, fearing reprisals for breaking the blockade, they explain.

Because of this policy, authors continued, companies refuse to sell Cuba raw materials, reagents, diagnostic kits, drugs and pharmaceutical devices, and a range of other materials needed to operate the island's excellent but stressed public health and science system.

Every update of Washington's list since 1982 had included Cuba, until 2015, when President Barack Obama removed the island, as part of the normalization of bilateral relations.

However, in January 2021, Donald Trump's administration included the Caribbean nation again, so that Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria are now on the list.

The text points out that U.S. President Joe Biden could remove Cuba from this list with just his signature, but has not done so, which could be due to reasons of political expediency.

Roger Waters is a British musician and composer, co-founder of the band Pink Floyd, considered one of the most influential in the history of modern music, while Vijay Prashad and Manolo De Los Santos are two social activists, the former is an Indian-American historian, Marxist and journalist, executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and editor-in-chief of LeftWord Books; while the latter, a Dominican, is co-executive director of The People's Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental.