United Nations, Oct 8 (Prensa Latina) Cuba denunced today before the United Nations that the United States manipulated the issue of terrorism for political purposes by including the Island in its unilateral list of countries that sponsor terrorism. On April 30, the State Department published its report of 2013, reiterating the absurd designation of Cuba as “a State Sponsor of Terrorism” for 32nd occasion, said the third secretary of the permanent mission of Cuba to the UN, Tanieris Dieguez.
In a forum of the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly, the Cuban diplomat and jurist said that Washington keeps Cuba in its list to justify the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on the Island for over half a century. And it does it despite don’t having any information about the supply of weapons or training by the Cuban government to extremist groups, and recognizing that Cuba supports and hosts the peace negotiations for Colombia, she said in the meeting focused in the elimination of international terrorism.
Regarding the issue discussed in the Committee of the Assembly, in charge of legal matters, Dieguez ratified Cuba’s rejection of the scourge in all its expressions, as well as its rejection of manipulation of such a sensitive issue.
In this regard, she demanded the definitive exclusion of Cuba from the list, which she termed spurious, unilateral and arbitrary.
She noted that for defending its independence and dignity, Cuba suffered for decades the consequences of terrorist actions organized, funded and executed from US soil, killing 3,500 people and wounding 2,099 people.
She noted that the struggle against terrorism will only succeed if its causes are addressed in an organized way by the international community without violating the peoples’ sovereignty.
She expressed Cuba’s backing the adoption of a general convention on terrorism and the holding of a UN-sponsored world conference to give coordinated answers to the scourge.
“Those objectives have not been achieved because of the position of a small number of states, the actions of which suggest the preference of a war against terrorism in violation of the UN Charter and International Law,” she warned.
