Cuban Americans Denounce Florida Legislators’ Position of Cuba on the Terrorist List

[Mika]

Cuban Americans Denounce Florida Legislators’ Position of Cuba on the Terrorist List
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Today sixty Cuban Americans from across the United States released an open letter to the Obama Administration strongly disagreeing with the position of Cuban-American legislators from Florida on retaining Cuba on the State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” The signers state that the Cuban-American legislators from south Florida do not represent them or their views on Cuba, or the views of the majority of Cuban Americans. “The removal of Cuba from this serious tool of U.S. foreign policy is long overdue,” maintain the signers. Their full statement follows ...

http://lawg.org/action-center/lawg-blog/69-general/1207-cuban-americans-denounce-florida-legislators-position-of-cuba-on-the-terrorist-list

[clarice]

1. All 60 !!???? .nt

[Mika]

2. In Miami this is a risky move.

Both professionally, and personally.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Too many statistics on record which give depth to your comment, by all means!

Looks as if there are far too many people who don't grasp the risks people of their convictions have faced all these years, or at least all the years until their cars were bombed, or their homes, or they were shot, etc. while they have been living in the United States!

I checked the list for former U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Wayne S. Smith. Looks as if they forgot to contact him. He has been on that side for ages! He's courageous, too.

[Mika]

5. One of the signatories of this letter had his travel agency biz firebombed last year in Miami. eom

[Judi Lynn]

3. Their link to Patrick Ryan's statement is well worth reading:

Former U.S. diplomat Patrick Ryan: Time to drop Cuba from terror list
By Former U.S. diplomat Patrick Ryan - 04/30/13 08:10 AM ET

As a former U.S. diplomat who authored the 2007-09 Country Reports on Terrorism for Nigeria and visited Cuba many times on official business, I believe keeping Cuba on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism is absurd and highly political, particularly given its glaring omissions.

Where is North Korea, which has conducted small-scale attacks against the South over the past several years — and recently threatened a nuclear first strike against the United States? Despite the fact that Cuba maintains a capable espionage network, no credible intelligence sources claim it is currently a security threat to us. Cuba’s listing is about Florida electoral politics.

A small minority of Cuban-American politicians has been dictating U.S. foreign policy toward one of our most geographically proximate neighbors for too long — and using the highly questionable terrorist listing to justify continuation of the Cold War-era embargo.

~snip~
The fact that members of the Basque separatist group ETA have retired to the island with the blessing of the Spanish government, that FARC members are residing in Cuba during peace talks hosted by Havana and supported by the Colombian government and that various fugitives from American justice — none of whom have been accused of terrorism, by the way — have lived in exile there since the 1970s, are simply not credible arguments for maintaining the designation.

Frankly, it’s well past time that U.S. policymakers had the courage to tell the most vocal Miami exiles to acknowledge reality and move on, as many of them already have. Fortunately, the younger generation of Cubans in Miami isn’t as obsessed with the island as their forebears — and Cubans are no longer a majority of the Latin American population in South Florida.

More:
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/guest-commentary/296867-former-us-diplomat-patrick-ryan-#ixzz2W24MKia1

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Too many people simply take the word of these "exile" Congress gusanos for granted, automatically swallowing that bilge. It's harmful for anyone who hopes to have a grasp on the truth of the matter.

The reasons for maintaining hostilities against this small island are conspicuous lies.

I'm glad the Cuban Congressional reactionaries lost their strongest allies, Jesse Helms, and Tom Delay and John Bolton, and the Bush brothers who are officially out of power, for the moment. Hope there will be more to follow.

Thank you, Mika.