adminHAVANA. — Cuban officials and ordinary citizens alike hailed the island’s removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, saying the move by President Barack Obama heals a decades-old insult to national pride and clears the way to swiftly restore diplomatic relations.
“The Cuban government recognises the president of the United States’ just decision to take Cuba off a list in which it should never have been included,” Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat for US affairs, said on Tuesday night.
Cuban and US foreign policy experts said the two governments appeared to have taken a major leap toward the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington after four months of complex and occasionally frustrating negotiations.
“This is important because it speaks to Obama’s desire to keep moving forward,” said Esteban Morales, a political science professor at the University of Havana. “Now there are no political obstacles. What remains are organisational and technical problems, which can be resolved.” In a message to Congress, Obama said on Tuesday that Cuba’s government “has not provided any support for international terrorism” over the last six months and has given “assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.”
Cuba will officially be removed from the terrorism list 45 days after the president’s message was sent to Congress.
Lawmakers could vote to block the move during that window, though Obama would be all but certain to veto such a measure.
What remains to be seen in coming weeks is whether Cuba will allow US diplomats to move around Cuba and maintain contacts with citizens including dissidents, the second point of contention in the negotiations on restoring full diplomatic relations.
Cuba is highly sensitive to any indication the US is supporting domestic dissent and that issue may prove considerably tougher than amending the terrorism list. The Obama administration made little pretence in recent years that it believed Cuba was supporting terrorism.
Cuba was put on the list in 1982 because of what the US said were its efforts “to promote armed revolution by organisations that used terrorism.”
That included support for leftist guerilla groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Basque separatist movement ETA in Spain.
Cuba also sheltered black and Puerto Rican militants who carried out attacks in the United States.
Among those was Joanne Chesimard, who was granted asylum by Fidel Castro after she escaped from a US prison where she was serving a sentence for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.
Obama’s decision was welcomed on the streets of Havana. — AP.
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