Cuba condemns all acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It also condemns all actions aimed at encouraging, supporting, financing or covering up any terrorist act, method or practice.The Cuban territory has never been used, nor will it be ever used to mastermind, finance or carry out terrorist acts against any country, including the United States.

Cuba has always played an exemplary role in facing terrorism:

· Cuba has taken legislative and other measures to prevent and suppress all terrorist acts and activities and those directly or indirectly related to them, including the ones associated with financing terrorism, border protection and surveillance, arms trafficking, judicial cooperation, and accession to international legal instruments on preventing and suppressing international terrorism.

· Cuba is a State Party to the 14 existing international conventions on terrorism, and strictly complies with the obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions 1267, 1373, 1540 and 1989 on the matter and it has participated actively in the debates on the work of the Committee against the Terrorism of that institution.

· Cuba maintains its insoslayable commitment with the application of the Global Strategy of Nations United against the Terrorism.

· In the United Nations, Cuba has participated and follows with extreme attention the debates in relation to a future General Convention on Terrorism. Cuba considers an imperative the adoption of a Convention of that type of general reach, by means of which they are managed to cover the deficiencies and omissions legal within the framework effective and allows to undertake on a coherent form the international actions against this flagellum.

· On 20 December 2001, the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Republic of Cuba enacted Act 93 “Against Acts of Terrorism”, which classified all acts of international terrorism as serious crimes, and established very severe penalties.

· Cuba has also taken measures to prevent and suppress all activities related to financing terrorism. Since 1997, following the entry into force of Resolution 91/97 of the Minister-President of the Central Bank of Cuba, the Cuban banking and financial system has been implementing systematic measures to prevent and detect illegal capital flows.

· Cuba has stepped up its strict border controls as a result of the adoption of Security Council Resolutions1267, 1373 and 1540.

· Cuba does not possess and has no intention of possessing any sort of weapon of mass destruction, and fulfills its obligations under the international instruments it has signed concerning nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. All programmes related to these fields are strictly peaceful, permanently and rigorously monitored by relevant national authorities, and subject to the surveillance of relevant international organizations. Possessing this kind of weapons has never been part of the Cuban national defense strategy.

· In accordance with resolution 1267 and 1989, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba submits periodic reports to Cuban consulates and other relevant authorities, about updated Consolidated Lists issued by the Security Council Committee established pursuant to said resolution, also known as Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee.

· Cuba has signed 21 agreements on legal assistance and repeatedly expressed its permanent willingness to cooperate with all States in this field.

In this spirit, Cuba has cooperated, even actively, with the US Government:

· On four occasions (November 2001, December 2001, March 2002 and February 2012), Cuba proposed to the US Government a draft Program of bilateral cooperation for combating terrorism, which was rejected or left without answer.

· On several occasions, Cuban authorities have conveyed to the US Government its willingness to exchange information on terrorist actions targeted at objectives in any of the two countries. In 1984, Cuba warned about a plot to kill President Ronald Reagan. This warning resulted in the neutralization by US authorities of those involved. In 1998, information was made available to President William Clinton’s Administration about plans of planting explosives in Cuban commercial airplanes or airplanes from third countries flying to Cuba, many of them carrying US citizens.

· Cuba was one of the first countries to publicly condemn the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in the United States. It conveyed its willingness to provide medical and humanitarian assistance to the victims, and immediately offered to open its air space and airports to receive commercial airplanes going to US territory.

· Cuban authorities have provided the US Government with considerable information about terrorist acts perpetrated against Cuba. In 1997, 1998, 2005, 2006, and 2010, Cuba gave the US Department of Justice and the FBI substantial evidence about the explosions in several Cuban touristic facilities, and gave them access to the terrorists that perpetrated such acts held in Cuba, witnesses and pieces of evidence.

Since 1959, Cuba has been victim of terrorist acts that have taken 3,478 lives and caused mutilations to 2,099 Cuban citizens. Many of these actions have been masterminded, financed, and executed from US territory.

Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, successive US administrations have harbored in its territory hundreds of criminals, murderers, and terrorists, disregarding the numerous formal requests of extradition made by the Cuban Government, under extradition arrangements in effect at the time. Many of these individuals still live freely in this country, even after being involved in new terrorist acts against US, Cuban, and other nations’ citizens and interests.

The better known and appalling case is the midair explosion of a Cuban jetliner on October 6, 1976, taking the lives of 73 people. This was the first terrorist act against civil aviation in the Western Hemisphere. One of the masterminds, Orlando Bosch Ávila, died quietly in Miami, where he lived enjoying absolute freedom and impunity, after receiving a pardon by President George H. W. Bush that was arranged by Cuban right-wing extremists. Up to his final days, Bosch openly defended terrorism against Cuba, without any consequence whatsoever.

A similar treatment has been given to another mastermind of this abominable crime, Luis Posada Carriles, who has never been charged or tried in the United States for this act or for conceiving the series of attacks with explosives in 1997 against Cuban hotels, which resulted in the death of the Italian tourist Fabio DiCelmo. On the contrary, Posada has been recently outrageously acquitted after a sham trial for lying to US migration authorities on its illegal entry to the United States in 2005.

The US Government, in order to be consistent with its proclaimed commitment to the fight against terrorism, must end the unfounded inclusion of Cuba in the list of “States sponsors of international terrorism”, and must act without double standards against those who have committed terrorist acts against Cuba from the US territory. It must also free the five Cubans unjustly imprisoned in this country for protecting Cuba from terrorism and defending the integrity of citizens from the United States and other countries.