“The multiple faces of terrorism in Cuba” is a report that reveals how the Cuban regime has historically utilized violence and terror as tools to maintain power, both on and off the island.
The report, published by the San Pablo CEU University Foundation and the Social Studies, Training, and Analysis Center (CEFAS), demonstrates how, since its inception, the Cuban dictatorship has adapted its methods of terror over more than six decades.
This examination focuses on the use and promotion of terrorism by the Cuban regime from before the 1959 Revolution to the present. It highlights Cuba’s connections to violent acts, insurgent groups, and terrorist organizations in Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Additionally, it includes relationships with drug trafficking and organized crime.
The report is authored by Matías Jove and John Suarez, with an introduction by María San Gil, who emphasizes the need for the European Union to reconsider its stance towards Cuba, especially in light of its alleged ties to groups designated as terrorists by the EU.
Promotion of Terrorism
Fidel Castro sought to export Cuban terrorism
The Cuban dictatorship uses and promotes terrorism as a central strategy of its governance. This has been true both for establishing power and for remaining in it. This action has evolved into an entity linked with networks of transnational organized crime.
The report warns that the use of political violence and terrorism in Cuba is not an isolated or new phenomenon, but a practice that Castroism adopted and perfected even before the Cuban Revolution.
In this context, it recalls that Fidel Castro was involved in political violence from his university years, and the press of the time linked him to at least three murders or attempted murders, although he was never convicted due to lack of evidence.
It also cites, among other things, Castro’s participation in violent international expeditions, such as the failed invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1947 and his involvement in the “Bogotazo” in Colombia in 1948, where he “wandered the streets of Bogotá distributing anti-American propaganda” and armed himself with rifles.
Cuban Revolution Based on Terrorism
The study notes that Domingo René García Collado, former head of Action and Sabotage of the July 26 Movement, admitted: “this Revolution was made through terrorism.”
Other examples of urban terrorism mentioned include the explosion of “a hundred devices at once in the country’s capital” on November 8, 1957. Aerial hijackings are also mentioned, like the one on October 21, 1958, the first in Cuba’s history, ordered by Fidel and Raúl Castro to incorporate planes into the Revolutionary Air Force.
Similarly, the July 26 Movement implemented the slogan “the three Cs: zero movies, zero shopping, and zero cabaret” and executed terrorist acts in public places, causing hundreds of injuries and deaths.
Exportation of Terrorism
Following the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara sought to export their revolutionary model, primarily through the foquismo strategy, which emphasized the intensive use of terror.
Castro claimed that “bullets, not votes” represented the revolutionary way to achieve power. Meanwhile, “Che” Guevara stated: “Hatred as a factor of struggle, intransigent hatred for the enemy, pushes beyond the natural limitations of humans and turns him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be like this; a people without hatred cannot triumph over a brutal enemy.”
The report references invasions and support for guerrillas in Latin America:
- Attempts to invade Panama (1959) and the Dominican Republic (1959);
- Support for armed groups in Haiti;
- Creation of the FSLN in Nicaragua;
- Provision of arms and training to terrorist groups like the FALN in Venezuela;
- Foundation of the ELN and support for FARC and M-19 in Colombia;
- Joining and supporting the “final offensive” of the FMLN in El Salvador;
- Unification and arming of terrorist groups in Honduras and Guatemala.
The report indicates that the Cuban revolution is linked to the Iberian Revolutionary Directory for Liberation in Spain, responsible for the death of girl Begoña Urroz in 1960.
It also mentions the plan to detonate 500 kilos of explosives at large shopping areas and Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan in 1962, carried out by expelled Cuban diplomats. Support was also given to organizations like Weather Underground and FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation of Puerto Rico), responsible for attacks in the U.S., including the attack on Fraunces Tavern in New York.
The report adds that military training and funding were provided to African leaders from various countries, and it describes the Tricontinental Conference of 1966 as a key event where Fidel Castro “gathered terrorists from around the world and argued in front of over 500 international leaders that the path to power was through bullets, not ballots.”
Terrorism During the Soviet Era and the Rise of COT
The report states that, despite being subordinate to the Soviet Union starting in 1968, Cuba did not abandon terrorism. Rather, its alliance with the USSR provided a more disciplined, reliable, and efficient tool for promoting violence, including terrorism, on a larger and deeper scale.
Cuba achieved the status of having the ninth-largest army in the world and sent military missions and personnel to Africa and the Middle East (Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Syria, South Yemen, Grenada, and Nicaragua), even deploying Cuban tank brigades under Syrian flags during the Yom Kippur War (1973).
The distribution of Carlos Marighella’s “Mini-manual of the Urban Guerrilla” by Fidel Castro’s orders promoted terrorist techniques such as kidnapping, hostage-taking, and sabotage.
Collaboration with Al-Fatah solidified from 1965, including training hundreds of Palestinian terrorists in Cuba and sending Cuban instructors to camps in Lebanon, Libya, and Yemen.
After the Soviet collapse, the ties with drug trafficking and transnational organized crime became an essential element for its viability. A declassified CIA report from 1989 emphasized the relationships between the Cuban government and drug trafficking, which became established as policy.
Among other actions, the report highlights that the Cuban dictatorship contributed to the establishment and expansion of drug trafficking networks in Venezuela and the consolidation of the Cartel de los Soles within the Venezuelan Armed Forces.
It claims that the Cuban regime protects and serves some drug trafficking routes from Venezuelan territory to the United States.
Current Continuity and Alliances
The regime has become an “international actor of transnational organized crime” or a “mafioso state.”
Support is referred to for ETA, ELN, FARC, and Puerto Rican FALN, while it simultaneously engages in extensive propaganda and diplomacy worldwide to legitimize terrorism.
Cuba does not condemn Hamas and legitimizes its terrorist activities, blaming Israel for the crisis in the region. Following October 7, 2023, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs “avoided condemning the attack and blamed Israel for the situation.” A march in support of Hamas took place in Cuba in November 2023.
There’s an assertion that Cuba, directly and through Venezuela, supplies intelligence to Hamas and Hezbollah. The report references the existence of military training camps for Hezbollah terrorists in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, with Cuban support. Collaboration between the Cuban G-2 and the Venezuelan regime has reportedly led to providing false nationalities to Hezbollah members.
Terrorism as a Political Tool
The CEU-CEFAS report concludes that the Cuban regime has shifted from using terrorism as “a weapon of war to gain power” to transforming it into “a political tool” that enables it to “weave its communist network around the world.”
It emphasizes that after the disintegration of the USSR, Cuba aimed to be the bastion of Marxism/Communism globally and found terrorist groups as allies against the West.
Ultimately, it urges the European Union to “open its eyes and include Cuba on the list of terrorist organizations,” at least out of solidarity with the Cuban and Spanish people, who have suffered from terror. It notes that participation in activities of a terrorist group by supplying information or material means is considered a terrorist act under EU provisions.