IT is a very serious matter for the United States of America, USA, the most powerful country in the universe, to place a country on the list of states “sponsoring” terrorism. So, when on May 15, 2024 it placed Cuba in this category, it was bound to attract attention. However, this will be for those who have not been following the cat and mouse game between both countries since November 3, 1961 when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy signed “The Cuban Project.”

Otherwise called ‘Operation Mongoose’, it was a project by the US authorising the use by all means, including terrorism against Cuban civilians, to overthrow the Cuban government. At inception, the operation was jointly led by US Air Force General Edward Lansdale and William King Harvey of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA.

The Kennedy administration had begun with the invasion of Cuba by exiles backed by the American military in what became known as the ”Bay of Pigs Invasion”. There were other attacks, including hundreds of attempts to assassinate former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruiz.

Terrorism is essentially the use of violence to further political goals. But the USA has a number of definitions depending on various institutions like the CIA.

However, since we are concerned here with international relations, we can adopt the USA State Department definition which states that terrorism is “an activity that one, involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; two, appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or, three, to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”

Now, Cuba does not involve itself in violent acts that are dangerous to humanity. Its acknowledged acts outside its borders are primarily two. The first, is sending medical personnel in their tens of thousands to various countries, especially Asia, Latin America and Africa, including Nigeria. One of its remarkable successes was helping to contain Ebola in Africa.

But its most spectacular contribution to humanity was during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, it was perhaps the only country in the world that refused to shut its borders against other human beings. When in March 2020, the British cruise ship, MS Braemer with 682 passengers on board ravaged by COVID-19 was left to drift in the Caribbean with no country allowing it to berth, Cuba brought in the ship.

It followed this up by sending 3,700 healthcare personnel around the world to combat the pandemic. This included missions to Italy,Azerbaijan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Antigua, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Suriname, Jamaica, Haiti, Belize, Barbados, Martinique and Trinidad and Tobago.

Here in Africa, Cuban doctors and nurses helped to Combat COVID-19 in Angola, Togo, Cape Verde, South Africa, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone and Kenya. This internationalist intervention by the Cuban doctors called “The White Coat Army” was so overwhelming that in my September 11, 2020 column titled, “Nobel Peace Prize: A case for the White Coat Army.” I joined the campaign that the Cuban internationalist medical teams under the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade, be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The second intervention the Cubans had engaged in was sending 55,000 troops over 9,000 kilometres to fight and conquer the seemingly invisible Apartheid South Africa military that was invading various African countries and colonising Namibia and South Africa. This led to the independence of these two colonies in Africa.