The assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in New York

On September 11, 1980, Omega 7 claimed responsibility for the assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in New York. Photo: Archivo de Granma

In its arsenal of aggressions against Cuba, the U.S. government has put into practice a hundred different forms of terrorism ranging from sabotage of civilian airplanes to biological warfare and economic blockade.
From that country, one of the largest and most dangerous terrorist networks in the world was created, made up of organizations that have carried out a sad corollary of crimes.
Among them was Omega 7, founded in the United States on September 11, 1974, an organization that perpetrated, between 1963 and 1981, more than 60 terrorist attacks against Cuban installations and commercial institutions.
On September 11, 1980, Omega 7 claimed responsibility for the assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in Queens, New York.
Over more than six decades, 3,478 fatalities and 2,099 disabled people put names to the statistics of this war against Cuba.
Let us remember the attacks on fishing and merchant vessels, such as the one against the Spanish ship Sierra Aránzazu, which caused the death of the captain and two of the officers.
On the other hand, we cannot forget the biological warfare, aimed at destroying agriculture and damaging the health of Cubans.
In order to confront the violent actions organized from Washington, men and women born from the bowels of the people, run all the risks and make all the sacrifices.
On September 12, 1998, five Cubans who decided to dedicate their lives to the fight against terrorism in the city of Miami were arrested in the United States.
For that reason, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González served severe and unjust sentences for more than 16 years.
However, in spite of the high price in lives and material resources that this murderous policy has cost the Cuban people, Washington designed, since the first years of the Revolution, a strategy of discredit, with the objective of justifying the permanent siege and presenting the largest of the Antilles as a terrorist country.
The inclusion of the island on the U.S. State Department’s list of countries sponsoring terrorism is a measure that goes far beyond isolating an adversary of the White House.
Such a measure is part of the scourge they claim to fight. It cannot be seen separately from the blockade or the violent actions or cognitive warfare, it is part of a whole designed to bring a people to its knees.
In spite of everything, the largest of the Antilles, which is a signatory to 19 international conventions related to the fight against terrorism, condemns this scourge and will continue to honor the commitments assumed in this matter, a responsibility it elevated to constitutional rank in 2019.