Cuban Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Gus­ta­vo D Veliz Oli­vares, has re­it­er­at­ed his coun­try’s con­dem­na­tion of ter­ror­ism and called for Cu­ba’s re­moval from the Unit­ed States’ list of state spon­sors of ter­ror­ism.

Speak­ing at a com­mem­o­ra­tive cer­e­mo­ny mark­ing Cari­com-Cu­ba Day Against Ter­ror­ism at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day, Am­bas­sador Oli­vares high­light­ed Cu­ba’s decades-long ex­pe­ri­ence as a vic­tim of ter­ror rather than a per­pe­tra­tor.

“Cu­ba is not a ter­ror­ist coun­try and does not spon­sor any ter­ror­ism. On the con­trary, Cu­ba has been a vic­tim of ter­ror­ism for more than 60 years,” he stat­ed.

The event co­in­cid­ed with the 49th an­niver­sary of the 1976 bomb­ing of a Cuban civil­ian air­craft that killed 73 peo­ple, in­clud­ing 57 Cubans, short­ly af­ter de­part­ing from Bar­ba­dos. The at­tack re­mains one of the dead­liest acts of ter­ror­ism in Caribbean his­to­ry.

“We al­so re­mem­ber more than 3,000 Cuban na­tion­als who were killed by acts of ter­ror­ism and more than 2,000 who were in­jured as a re­sult of as­saults and ag­gres­sion of all kinds,” Oli­vares said. He not­ed that sim­i­lar acts of vi­o­lence have caused ir­repara­ble loss­es to count­less Cuban fam­i­lies over the decades.

Am­bas­sador Oli­vares al­so ex­pressed con­cern that in­di­vid­u­als with known his­to­ries of vi­o­lence against Cu­ba, in­clud­ing Luis Posa­da Car­riles and Or­lan­do Bosch, lived freely in the Unit­ed States un­til their deaths. He crit­i­cised Cu­ba’s con­tin­ued in­clu­sion on the US ter­ror­ism list, call­ing the Jan­u­ary 2025 re-in­clu­sion “one of the most dam­ag­ing mea­sures” against the na­tion, in­creas­ing its fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal risks in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“Cu­ba has nev­er tak­en part in the or­gan­i­sa­tion, fi­nanc­ing, or ex­e­cu­tion of ter­ror­ist acts against any na­tion, nor has its ter­ri­to­ry ever been, or will it ever be, used for such pur­pos­es,” he af­firmed. The Am­bas­sador high­light­ed Cu­ba’s con­sis­tent op­po­si­tion to ter­ror­ism world­wide, cit­ing con­dem­na­tion of the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, at­tacks in New York and sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple amid cur­rent con­flict.

Oli­vares al­so called for an­swers re­gard­ing the 2023 bomb­ing of the Cuban Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton, not­ing that his gov­ern­ment still awaits re­spons­es about the iden­ti­ties of the per­pe­tra­tors and re­lat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), David Ab­du­lah, joined in con­demn­ing the decades-long US eco­nom­ic block­ade on Cu­ba, call­ing Cu­ba’s in­clu­sion on the US.ter­ror­ism list “fic­ti­tious” and “based on a lie.” He not­ed that the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty will again de­bate Cu­ba’s an­nu­al res­o­lu­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions lat­er this month, which calls for an end to the US em­bar­go.

“We reaf­firm our call for Cu­ba to be re­moved from the so-called fic­ti­tious list of coun­tries en­gaged in state spon­sor­ship of ter­ror­ism,” Ab­dul­lah said. He urged the re­gion to con­tin­ue demon­strat­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cu­ba, de­scrib­ing the day’s ob­ser­vance as a reaf­fir­ma­tion of “hu­man­i­ty and peace” in the face of vi­o­lence and in­jus­tice.

The cer­e­mo­ny in­clud­ed a wreath-lay­ing at the Pi­ar­co Air­port Atri­um to ho­n­our the vic­tims of the 1976 Cubana de Aviación bomb­ing. Oli­vares ac­knowl­edged the Friends of Cu­ba As­so­ci­a­tion, which in 2016 pushed for a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque to ho­n­our the vic­tims.

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of For­eign and Caribbean Af­fairs, Nicholas Mor­ris, reaf­firmed T&T’s sup­port. “To­day we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the fam­i­lies who are still re­cov­er­ing from that great loss. As we com­mem­o­rate this sor­row­ful day, we ho­n­our the names, the faces, the voic­es and think of the men, women and young peo­ple of Flight 445,” he said.

The ob­ser­vance was at­tend­ed by sev­er­al dig­ni­taries, in­clud­ing Trans­port Min­is­ter Ali Za­kur, mem­bers of the Friends of Cu­ba As­so­ci­a­tion, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Cuban Med­ical Brigade, and am­bas­sadors from Venezuela, Mex­i­co, Chile, and Pana­ma.