letter of february to obama

Mr. Barak Obama, President
February 1st, 2010
The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500

Dear Mister President,

After the attempted terrorist attack, which luckily failed, on flight 253 Amsterdam-Detroit, you took the necessary measures to reinforce security on the airlines, which is normal.

When we read the list of the countries suspected of terrorism, for which passengers will be closely monitored, and we saw Cuba on this list, we burst out laughing. Our laughs rapidly changed into great indignation.

Your country, which is against the Cuban revolution, has been supporting and even organizing terrorism against this little country, for over fifty years. The U.S. has never accepted that Cuba is an independent country, free in its choice of society, this freedom of choice obviously displeases the United States.

Enumerating all the terrorist actions taken against Cuba would require many pages, but the fact is that every one of those actions were committed by organizations financed and often created, by American governments, such as Omega 7, Alpha 66 or the CORU, to mention just a few. These terrorist attacks have led to extremely numerous victims.

Let us nevertheless cite several of these terrorist actions:

–  The terrorist attack against flight 455 of Cubana Airlines on October 6th 1976. It caused the death of 73 passengers and members of the air crew. The authors of this act, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, are living well protected under the Miami sun.

Posada Carriles proclaimed:

“The C.I.A. taught us many things, explosives and their use, how to kill, bombs, and sabotage. When the Cubans were working for the CIA they were called patriots.”(The New York Times, July 13th 1998))

- Biological warfare. The introduction of porcine fever annihilated almost the entire pork population on the island. The introduction of hemorrhagic breakbone fever affected 344,000 persons, mostly children. Two of the most important resources on the island, sugar cane and tobacco, were also victims of this warfare when diseases affecting these plants were introduced.

- Military aggressions. On March 4th 1960, in Havana Bay, the sabotage of the French ship “la Coubre”, caused the death of around a hundred persons. The invasion of Giron Beach and the Bay of Pigs also caused the loss of 176 lives.

- Multiple terrorist attacks. During the nineties, tourist installations in Havana were targeted. In September of 1997, Fabio Di Celmo, a young Italian, was killed.

- Hundreds of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and other Cuban leaders.

- Since 1960, your country has imposed a blockade on Cuba.

It’s a Genocidal measure.
In a memorandum on April 6th 1960, to his Secretary of State Roy R. Rubottom, the Under-Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester D. Mallory, recommended:

“The majority of Cubans support Castro, there is no efficient political opposition (…) All means should be rapidly undertaken to weaken the economic life in Cuba (…) A measure that would have a deep impact would be to refuse any financial relations with, or shipping goods to this country. This would reduce incomes, therefore could provoke famine, despair and destabilize the government.”

This blockade is still in effect in spite of having been condemned by almost every country belonging to the U.N.

We could keep enumerating. On the other hand, not one single terrorist action has ever been taken by Cuba against the United States.

On top of all this, you are keeping five Cubans in prison, Rene Gonzáles, Ramón Labañino, Gerardo Hernández, Fernando Gonzáles and Antonio Guerrero, who were fighting terrorism against their country. It was just at the very moment when they warned against terrorist attacks planned against flights going to Cuba that the Cuban government alerted your country.

Instead of congratulating them, these men were thrown into prison as if they were hoodlums, and they are still there rotting away! This is surely proof, as if it were needed, of collusion between your government and terrorist organizations.

We had hopes, great hopes when you were elected, that your government would finally stop its aggressive policies concerning Cuba. We thought that the situation in Florida, where the mafia, which is above all laws and makes its own laws, would be cleaned up. It is now clear that nothing has changed: for you, as was for your predecessors, “democratizing” is synonymous with “the eradication of socialism”, including by force.

If you had the slightest intention of normalizing relations with Cuba, while respecting its choice of society, which by the way concerns uniquely the Cuban people, you would accord, Mister President, “executive clemency” to these five Cubans who’ve suffered so greatly these last 11 years; it’s a necessary condition.

We ask you once again Mister President: have you the courage to take this measure?

Still hoping, in spite of all, a reversal of your policy, a gesture that would initiate truly new relations desired by the grand majority of countries, please receive, Mister President, the expression of my sincerely humanist sentiments.

Jacqueline Roussie

64360 Monein (France)

Copies sent to: Mrs. Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Mr. Harry Reid and the Ambassador of the U.S. in France.

Translated by William Peterson