Cuba’s Free Pass on Terror

Sometime during this weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Panama, President Obama is expected to grant one of Cuban President Raul Castro’s top demands and remove his country from the Unites States’ list of governments that sponsor terrorism.

That, as Sen. Robert Menendez warns, not only flies in the face of all evidence, but removes critical leverage in Washington’s efforts to bring scores of fugitive American terrorists to justice.

The latest State Department report on state sponsors of terrorism— a list that has included Cuba since 1982 — notes that Cuba’s longstanding ties to the Basque terrorist group ETA “have become more distant,” though it still provides “safe haven” to its members.

Havana also harbors terrorists who struck in the United States, such as cop killers Joanne Chesimard and Charles Hill ( who also hijacked a plane), FALN bomber Guillermo Morales and scores of others who’ve avoided accountability for their crimes. ( Many of those crimes, incidentally, were committed in the tristate area.)

Under US law, that in itself is enough to keep Cuba on the list. But Castro says he won’t accept the normalized relations Obama so desperately wants until Havana is removed.

Two years ago, Cuba got caught trying to smuggle 240 metric tons of weapons, plus missilelaunching radar systems and two MiG21 aircraft, to North Korea via the Panama Canal aboard the ship Chong Chun Gang.

Confronted with what was the largest single violation of UN sanctions against North Korea, the Castro government claimed the armaments were being sent to Pyongyang for “repair and return.”

The fact is, Cuba has done nothing to earn the legitimacy President Obama is so eager to bestow. It should come with a price tag— not as a gift.