Merge branch 'before_merge'

us_atrocities.md

@@ -88,6 +88,7 @@
 ### Western hemisphere
 
 - In 2017, [Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Maria#Puerto_Rico), leaving 3.4 million without electricity and fuel, and causing an estimated $50 Billion in damage. 55% of Puerto Ricans have no potable water,  in one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades. In marked contrast to the initial relief efforts for [Hurricane Katrina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina) and the [2010 Haiti earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake), on September 22 the only signs of relief efforts were beleaguered Puerto Rican government employees. The US response has been dismal, leading many to believe that the US prefers a decapitalized Puerto Rico. On September 29, San Juan Mayor Cruz held a press conference to plead for aid and to highlight failures by FEMA, saying, "This is what we got last night. Four pallets of water, three pallets of meals, and 12 pallets of infant food — which, I gave them to the people of [Comerío](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comer%C3%ADo,_Puerto_Rico), where people are drinking off a creek. So I am done being polite. I am done being politically correct. I am mad as hell." Cruz continued. "So I am asking the members of the press, to send a mayday call all over the world. We are dying here... And if it doesn't stop, and if we don't get the food and the water into people's hands, what we are going to see is something close to a [genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide)." In response [President Donald Trump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Donald_Trump) wrote on [Twitter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter): "Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help." <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Maria#Puerto_Rico)</sup>
+- Following a series of terrorist attacks against Cuba (such as the bombing of [Cuban commercial flight 455](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455), that originated from anti-Castro Cuban exile groups in the US, such as  [Alpha 66](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_66), the [F4 Commandos](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=F4_Commandos&action=edit&redlink=1), the [Cuban American National Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American_National_Foundation), and [Brothers to the Rescue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_to_the_Rescue)), the Cuban government sent spies to infiltrate these insurgent groups operating in Miami. Afterwards, the Cuban government then provided 175 pages of documents to FBI agents investigating [Posada Carriles's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles) (a former CIA operative) role in the [1997 terrorist bombings in Havana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Cuba_hotel_bombings), but the FBI failed to use the evidence to follow up on Posada. Instead, they used it to uncover and imprison the Cuban spies, known as the [Cuban Five](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five). [[18\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five#cite_note-18)[[19\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five#cite_note-19). The Cuban Five said they were spying on Miami's Cuban exile community, not the US government. They were imprisoned from 1998, until their eventual release via a prisoner swap in 2014. The terrorist bomber Posada Carriles (who admitted to planning 6 bombings of Havana Hotels and Restaurants) is currently being safeguarded by the US government, and resides in Miami. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five)</sup>
 - In 2009, [a coup in Honduras](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) has led to severe repression and death squad murders of political opponents, union organizers and journalists. At the time of the coup, U.S. officials denied any role in the coup and used semantics to avoid cutting off U.S. military aid as required under U.S. law. But two Wikileaks cables revealed that the U.S. Embassy, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was the main power broker in managing the aftermath of the coup and forming a government that is now repressing and murdering its people, including popular leader Berta Cáceres. The two men who killed [Berta Cáceres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_C%C3%A1ceres) A former soldier with the US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military asserted that Caceres' name was included on a hitlist distributed to them months before her assassination.[[66\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_C%C3%A1ceres#cite_note-66) According to a February 2017 investigation by *The Guardian*, court papers purport to show that three of the eight people arrested in connection with the assassination are linked to the US-trained elite troops. Two of them, Maj Mariano Díaz and Lt Douglas Giovanny Bustillo, received military training in the US.[[67\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_C%C3%A1ceres#cite_note-67) <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat)</sup>
 - In 1990 in Haiti, Competing against 10 comparatively wealthy white candidates, leftist priest [Jean-Bertrand Aristide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Bertrand_Aristide) captures 68 percent of the vote. A few months later, the CIA-backed military [deposes him in a coup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat). More military dictators brutalize the country, as thousands of Haitian refugees escape the turmoil in barely seaworthy boats. The CIA "paid key members of the coup regime forces, identified as drug traffickers, for information from the mid-1980s at least until the coup."[[66\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-Whitney320-66) Coup leaders Cédras and François had received military training in the United States. As popular opinion calls for Aristide’s return, the CIA begins a disinformation campaign painting the courageous priest as mentally unstable.<sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat)</sup>
 - In 1989, The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, [General Manuel Noriega](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega), with the stated goal of "Defending democracy and human rights in Panama". Noriega had been on the CIA’s payroll since 1966, collecting at least $100,000 per year from the U.S. Treasury. As he rose to be the de facto ruler of Panama, he became even more valuable to the CIA, reporting on meetings with Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and supporting U.S. covert wars in Central America, and had been transporting drugs with the CIA’s knowledge since 1972. By the late 80s, Noriega’s growing independence and intransigence had angered Washington. Between 500-4,000 people died in the US invasion. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega)</sup>