AT this moment, nobody doubts that the Bush administration’s new foreign policy is basically one of military intervention, without respecting international institutions or world public opinion. The excuse of fighting terrorism has been demonstrated as the perfect alibi to substitute the previous one: the threat of Communism during the Cold war. Other less effective reasons lie behind it, not so effective as the anti-drug fight. The silence of the United Nations after the Iraq invasion, the European Union (EU)’s copycat behavior and the ferocious control it maintains on the great majority of Arab countries via puppet dictators thus guaranteeing impunity to the U.S. government.
The United States has not forgotten to send out sound bites on its next military objectives — Syria, Korea, Iran and Cuba. Just as in Iraq, the strategy begins by sowing seeds in international institutions, friendly governments and world public opinion suggesting complicity with international terrorism in those countries that are the object of intervention.
The United States has not forgotten to send out sound bites on its next military objectives — Syria, Korea, Iran and Cuba. Just as in Iraq, the strategy begins by sowing seeds in international institutions, friendly governments and world public opinion suggesting complicity with international terrorism in those countries that are the object of intervention.
Havana.
PLANS FOR MILITARY INTERVENTION ON THE ISLAND
Cuba in the sights of the United States
BY PASCUAL SERRANO, —Taken from Le Monde Diplomatique—
AT this moment, nobody doubts that the Bush administration’s new foreign policy is basically one of military intervention, without respecting international institutions or world public opinion. The excuse of fighting terrorism has been demonstrated as the perfect alibi to substitute the previous one: the threat of Communism during the Cold war. Other less effective reasons lie behind it, not so effective as the anti-drug fight. The silence of the United Nations after the Iraq invasion, the European Union (EU)’s copycat behavior and the ferocious control it maintains on the great majority of Arab countries via puppet dictators thus guaranteeing impunity to the U.S. government.
The United States has not forgotten to send out sound bites on its next military objectives — Syria, Korea, Iran and Cuba. Just as in Iraq, the strategy begins by sowing seeds in international institutions, friendly governments and world public opinion suggesting complicity with international terrorism in those countries that are the object of intervention. They are called dictatorships and accused of human rights violations. This campaign is undoubtedly being speedily developed against Cuba. Let us see how.
On April 30, 2003 the U.S. government once again included Cuba on its list of countries sponsoring international terrorism, in an annual report entitled Patterns of World Terrorism (2) which also mentions Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and North Korea. The report specifies that although Cuba has signed all the 12 international conventions and protocols against terrorism, and Sudan 11 of them, both countries continue supporting international organizations that are designated terrorist. This is a great paradox if we recall that on four occasions, Cuba has officially proposed a bilateral program to fight terrorism to the United States and which the northern neighbor has always rejected.
Nor should we forget Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement on the day that Baghdad was occupied. He affirmed that had happened was a clear message to all the countries involved in terrorism (3).
In May, 2002, Under Secretary of State John Bolton accused Cuba of developing a biological warfare program. Many notable statements have been issued by Bush administration members; for instance the president’s own brother Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, who affirmed that after the success in Iraq, Washington should put an end to the regime in Cuba. Or Hans Hertell, U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, who assured that the war in Iraq would send out a very positive sign and be a very good example to Cuba. He added that the invasion of the Arab country was only the beginning of a crusade for freedom to reach all the countries in the world, including Cuba (4).
The U.S. military intention in Cuba can be seen in publication such as Military Review, a magazine from the Command School and the U.S. Chief of Staff. In the September-October 2002 (5) edition, Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Demarest openly refers to the subject of the U.S. army’s role
during a supposed transition period in Cuba. He affirms in the second paragraph that the U.S. army’s role could focus on stability operations and, in the name of applying the and/or rule, supporting aid agencies. He later includes an epigraph eloquently entitled: "A role for the U.S. Army?"
This is where he begins detailing all the previous excuses serving to justify military intervention: Migration to and from the island; weapons arsenals (including thousands of small arms and ammunition); the enormous Lourdes intelligence collecting center; allegations of drug trafficking on the part of members of Castro’s regime; and the alleged biological weapons research and development program are just some of the aspects to take into consideration that could possible complicate transition. The lieutenant colonel’s text concludes by stating that the U.S. army has a clear message...the U.S. army could be very useful for its potential to interact with Cuban soldiers, as well as for its ability to threaten them.
If we look at the footnotes referring to the paragraph listing the reasons for a U.S. army intervention it can be seen that all these statements are based on journalist articles from agencies and people financed by the U.S. government. (El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald, Brothers to the Rescue, Cubanet/Cubanews, The Washington Times Insight magazine).
As we shall soon see, when the United States talks about freedom of expression and dissident journalists it is referring to press agencies and writers directed and financed by the Bush government with the sole aim of planting arguments that, as this soldier’s text later proves, will be used to justify a military intervention.
FINANCING DISSIDENCE
What mechanisms are used in financing these supposedly independent journalists and agencies?
The U.S. Interests Section systematically hands over material and financial support. This translates as radios and all types of technical means plus a payroll of $100 per month for all those visiting James Cason, head of the U.S. mission (see note 4).
In 2000, USAID donated $670,000 to three Cuban organizations to help publish the island’s independent journalists’ work abroad...and distribute their writing in Cuba (6).
USAID provides an exceptional amount of funding for financing the Cuban dissidence. In order to help create independent NGO’s in Cuba: $1.602 million. Planning the transition in Cuba: $2.132 million. Evaluating the program: $335,000.
Groups in the United States gather together all this money. Let us see who some of them are. In 2002, the Center for a Free Cuba, whose function it is to collect information from human rights groups in order to spread and distribute it, received $2.3 million. Internal Dissidence Working Group: $250,000. Freedom House, responsible for the Cuban transition program’s strategic questions: $1.325 million. Dissidence Support Group: $1,200.
There are others such as the Democracy in Cuba Institute and the International Republican Institute. In 2001, the Cubanet agency received $343,000 plus another $800,000 in 2002. The American Center for International Solidarity Work, whose declared social objective is persuading foreign investors not to invest in Cuba: $168,575. Cuban Democratic Action received $400,000 in 2002 (7).
Between 1997 and 2002, USAID destined $22 million to these ends. On March 2, Curtis Struble, the assistant secretary of state for western hemispheric affairs, indicated that this year USAID would be investing another seven million dollars in "economic aid" to Cuba. On March 26, Colin Powell announced to the Senate a $26.9 million budget for Radio and TV Martí transmissions (8).
Radio Martí transmits 1,200 hours a week from the United States, contravening International Telecommunication Union rules and violating Cuba’s radio air waves space. The programs encourage internal subversion, sabotage attempts, desertion and illegal immigration.
It is obvious that nothing but U.S. government money lies behind the so-called dissidents and independent journalists and agencies, with a clear and concrete proposition.
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
It is also important to discover the profiles of the freedom fighters of the so-called dissident leaders and intellectuals. The most significant of those recently jailed is the poet Raúl Rivera.
This former member of Cuba’s Association of Journalists and Writers had a heady conversion: he was employed by the powerful Miami Herald, Southern Florida’s most conservative daily. He was next catapulted to vice president of the Inter-American Press Society (SIP) Caribbean department, grouping U.S. and Latin America mainstream press barons. This organization is an old stronghold of Cold War conspirators in the service of Washington.
One of the best known figures is Carlos Alberto Montaner, imprisoned in Cuba in 1961 for taking part in a terrorist organization that hid explosives in packets of cigarettes. He fled the country during the October Missile Crisis and enlisted in the U.S. army’s special Cuban forces. The CIA recruited him in the 1970’s and he reappeared in Spain (1970) to found the Firmas Press news agency. Montaner was in charge of facilitating terrorist Juan Felipe de la Cruz’ entry into France; de la Cruz was killed when the bomb he was carrying exploded. Montaner is one of those who openly support the United States’ annexing Cuba. In 1990, he founded the Cuban Democratic Platform and the following year the Cuban Democratic Coordination (CDC), a dissident organization inside the island. CDC members include Cruz Varela, Huberto Matos, José Ignacio Rasco and Juan Suárez Rivas. Carlos Montaner was also a founding member of the Cuban Spanish Foundation (FHC) (9).
Oswaldo Payá is another internationally known dissident, especially after the European Parliament gave him the Sajarov award. They say that he has received massive popular support in Cuba for his Varela Project, signed by 11,000 Cubans — in a country with 11 million inhabitants — and five thousand Europeans from 15 countries. According to documents signed by Carlos Alberto Montaner, foreign governments initiated the Varela Project. James Cason, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, admitted that Miami’s Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) and the Freedom for Cuba Council, responsible for various attacks in Cuba in which civilians died and assassination attempts on the Cuban president (see note 8), are being consulted over the plan for a democratic transition.
One of Payá’s charming exploits was to accuse Fidel Castro of complicity in violating human rights in Guantánamo (10); in an interview with Madrid’s El Pais weekly on March 9, 2003 he stated that that under the Batista dictatorship the Cuban press was incredibly free. This brilliant intellectual, with unknown sources of income, has been on a two-month world tour. Carlos Fazio puts it very clearly: The strategy for building leaders is simple and the example of Oswaldo Payá eloquent: create a letterhead, fabricate an organization or an ad hoc NGO (in his case the Varela project); organize well publicized and planned tours and meet well-known figures (Pope John Paul II, Spanish head of government José María Aznar, Mexican president Vicente Fox, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell) and accept prizes that increase the individual’s visibility (Payá received the Sajarov human rights award and has been proposed as a Nobel prize candidate). This is the way to go about building a certain kind of credibility profile around a person to give them power, a task that is later amplified by propaganda makers and the "great democratic pens" of the U.S. and European mainstream press (see note 8).
Hubert Matos is another relevant person. He spent twenty years in jail for rebelling, along with his men (he was head of a rebel Army regiment in Camagüey), ten months after the triumph of the Cuban revolution. On leaving prison (and Cuba) in 1979, he formed the Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID) group. Former Batista journalist Luis Manuel Martínez said that Matos has been in "CIA hands" ever since he left the island. He was director of the Voice of CID, a short wave radio station broadcasting to Cuba partially financed by the CIA, as radio Miami International owner Jeff White has confirmed (see note 9).
Proof of his spirit of freedom can be seen in the reply he gave to journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina when he asked him about dissidents links with company directors wishing to invest in Cuba: we can’t guarantee the safety of these investors after the regime falls; they won’t be respected because they have been accomplices of the regime; they will be a cause of friction. Of course if they offer us good economic support then we can do business (11).
The Estefan clan (Gloria and Emilio) have big plans. They are Bacardi shareholders and thus financiers of terrorist acts in Nicaragua, Angola and Cuba and accomplices to stealing Cuban patents. Gloria and Emilio Estefan sponsor other para-terrorist organizations such as Brothers to the Rescue whose aircraft have been violating Cuban airspace for years.
The CIA recruited Martha Frayde, former Cuban ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, when she was working at that post. Together with Elizardo Sánchez, Gustavo Arcos and Ricardo Bofill, she organized a miniscule counterrevolutionary group that has informed the U.S. delegation at the UN about alleged human rights violations in Cuba. She represented Gustavo Arcos at the inauguration of the Cuban Spanish Foundation in Madrid (see note 9).
The writer Zoe Valdés is now very much in fashion, although she was an absolute unknown until she was given the Planeta prize. Shortly before the war in Iraq began she wrote an article for El Mundo (Madrid) daily affirming that she wanted the war to start once and for all so that she could have some peace from all those anti-war signatures.
During a conversation in 1985, when she was an unheard of writer and wife of a high ranking official at the Cuban embassy in Paris, Spanish journalist Javier Ortiz called Zoe Valdés’ opinions "truly cloying Castroism." (12)
Let us conclude with two important figures who may not be of Cuban origin but must not be forgotten: Robert Menard from France and Mexican Jorge Castañeda. Menard is the secretary general of NGO Reporters Without Frontiers, an organization that, two days after two journalists were killed by a tank fire in Baghdad, dedicated practically the entire home page of its on-line web page to the lack of free expression in Cuba (13). When asked by journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina about the priority his organization gave to Cuba, he replied: It’s dangerous being a journalist in Colombia or Peru but there is press freedom. Journalists are murdered and imprisoned in those countries but their relatives and colleagues are content with making denunciations (see note 11).
On May 20, the UN Committee responsible for NGO’s sanctioned Reporters Without Frontiers, recommending that its consultative status be suspended for one year due to behavior incompatible with the principals and objectives of the UN Charter. (14)
Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda has had the merit of ending the historically good relation between Mexico and Cuba.
At the end of last year, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Casteñeda’s ministerial term was over even before President Fox did. (15).
EMIGRATION AND DESTABILIZATION
One of the mechanisms used by the United States to provoke the Cuban government and destabilize the island’s society is emigration. U.S. policy is based on providing incentives and encouraging violent and spectacular emigration attempts projecting an image of desperation to the rest of the world. The objective is not to normalize migration policy or offer possibilities in the United States to Cuban dissidents; it is aimed only at destabilizing. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, strongly criticized by the Cuban government, is one of the laws serving this purpose and once again demonstrates that the U.S. government is two-faced.
Different to any other Latin American immigrant, a Cuban who arrives at the U.S. coasts is guaranteed a visa — thanks to the Adjustment Act. A Haitian rafter would immediately be sent back to his or her country; but not Cubans.
After the 1994 rafters crisis when waves of Cubans left Havana for the United States, completely unrestricted by the Cuban government, both countries signed an agreement regulating emigration and establishing that the United States would concede 20,000 visas a year to Cubans requesting them. However, in 2002, the United States only authorized 200 out of the 20,000. And in the first five months of the present year, it only issued 505, a number that has declined in relation to previous years. This rate does not fulfill migratory agreements, thus creating an atmosphere of tension among those wanting to emigrate, encouraging illegal emigration. Some Cubans not granted legal entry visas by the U.S. authorities are then given them in virtue of the Cuban Adjustment Act when they leave on a raft or hijack whatever means of transport. This is the opposite of European policy aimed at dissuading illegal African and Latin American migration. Europe rewards those who use the legal embassy channels and punishes those who arrive by illegal channels with repatriation and prohibiting them from entering the country for various years.
By not fulfilling migratory agreements the U.S. objective is to increase internal pressure and encourage boat and aircraft hijacking. It is safe to say that if the Cuban government once again applied its 1994 policy of allowing uncontrolled emigration then the United States would have a new excuse to intervene, alleging a threat to its national security that the mass arrival of illegal Cubans could bring.
Cuba is now experiencing the greatest ever stimulus for illegal emigration. In the seven months before the trials, seven Cuban aircraft and boats were hijacked.
International law regards such hijackings, some involving weapons and hostages, as acts of terrorism punishable under international conventions. Nevertheless, in four of the cases the United Sates has not brought the hijackers to trial and they remain at liberty in that country.
Fidel Castro has indicates that this plan was put into action the same day that war began — approximately two hours before war was initiated in Iraq, at about 7:00 p.m. — when a passenger aircraft on the Nueva Gerona (Isle of Youth)/Havana route was hijacked. This was carried out by six common criminals; they brandished knives in a similar way to the hijackers of U.S. passenger planes that were then flown into the Twin Towers. The Cuban passenger aircraft carrying 36 passengers was deflected from its route and forced to land in Key West. A few days later the Miami DA Office set the hijackers free on bail. It had been nine years since a similar occurrence, the number of years after the U.S.-Cuba migratory agreements were signed, and it suddenly took place two hours before the war (16). This impunity led the way for more kidnappings involving dozens of hostages.
U.S. complicity in hijack terrorism is such that on June 1, a U.S. judge confiscated from the Cuban governmetn and auctioned the hijacked DC-3 that put down in Key West and the Russian AN-24 hijacked in April by a man carrying grenades (17).
Terrorists armed with grenades who hijack civil aircraft and take hostages are not just left unpunished, but Cuban government property is confiscated—and put up for auction. This entire strategy follows a plan developed beforehand consisting in using the wave of hijackings to provoke a migratory crisis that could be used as a pretext for a naval blockade, that would then inevitably lead to war. Thus Kevin Whitaker, head of the State Department’s Cuba Bureau, cynically warned Havana that hijackers of Cuban aircraft and boats are a threat to U.S. security. The behavior of the U.S. and Cuban governments is diametrically opposed when it comes to hijacking airplanes. The United States has confiscated many of the 51 Cuban planes hijacked between 1959-2001 and not one single hijacker has been punished. Cuba has sentenced 69 of those responsible for 71 cases of planes hijacked in the United States and flown to the island; the other two hijackers were handed over to the U.S. legal authorities. (18)
38lemon2
A HISTORY OF TERRORISM
The possibility of a U.S. intervention in Cuba is an evident one, as demonstrated by the long history of hostile and terrorist actions, attempts on the life of the president and constant violation of international law on the part of the United States in order to do away with the Cuban socialist system.
Dating back to the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, armed attacks can be counted in the hundreds. One of the most savage was the sabotage of a Cubana passenger plane in full flight in 1976 off the Barbados coast, which killed all 73 persons on board, and the wave of terrorist attacks on tourist facilities in the 1990s, organized and funded by the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), which led to the death of an Italian tourist.
According to the Cuban government, the U.S. policy of terrorism has caused the death of 3,478 Cuban citizens and left a further 2,099 incapacitated or seriously affected. The U.S. government has tolerated assassination attempts on President Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders on hundreds of occasions, and has even been physically involved itself. It is responsible for the sabotage of the French vessel La Coubre, the arson attack that destroyed El Encanto department store, for organizing and giving armed forces’ backup at the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, for numerous air and sea pirate attacks on defenseless citizens and civilian installations. The United States has supported the burning of cane fields, the machine-gunning of Cuban territory, attacks on Cuban fishermen and the murder of National Revolutionary Police and Border Guard agents.
The U.S. government bears responsibility for acts of terrorism involving bombs and explosives against the Cuban diplomatic mission in Portugal, to the United Nations and in other countries, causing deaths and serious injury to diplomatic personnel. It is responsible for the disappearance of Cuban diplomats in Argentina and the assassination of another diplomat in New York.
Those actions are continuing today. On April 26, 2002 a plan to attack the legendary Tropicana nightclub with explosives that could have killed up to 1,000 people was thwarted, according to the Cuban agent infiltrated into the commando group, Percy Francisco Alavarado. (19)
On April 6 this year the Sun Sentinel of Florida recounted how the paramilitary Commando F-4 was training with heavy weapons to execute armed actions against Cuba and for a possible armed invasion of the country.
The U.S. attitude to terrorism is totally contrary to that of Cuba’s. On December 20, 2001, Cuba passed a law against acts of terrorism stipulating heavy sentences for those using Cuban territory to organize acts of terrorism against any country, including the United States. On the other hand, the latter’s territory continues to be a training ground for paramilitary groups operating against Cuba.
Further evidence of U.S. cynicism is the detention of the five Cubans who are serving lengthy prison sentences, including double life, for trying to stop ultra-right wing terrorist groups exiled in Miami from perpetrating acts of violence against Cuba. Have discovered their intentions, the five Cubans informed the U.S. authorities and in response, were jailed on espionage charges.
THE MEDIA
While all this has been going on, the media is continuing its anti-Cuba harassment campaign. While widely reporting manifestos condemning the island, it silences those showing support, such as one signed by more than 3,000 intellectuals, artists and professionals from 69 countries, including four Nobel prize winners, entitled "To the conscience of the world." (20)
While criticisms by José Saramago are aired, the backing of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Noam Chomsky, Ernesto Cardenal, Mario Benedetti, Augusto Roa Bastos, Gabriel García Márquez or Rigoberta Menchú are omitted. The press presents persons who planted bombs in Havana hotels in 1997 as dissidents, along with the hijackers of aircraft and maritime vessels.
Cuban sentences passed on hijackers are condemned and massacres committed by other governments in attempts to resolve similar hostage situations are ignored, like that in the Moscow theater where 100 hostages and Chechen terrorists died, or the cold-blooded killing on Fujimori’s orders of those who seized the Japanese embassy in Lima.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
For its part, the European Union (EU), led in its anti-Cuba policy by José María Aznar, has more than ever before revealed its hypocrisy and double standards. The nations that said nothing when international law was violated in the case of the invasion of Iraq; who have never condemned the death penalty against minors, the mentally ill and foreigners refused their right to consular attention, to the point of a total of 71 executions in the United States last year, are now clamoring against Cuba.
The EU has called on the Cuban authorities to avoid the useless suffering of prisoners and to not subject them to inhumane treatment, while looking the other way in terms of the 600-plus prisoners, some of European origin, in the Guantánamo concentration camp who have been tortured, and have no right to legal aid or family visits. A EU that is silent over the thousands of prisoners in U.S. jails in the wake of the September 11 attack for the crime of beings Muslims, without legal guarantees, trials and without their names even being known.
Measures using diplomatic punishment, suspending trade and cooperation agreements, canceling bilateral government visits, reducing European states’ participation in cultural events, inviting Cuban dissidents to embassies in Havana, suspending cooperation and solidarity programs with Cuba. These are the European Union’s replies to a country that only requests respect for the UN Charter acknowledging Cuba’s right to choose its own political system, acknowledging respect for the principal of equality between states and the right to peoples’ free determination.
The divorce between public opinion and governments following the United States has never been as evident as in the case of Cuba. Whilst the majority of presidents apply policies against the island that are in line with Bush dictates, demonstrations of support and solidarity are happening spontaneously in whatever country Cuban leaders visit. All these governments, and especially the U.S. one, must know that their peoples do not share their acts of aggression and harassment against Cuba. Peoples who should denounce and confront the basis justifying military intervention that, in the name of democracy and human rights, can only bring death and pillage in its wake.
Notes:
Maurice Lemoine, America Latina, Cuba y la democracia Le Monde Diplomatique, Southern Cone edition, June 2003.
See U.S. State Department website
http://usinfo.state.gov/espanol/terror/03043001.htm
Jorge Isunza. No nos dejemos manipular.
www.rebelion.org/international/030417insunza.htm
Miguel Bonasso. Topos y condenas.
www.rebelion.org/internacional/03041bonasso.htm
http:/www-cgsc.army.mil/milrev/spanish/Dep=Ct02/demerest.asp
USAID report, Evaluation of the USAID Cuba Program, 2001
Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque press conference, April 9, 2003
Carlos Fazia, Cuba: Los beneficios de una eventual era postrevolución. La Jornada, Mexico.
See www.rebelion.org/internacional/030412roque.pdf
José Daniel Fierro. Quieren Guerra.
http://www.rebelion.org/spain/03061Ofierro.htm
Pascual Serrano. Fidel Castro, violador de derechos humanos en Guantánamo.
http:/www.rebellion.orgddhh/serrano231202.htm
Hernando Calvo Ospina, Katlijn Declerq. ¿Disidentes o mercernarios? Vosa publishers, Madrid, 1998.
See http://www.javierortiz.net/jortiz1/diario2002/18.2003.html
13.Adolfo Mena. Cuba y Iraq
http://www.rebelion.org/internacional030411mena htm
14.Pascual Serrano. The UN begins expulsion process against Reporters Without Frontiers as a consultative body for acts incompatible with the UN Charter’s principles and objectives.
See http://www.rebelion.org/medios/030529rsf.htm
15. Pascual Serrano. Before the Mexican president accepted the resignation of Minister Castañeda, Bush had already bid him farewell.
http://www.trebelionorg/internacional/fox150103.htm.
16. Fidel Castro interviewed by Miguel Bonasso, Página 12. Argentina.
See http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030514fidel.htm
17. Frank Martin. World Data Service.
See http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030604marin.htm
18. Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Statement, May 2, 2003.
See http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030509cuba.htm
19.Percy Francisco Alvarado. Objectivo: Cabaret Tropicana.
www.rebelion.org/internacional/030523godoy.htm
20. See http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030503pl.htm
PLANS FOR MILITARY INTERVENTION ON THE ISLAND
Cuba in the sights of the United States
BY PASCUAL SERRANO, —Taken from Le Monde Diplomatique—
AT this moment, nobody doubts that the Bush administration’s new foreign policy is basically one of military intervention, without respecting international institutions or world public opinion. The excuse of fighting terrorism has been demonstrated as the perfect alibi to substitute the previous one: the threat of Communism during the Cold war. Other less effective reasons lie behind it, not so effective as the anti-drug fight. The silence of the United Nations after the Iraq invasion, the European Union (EU)’s copycat behavior and the ferocious control it maintains on the great majority of Arab countries via puppet dictators thus guaranteeing impunity to the U.S. government.
The United States has not forgotten to send out sound bites on its next military objectives — Syria, Korea, Iran and Cuba. Just as in Iraq, the strategy begins by sowing seeds in international institutions, friendly governments and world public opinion suggesting complicity with international terrorism in those countries that are the object of intervention. They are called dictatorships and accused of human rights violations. This campaign is undoubtedly being speedily developed against Cuba. Let us see how.
On April 30, 2003 the U.S. government once again included Cuba on its list of countries sponsoring international terrorism, in an annual report entitled Patterns of World Terrorism (2) which also mentions Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and North Korea. The report specifies that although Cuba has signed all the 12 international conventions and protocols against terrorism, and Sudan 11 of them, both countries continue supporting international organizations that are designated terrorist. This is a great paradox if we recall that on four occasions, Cuba has officially proposed a bilateral program to fight terrorism to the United States and which the northern neighbor has always rejected.
Nor should we forget Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement on the day that Baghdad was occupied. He affirmed that had happened was a clear message to all the countries involved in terrorism (3).
In May, 2002, Under Secretary of State John Bolton accused Cuba of developing a biological warfare program. Many notable statements have been issued by Bush administration members; for instance the president’s own brother Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, who affirmed that after the success in Iraq, Washington should put an end to the regime in Cuba. Or Hans Hertell, U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, who assured that the war in Iraq would send out a very positive sign and be a very good example to Cuba. He added that the invasion of the Arab country was only the beginning of a crusade for freedom to reach all the countries in the world, including Cuba (4).
The U.S. military intention in Cuba can be seen in publication such as Military Review, a magazine from the Command School and the U.S. Chief of Staff. In the September-October 2002 (5) edition, Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Demarest openly refers to the subject of the U.S. army’s role
during a supposed transition period in Cuba. He affirms in the second paragraph that the U.S. army’s role could focus on stability operations and, in the name of applying the and/or rule, supporting aid agencies. He later includes an epigraph eloquently entitled: "A role for the U.S. Army?"
This is where he begins detailing all the previous excuses serving to justify military intervention: Migration to and from the island; weapons arsenals (including thousands of small arms and ammunition); the enormous Lourdes intelligence collecting center; allegations of drug trafficking on the part of members of Castro’s regime; and the alleged biological weapons research and development program are just some of the aspects to take into consideration that could possible complicate transition. The lieutenant colonel’s text concludes by stating that the U.S. army has a clear message...the U.S. army could be very useful for its potential to interact with Cuban soldiers, as well as for its ability to threaten them.
If we look at the footnotes referring to the paragraph listing the reasons for a U.S. army intervention it can be seen that all these statements are based on journalist articles from agencies and people financed by the U.S. government. (El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald, Brothers to the Rescue, Cubanet/Cubanews, The Washington Times Insight magazine).
As we shall soon see, when the United States talks about freedom of expression and dissident journalists it is referring to press agencies and writers directed and financed by the Bush government with the sole aim of planting arguments that, as this soldier’s text later proves, will be used to justify a military intervention.
FINANCING DISSIDENCE
What mechanisms are used in financing these supposedly independent journalists and agencies?
The U.S. Interests Section systematically hands over material and financial support. This translates as radios and all types of technical means plus a payroll of $100 per month for all those visiting James Cason, head of the U.S. mission (see note 4).
In 2000, USAID donated $670,000 to three Cuban organizations to help publish the island’s independent journalists’ work abroad...and distribute their writing in Cuba (6).
USAID provides an exceptional amount of funding for financing the Cuban dissidence. In order to help create independent NGO’s in Cuba: $1.602 million. Planning the transition in Cuba: $2.132 million. Evaluating the program: $335,000.
Groups in the United States gather together all this money. Let us see who some of them are. In 2002, the Center for a Free Cuba, whose function it is to collect information from human rights groups in order to spread and distribute it, received $2.3 million. Internal Dissidence Working Group: $250,000. Freedom House, responsible for the Cuban transition program’s strategic questions: $1.325 million. Dissidence Support Group: $1,200.
There are others such as the Democracy in Cuba Institute and the International Republican Institute. In 2001, the Cubanet agency received $343,000 plus another $800,000 in 2002. The American Center for International Solidarity Work, whose declared social objective is persuading foreign investors not to invest in Cuba: $168,575. Cuban Democratic Action received $400,000 in 2002 (7).
Between 1997 and 2002, USAID destined $22 million to these ends. On March 2, Curtis Struble, the assistant secretary of state for western hemispheric affairs, indicated that this year USAID would be investing another seven million dollars in "economic aid" to Cuba. On March 26, Colin Powell announced to the Senate a $26.9 million budget for Radio and TV Martí transmissions (8).
Radio Martí transmits 1,200 hours a week from the United States, contravening International Telecommunication Union rules and violating Cuba’s radio air waves space. The programs encourage internal subversion, sabotage attempts, desertion and illegal immigration.
It is obvious that nothing but U.S. government money lies behind the so-called dissidents and independent journalists and agencies, with a clear and concrete proposition.
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
It is also important to discover the profiles of the freedom fighters of the so-called dissident leaders and intellectuals. The most significant of those recently jailed is the poet Raúl Rivera.
This former member of Cuba’s Association of Journalists and Writers had a heady conversion: he was employed by the powerful Miami Herald, Southern Florida’s most conservative daily. He was next catapulted to vice president of the Inter-American Press Society (SIP) Caribbean department, grouping U.S. and Latin America mainstream press barons. This organization is an old stronghold of Cold War conspirators in the service of Washington.
One of the best known figures is Carlos Alberto Montaner, imprisoned in Cuba in 1961 for taking part in a terrorist organization that hid explosives in packets of cigarettes. He fled the country during the October Missile Crisis and enlisted in the U.S. army’s special Cuban forces. The CIA recruited him in the 1970’s and he reappeared in Spain (1970) to found the Firmas Press news agency. Montaner was in charge of facilitating terrorist Juan Felipe de la Cruz’ entry into France; de la Cruz was killed when the bomb he was carrying exploded. Montaner is one of those who openly support the United States’ annexing Cuba. In 1990, he founded the Cuban Democratic Platform and the following year the Cuban Democratic Coordination (CDC), a dissident organization inside the island. CDC members include Cruz Varela, Huberto Matos, José Ignacio Rasco and Juan Suárez Rivas. Carlos Montaner was also a founding member of the Cuban Spanish Foundation (FHC) (9).
Oswaldo Payá is another internationally known dissident, especially after the European Parliament gave him the Sajarov award. They say that he has received massive popular support in Cuba for his Varela Project, signed by 11,000 Cubans — in a country with 11 million inhabitants — and five thousand Europeans from 15 countries. According to documents signed by Carlos Alberto Montaner, foreign governments initiated the Varela Project. James Cason, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, admitted that Miami’s Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) and the Freedom for Cuba Council, responsible for various attacks in Cuba in which civilians died and assassination attempts on the Cuban president (see note 8), are being consulted over the plan for a democratic transition.
One of Payá’s charming exploits was to accuse Fidel Castro of complicity in violating human rights in Guantánamo (10); in an interview with Madrid’s El Pais weekly on March 9, 2003 he stated that that under the Batista dictatorship the Cuban press was incredibly free. This brilliant intellectual, with unknown sources of income, has been on a two-month world tour. Carlos Fazio puts it very clearly: The strategy for building leaders is simple and the example of Oswaldo Payá eloquent: create a letterhead, fabricate an organization or an ad hoc NGO (in his case the Varela project); organize well publicized and planned tours and meet well-known figures (Pope John Paul II, Spanish head of government José María Aznar, Mexican president Vicente Fox, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell) and accept prizes that increase the individual’s visibility (Payá received the Sajarov human rights award and has been proposed as a Nobel prize candidate). This is the way to go about building a certain kind of credibility profile around a person to give them power, a task that is later amplified by propaganda makers and the "great democratic pens" of the U.S. and European mainstream press (see note 8).
Hubert Matos is another relevant person. He spent twenty years in jail for rebelling, along with his men (he was head of a rebel Army regiment in Camagüey), ten months after the triumph of the Cuban revolution. On leaving prison (and Cuba) in 1979, he formed the Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID) group. Former Batista journalist Luis Manuel Martínez said that Matos has been in "CIA hands" ever since he left the island. He was director of the Voice of CID, a short wave radio station broadcasting to Cuba partially financed by the CIA, as radio Miami International owner Jeff White has confirmed (see note 9).
Proof of his spirit of freedom can be seen in the reply he gave to journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina when he asked him about dissidents links with company directors wishing to invest in Cuba: we can’t guarantee the safety of these investors after the regime falls; they won’t be respected because they have been accomplices of the regime; they will be a cause of friction. Of course if they offer us good economic support then we can do business (11).
The Estefan clan (Gloria and Emilio) have big plans. They are Bacardi shareholders and thus financiers of terrorist acts in Nicaragua, Angola and Cuba and accomplices to stealing Cuban patents. Gloria and Emilio Estefan sponsor other para-terrorist organizations such as Brothers to the Rescue whose aircraft have been violating Cuban airspace for years.
The CIA recruited Martha Frayde, former Cuban ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, when she was working at that post. Together with Elizardo Sánchez, Gustavo Arcos and Ricardo Bofill, she organized a miniscule counterrevolutionary group that has informed the U.S. delegation at the UN about alleged human rights violations in Cuba. She represented Gustavo Arcos at the inauguration of the Cuban Spanish Foundation in Madrid (see note 9).
The writer Zoe Valdés is now very much in fashion, although she was an absolute unknown until she was given the Planeta prize. Shortly before the war in Iraq began she wrote an article for El Mundo (Madrid) daily affirming that she wanted the war to start once and for all so that she could have some peace from all those anti-war signatures.
During a conversation in 1985, when she was an unheard of writer and wife of a high ranking official at the Cuban embassy in Paris, Spanish journalist Javier Ortiz called Zoe Valdés’ opinions "truly cloying Castroism." (12)
Let us conclude with two important figures who may not be of Cuban origin but must not be forgotten: Robert Menard from France and Mexican Jorge Castañeda. Menard is the secretary general of NGO Reporters Without Frontiers, an organization that, two days after two journalists were killed by a tank fire in Baghdad, dedicated practically the entire home page of its on-line web page to the lack of free expression in Cuba (13). When asked by journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina about the priority his organization gave to Cuba, he replied: It’s dangerous being a journalist in Colombia or Peru but there is press freedom. Journalists are murdered and imprisoned in those countries but their relatives and colleagues are content with making denunciations (see note 11).
On May 20, the UN Committee responsible for NGO’s sanctioned Reporters Without Frontiers, recommending that its consultative status be suspended for one year due to behavior incompatible with the principals and objectives of the UN Charter. (14)
Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda has had the merit of ending the historically good relation between Mexico and Cuba.
At the end of last year, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Casteñeda’s ministerial term was over even before President Fox did. (15).
EMIGRATION AND DESTABILIZATION
One of the mechanisms used by the United States to provoke the Cuban government and destabilize the island’s society is emigration. U.S. policy is based on providing incentives and encouraging violent and spectacular emigration attempts projecting an image of desperation to the rest of the world. The objective is not to normalize migration policy or offer possibilities in the United States to Cuban dissidents; it is aimed only at destabilizing. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, strongly criticized by the Cuban government, is one of the laws serving this purpose and once again demonstrates that the U.S. government is two-faced.
Different to any other Latin American immigrant, a Cuban who arrives at the U.S. coasts is guaranteed a visa — thanks to the Adjustment Act. A Haitian rafter would immediately be sent back to his or her country; but not Cubans.
After the 1994 rafters crisis when waves of Cubans left Havana for the United States, completely unrestricted by the Cuban government, both countries signed an agreement regulating emigration and establishing that the United States would concede 20,000 visas a year to Cubans requesting them. However, in 2002, the United States only authorized 200 out of the 20,000. And in the first five months of the present year, it only issued 505, a number that has declined in relation to previous years. This rate does not fulfill migratory agreements, thus creating an atmosphere of tension among those wanting to emigrate, encouraging illegal emigration. Some Cubans not granted legal entry visas by the U.S. authorities are then given them in virtue of the Cuban Adjustment Act when they leave on a raft or hijack whatever means of transport. This is the opposite of European policy aimed at dissuading illegal African and Latin American migration. Europe rewards those who use the legal embassy channels and punishes those who arrive by illegal channels with repatriation and prohibiting them from entering the country for various years.
By not fulfilling migratory agreements the U.S. objective is to increase internal pressure and encourage boat and aircraft hijacking. It is safe to say that if the Cuban government once again applied its 1994 policy of allowing uncontrolled emigration then the United States would have a new excuse to intervene, alleging a threat to its national security that the mass arrival of illegal Cubans could bring.
Cuba is now experiencing the greatest ever stimulus for illegal emigration. In the seven months before the trials, seven Cuban aircraft and boats were hijacked.
International law regards such hijackings, some involving weapons and hostages, as acts of terrorism punishable under international conventions. Nevertheless, in four of the cases the United Sates has not brought the hijackers to trial and they remain at liberty in that country.
Fidel Castro has indicates that this plan was put into action the same day that war began — approximately two hours before war was initiated in Iraq, at about 7:00 p.m. — when a passenger aircraft on the Nueva Gerona (Isle of Youth)/Havana route was hijacked. This was carried out by six common criminals; they brandished knives in a similar way to the hijackers of U.S. passenger planes that were then flown into the Twin Towers. The Cuban passenger aircraft carrying 36 passengers was deflected from its route and forced to land in Key West. A few days later the Miami DA Office set the hijackers free on bail. It had been nine years since a similar occurrence, the number of years after the U.S.-Cuba migratory agreements were signed, and it suddenly took place two hours before the war (16). This impunity led the way for more kidnappings involving dozens of hostages.
U.S. complicity in hijack terrorism is such that on June 1, a U.S. judge confiscated from the Cuban governmetn and auctioned the hijacked DC-3 that put down in Key West and the Russian AN-24 hijacked in April by a man carrying grenades (17).
Terrorists armed with grenades who hijack civil aircraft and take hostages are not just left unpunished, but Cuban government property is confiscated—and put up for auction. This entire strategy follows a plan developed beforehand consisting in using the wave of hijackings to provoke a migratory crisis that could be used as a pretext for a naval blockade, that would then inevitably lead to war. Thus Kevin Whitaker, head of the State Department’s Cuba Bureau, cynically warned Havana that hijackers of Cuban aircraft and boats are a threat to U.S. security. The behavior of the U.S. and Cuban governments is diametrically opposed when it comes to hijacking airplanes. The United States has confiscated many of the 51 Cuban planes hijacked between 1959-2001 and not one single hijacker has been punished. Cuba has sentenced 69 of those responsible for 71 cases of planes hijacked in the United States and flown to the island; the other two hijackers were handed over to the U.S. legal authorities. (18)
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A HISTORY OF TERRORISM
The possibility of a U.S. intervention in Cuba is an evident one, as demonstrated by the long history of hostile and terrorist actions, attempts on the life of the president and constant violation of international law on the part of the United States in order to do away with the Cuban socialist system.
Dating back to the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, armed attacks can be counted in the hundreds. One of the most savage was the sabotage of a Cubana passenger plane in full flight in 1976 off the Barbados coast, which killed all 73 persons on board, and the wave of terrorist attacks on tourist facilities in the 1990s, organized and funded by the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), which led to the death of an Italian tourist.
According to the Cuban government, the U.S. policy of terrorism has caused the death of 3,478 Cuban citizens and left a further 2,099 incapacitated or seriously affected. The U.S. government has tolerated assassination attempts on President Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders on hundreds of occasions, and has even been physically involved itself. It is responsible for the sabotage of the French vessel La Coubre, the arson attack that destroyed El Encanto department store, for organizing and giving armed forces’ backup at the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, for numerous air and sea pirate attacks on defenseless citizens and civilian installations. The United States has supported the burning of cane fields, the machine-gunning of Cuban territory, attacks on Cuban fishermen and the murder of National Revolutionary Police and Border Guard agents.
The U.S. government bears responsibility for acts of terrorism involving bombs and explosives against the Cuban diplomatic mission in Portugal, to the United Nations and in other countries, causing deaths and serious injury to diplomatic personnel. It is responsible for the disappearance of Cuban diplomats in Argentina and the assassination of another diplomat in New York.
Those actions are continuing today. On April 26, 2002 a plan to attack the legendary Tropicana nightclub with explosives that could have killed up to 1,000 people was thwarted, according to the Cuban agent infiltrated into the commando group, Percy Francisco Alavarado. (19)
On April 6 this year the Sun Sentinel of Florida recounted how the paramilitary Commando F-4 was training with heavy weapons to execute armed actions against Cuba and for a possible armed invasion of the country.
The U.S. attitude to terrorism is totally contrary to that of Cuba’s. On December 20, 2001, Cuba passed a law against acts of terrorism stipulating heavy sentences for those using Cuban territory to organize acts of terrorism against any country, including the United States. On the other hand, the latter’s territory continues to be a training ground for paramilitary groups operating against Cuba.
Further evidence of U.S. cynicism is the detention of the five Cubans who are serving lengthy prison sentences, including double life, for trying to stop ultra-right wing terrorist groups exiled in Miami from perpetrating acts of violence against Cuba. Have discovered their intentions, the five Cubans informed the U.S. authorities and in response, were jailed on espionage charges.
THE MEDIA
While all this has been going on, the media is continuing its anti-Cuba harassment campaign. While widely reporting manifestos condemning the island, it silences those showing support, such as one signed by more than 3,000 intellectuals, artists and professionals from 69 countries, including four Nobel prize winners, entitled "To the conscience of the world." (20)
While criticisms by José Saramago are aired, the backing of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Noam Chomsky, Ernesto Cardenal, Mario Benedetti, Augusto Roa Bastos, Gabriel García Márquez or Rigoberta Menchú are omitted. The press presents persons who planted bombs in Havana hotels in 1997 as dissidents, along with the hijackers of aircraft and maritime vessels.
Cuban sentences passed on hijackers are condemned and massacres committed by other governments in attempts to resolve similar hostage situations are ignored, like that in the Moscow theater where 100 hostages and Chechen terrorists died, or the cold-blooded killing on Fujimori’s orders of those who seized the Japanese embassy in Lima.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
For its part, the European Union (EU), led in its anti-Cuba policy by José María Aznar, has more than ever before revealed its hypocrisy and double standards. The nations that said nothing when international law was violated in the case of the invasion of Iraq; who have never condemned the death penalty against minors, the mentally ill and foreigners refused their right to consular attention, to the point of a total of 71 executions in the United States last year, are now clamoring against Cuba.
The EU has called on the Cuban authorities to avoid the useless suffering of prisoners and to not subject them to inhumane treatment, while looking the other way in terms of the 600-plus prisoners, some of European origin, in the Guantánamo concentration camp who have been tortured, and have no right to legal aid or family visits. A EU that is silent over the thousands of prisoners in U.S. jails in the wake of the September 11 attack for the crime of beings Muslims, without legal guarantees, trials and without their names even being known.
Measures using diplomatic punishment, suspending trade and cooperation agreements, canceling bilateral government visits, reducing European states’ participation in cultural events, inviting Cuban dissidents to embassies in Havana, suspending cooperation and solidarity programs with Cuba. These are the European Union’s replies to a country that only requests respect for the UN Charter acknowledging Cuba’s right to choose its own political system, acknowledging respect for the principal of equality between states and the right to peoples’ free determination.
The divorce between public opinion and governments following the United States has never been as evident as in the case of Cuba. Whilst the majority of presidents apply policies against the island that are in line with Bush dictates, demonstrations of support and solidarity are happening spontaneously in whatever country Cuban leaders visit. All these governments, and especially the U.S. one, must know that their peoples do not share their acts of aggression and harassment against Cuba. Peoples who should denounce and confront the basis justifying military intervention that, in the name of democracy and human rights, can only bring death and pillage in its wake.
Notes:
Maurice Lemoine, America Latina, Cuba y la democracia Le Monde Diplomatique, Southern Cone edition, June 2003.
See U.S. State Department website
http://usinfo.state.gov/espanol/terror/03043001.htm Jorge Isunza. No nos dejemos manipular.
www.rebelion.org/international/030417insunza.htm
Miguel Bonasso. Topos y condenas.
www.rebelion.org/internacional/03041bonasso.htm
http:/www-cgsc.army.mil/milrev/spanish/Dep=Ct02/demerest.asp
USAID report, Evaluation of the USAID Cuba Program, 2001
Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque press conference, April 9, 2003
Carlos Fazia, Cuba: Los beneficios de una eventual era postrevolución. La Jornada, Mexico.
See www.rebelion.org/internacional/030412roque.pdf
José Daniel Fierro. Quieren Guerra.
http://www.rebelion.org/spain/03061Ofierro.htm Pascual Serrano. Fidel Castro, violador de derechos humanos en Guantánamo.
http:/www.rebellion.orgddhh/serrano231202.htm
Hernando Calvo Ospina, Katlijn Declerq. ¿Disidentes o mercernarios? Vosa publishers, Madrid, 1998.
See
http://www.javierortiz.net/jortiz1/diario2002/18.2003.html 13.Adolfo Mena. Cuba y Iraq
http://www.rebelion.org/internacional030411mena htm 14.Pascual Serrano. The UN begins expulsion process against Reporters Without Frontiers as a consultative body for acts incompatible with the UN Charter’s principles and objectives.
See
http://www.rebelion.org/medios/030529rsf.htm 15. Pascual Serrano. Before the Mexican president accepted the resignation of Minister Castañeda, Bush had already bid him farewell.
http://www.trebelionorg/internacional/fox150103.htm. 16. Fidel Castro interviewed by Miguel Bonasso, Página 12. Argentina.
See
http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030514fidel.htm 17. Frank Martin. World Data Service.
See
http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030604marin.htm 18. Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Statement, May 2, 2003.
See
http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030509cuba.htm 19.Percy Francisco Alvarado. Objectivo: Cabaret Tropicana.
www.rebelion.org/internacional/030523godoy.htm
20. See
http://www.rebelion.org/internacional/030503pl.htm
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