Cuban “Numbers Station” Spy Broadcast From Last Week

Cubaconfidential

Standard voice pattern begins at 27 second mark, only to be repeatedly intermixed with what sounds like digital bursts. 

Castro Apologist Seeks Obama Support For Cuban Five

Chris Simmons

Letter to Obama: Alan Gross not a "hostage"

Courtesy:  Tracey Eaton – Along the Malecon

Below is the text of an open letter from Canadian journalist Steven Kimber to President Barack Obama. He is writing a book called, "What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five."

Honorable Barack Obama

President of the United States of America

The White House

Washington DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

This is my first ever letter to an American president. That’s not just because I’m not an American citizen. I’m also a journalist, and journalists are not in the habit of writing letters to heads of governments.

But having spent the past three years researching the case of the Cuban Five, I believe I have an obligation to write to you.

The fact is American journalism hasn’t done a very good job of explaining to the American public the case of the five Cuban intelligence agents who have been incarcerated in the U.S. since 1998. As a result, your administration has mostly managed to avoid dealing with the issue at all or, when forced to comment, responding with the tired, rote rhetoric of the Cold War era.

But the case of the Cuban Five has recently been brought back into the public spotlight because of Alan Gross, the USAID subcontractor currently serving a 15-year jail term in Cuba for bringing satellite communication equipment into that country.

The media reporting of his case has been equally problematic, mostly parroting your own State Department line that Gross is a “humanitarian” who was arrested while trying to help Havana’s tiny Jewish community communicate with the outside world, and is now being held “hostage” by Havana.

You know that’s not true. So, of course, should the media. After all, it was Desmond Butler, a foreign affairs reporter for the Associated Press—a news agency subscribed to by most American media and unlikely ever to be mistaken for a tool of the Cuban regime—who documented the facts of the case.

Alan Gross was “paid a half-million dollars” by USAID, your government’s “democracy promoting” agency, to smuggle sophisticated communications equipment into Cuba. That technology included Internet satellite phones capable of avoiding detection and spy-quality SIM cards “most frequently” used by the Defense Department and the CIA.

The goal of all of this was not to assist Cuba’s Jewish community communicate, as your government has insisted (the Jewish community already had Internet connectivity) but to promote regime change—to overthrow the government of Cuba.

Gross’s own reports make clear he knew he was engaged in “very risky business” and that discovery of what he was up to “will be catastrophic.”

That said, Alan Gross’s family and friends, not surprisingly, want him freed.

Just as the Cubans want the Five—who are considered national heroes in their homeland—freed.

Your government’s unblinking response has been that there is simply “no equivalence.” The Cubans were trained intelligence agents convicted of trying to steal military secrets and conspiracy to murder four innocent civilians killed in the shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue aircraft in 1996. By contrast, the American argument goes, Alan Gross was just a humanitarian do-gooder.

We now know Alan Gross was much more than that.

Story continues here:  http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2013/01/letter-to-obama-alan-gross-not-hostage.html

Miami Herald Continues to Minimize Columnist’s Ties to Cuban Intelligence

Chris Simmons

Editor's Note:  A  very interesting exchange between University of South Carolina professor, Dr. Tony de la Cova, and the Miami Herald.  For those unfamiliar with Dr. de la Cova's work, his website (www.latinamericanstudies.org) is a Must-Read, especially the Cuba section.

From: delacova@latinamericanstudies.org

Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 2:34 PM

To: Myriam Marquez

Cc: Juan Tamayo ; David Landsberg ; Manny ; Jay ; Michael Sallah ; mailto:AMarques@miamiherald.com ; Edward Schumacher-Matos

Subject: Re: Selective journalism

Dear Ms. Marquez,

Thank you for your prompt response.

Marifeli Perez-Stable

Professor Marifeli Pérez-Stable for years appeared on the Miami Herald website as a member of the Board of Contributors to the Miami Herald. The Miami Herald to this day has avoided fully investigating the various accusations against her of being controlled for more than a decade by the Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI). The accusation was first made by DGI defector Capt. Jesús Pérez Méndez in an FBI debriefing in 1983. A copy of the document appears here:  http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Perez-Mendez-debriefing.pdf

I have been a university professor for two decades with a lengthy and award-winning academic publication record that is found here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/articles.htm

In contrast, while you offer so-called “Cubanologists” access to the Herald’s Opinion page, you personally denied me the same right of rebuttal that you gave Prof. Pérez-Stable in November 2009, in response to the Herald ombudsman´s article “Charges against columnist don’t add up.” Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos mentioned me eight times in seven paragraphs with a total of 356 words. Instead, you chose to limit me to a 330-word “Letter to the Editor” rather than the same 700-word op-ed piece afforded Pérez-Stable. To refresh your memory, please read our exchange of emails on my academic website here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Miami-Herald-spy-polemic.htm

I use that correspondence as a teaching tool to let my students judge for themselves if the Miami Herald denied me the appropriate right of rebuttal and if the newspaper uses selective journalism. You are invited to attend my class to present the Herald’s viewpoint when we again discuss this issue next semester.

Enjoy the holidays.

Antonio de la Cova, Ph.D.

From: Myriam Marquez

Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 1:44 PM

To: mailto:delacova@latinamericanstudies.org

Cc: Juan Tamayo ; David Landsberg ; Manny ; Jay ; Michael Sallah ; mailto:AMarques@miamiherald.com ; mailto:ombudsman@miamiherald.com

Subject: Re: Selective journalism

Dear Mr. de la Cova,

Please correct your false assertion about Prof. Perez-Stable's links to TMH. The professor wrote two columns monthly for The Miami Herald. She was never a member of the editorial board and certainly never guided editorial positions. We offer an array of opinions on our pages, prominently including Cubanologists Carlos-Alberto Montaner, Jose Azel, Jaime Suchlicki, Pedro Roig, and many others every week.

Wishing you a happy new year,

Myriam Marquez

On Dec 22, 2012, at 12:42 PM, <delacova@latinamericanstudies.org> wrote:

Juan Tamayo

Miami Herald

Dear Juan:

Elsa y Carlos Alvarez

I read your article “Ricardo Alarcón will leave his post as president of the Cuban legislature,” published in the Herald on December 20, http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/20/3151330/ricardo-alarcon-will-leave-his.html where you again mention Cuban intelligence operative Mercedes Arce and that “Former FIU professor Carlos Alvarez, convicted of spying for Cuba, identified Arce as one of his handlers in the 1980s and 1990s.”

However, the Herald once again omits mention that Professor Alvarez, in page 489 of his FBI interrogation, that appears here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Alvarez-spy-6.pdf stated that when Arce visited Miami, she stayed in the home of accused Castro agent, former Miami Herald Editorial Board member and FIU Professor Marifeli Pérez-Stable, whose background appears here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/marifeli.htm

Mercedes Arce

I indicated this to you in my email of June 7, 2012, and your terse response was: “thanks for reminding me of the arce-marifeli connex.” I wrote back the same day: “There is a pattern at the Herald of omitting any information linking their columnist Marifeli Perez-Stable to Cuban spies, such as Mercedes Arce, who stayed at her residence.”

I first brought this issue to the Herald’s attention in the exchange of emails on October-November 2009 that I sent you, Miami Herald Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos and Herald Editorial Page Editor Miriam Marquez, that I copied other Herald editors and posted on my academic website at http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Miami-Herald-spy-polemic.htm

My email on November 5, 2009, to Ms. Marquez concluded by indicating: “Hopefully, what people will remember is that Perez-Stable and her intimate friend Mercedes Arce are spies and the Herald suppressed the truth.”

Three years have passed since that exchange of emails and the Herald is still using biased and selective journalism on this story. The Herald continues neglecting to investigate or mention the decade-long links between Professor Perez-Stable and Cuban intelligence agents such as Arce.

In consequence, I have used my posted email exchanges with the Herald as a teaching tool for my history students as an example of the Herald’s duplicity, manipulation and yellow journalism.

Sincerely,

Antonio de la Cova, Ph.D.

This Month in History: CIA Recruited Wife of Cuban Spy

Chris Simmons

December 1964:  The CIA recruited Maria del Carmen y Ruiz to serve as an intelligence agent. The Agency selected her, in part, because she was married to Alfredo Ruiz, a senior Cuban Intelligence Officer.  He entertained frequently, which provided her with excellent placement and access to key officials -- a requirement for her CIA mission. However, in January 1969, she was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison following a two-hour trial. She was released less than nine years into her sentence after Senator Frank Church personally intervened on her behalf.

Was Baseball Star Aroldis Chapman a Cuban Spy?

Chris Simmons

sports.yahoo.com

Those are the blockbuster allegations in this suit pending before Judge Altonaga. Chapman, a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, is accused of some pretty outrageous things. According to the complaint, as summarized by Judge Altonaga:

Plaintiffs allege Chapman is liable for Curbelo Garcia and Perdomo’s prolonged arbitrary detentions and torture, not because Chapman was personally involved in detaining or torturing Plaintiffs, but because he provided the Cuban government with the false accusations in the first instance. This furnishing of false accusations, Plaintiffs allege, was part of a conspiracy between Chapman and the Cuban government that Chapman entered into on the day he met Raul Castro. (See id. ¶¶ 301–10). When Chapman agreed to the conspiracy, he became part of a pervasive “snitch network of athletes.” (Id. ¶ 216). This network included “athletes in every team in Cuba,” and was so widespread that “[t]here was a special unit of security officials that were in charge of connecting directly with the athletes to seek out reliable informants.” (Aff. of Gregorio Miguel Calleiro (“Calleiro Aff.”) ¶¶ 8–9 [ECF No. 48-5]). Athletes who voluntarily became government informants reported “suspicious” behavior to their individual handlers in the Department of State Security (“DCSE”). (Id. ¶¶ 10–12; see Am. Compl. ¶ 216). In return for providing “actionable information for the state,” the informants received benefits from the Cuban government, such as the ability to travel with a national team. (Calleiro Aff. ¶ 14). Chapman sought the opportunity to travel with the National Baseball Team as a means of defecting. (See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 218, 221).

The Court denied the motion to dismiss and the case is proceeding.

Chapman is represented locally by Manny Garcia-Linares of Richman Greer.

Posted by South Florida Lawyers at 10:26 AM

Cuba Hoping to Benefit From Possible Gross Release

by Chris Simmons

By Jaime Suchlicki, suchlicki@miami.edu

Gen. Raúl Castro’s regime is considering a pardon for Alan Gross, the American USAID subcontractor arrested in Cuba in December 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in jail for distributing computers to the Jewish community in the island. This calculated olive branch to the just-reelected Obama administration has two objectives. First, to obtain U.S. concessions in the area of travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba. Second, to obtain the release of four Cuban spies, serving sentences in U.S. jails for espionage activities on behalf of the Castro government.

Some within the Castro regime are arguing that the Obama administration will be pushed to offer major concessions if Cuba frees Gross. The reasons: there is a pent-up demand for travel to Cuba; American tourists will bring much needed dollars; and Cuba’s efficient security apparatus could control American tourists, primarily interested in visiting Cuban beaches and less concerned about subverting the Communist regime.

Most argue that American tourists will have little impact, other than economic. They point out that over the past several years hundreds of thousands of Canadian, Europeans and Latin American tourists have visited the island. There have been no major political changes. Money from tourists, furthermore, has been flowing into businesses owned by the Castro government and the Cuban military, thus strengthening state enterprises.

The recent migration law enacted by Cuba that eases travel for Cubans to visit the United States and other countries is also entering into Gen. Castro’s calculations. The liberalization of Cuban travel will put pressure on the Obama administration to allow Americans to travel to the island. From Cuba’s point of view it is a win/win situation. More Cubans will travel abroad, many staying in the host country or making their way to the U.S. More American tourists will travel to Cuba leaving their dollars in the island.

What should the United States do? Any major policy concession to Cuba will be out of proportion to the release of an unjustly imprisoned American. Gross is a hostage being used by the Cuban government to exact change from the U.S. The history of U.S-Cuba relations has been characterized by Cuba’s daring actions followed by major U.S. concessions (i.e. U.S.-Cuba migration accord allowing 20,000 Cubans to enter the United States following Mariel). The release of Gross should be seen as a humanitarian gesture requiring no action on the part of the United States. When Raúl Castro is willing to offer irreversible concessions, the administration should respond in kind. Ping-pong diplomacy worked with China. Tit for tat should with Cuba.

Jaime Suchlicki is director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.

Cuba Hints at Swapping US Contractor for Cuban Spies

Chris Simmons

By JUAN TAMAYO — The Miami Herald

One week after President Barack Obama won re-election, Havana offered a "draft agenda" for U.S.-Cuba negotiations that largely repeats its years-old positions but almost directly offers to swap American Alan Gross for five Cuban spies. The statement by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla Lopez to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday received little initial media attention. It was disseminated more broadly Wednesday by his ministry and Cuba's diplomatic mission in Washington.

Obama has lifted nearly all limits on Cuban-American travel and remittances to the island, allowed educational visits by other U.S. residents, and restarted - and then stopped again - bilateral talks on migration issues. But his administration has repeatedly said that more significant improvements in bilateral relations can come only after Cuba frees Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor serving a 15-year prison sentence.

Wayne Smith, a former chief U.S. diplomat in Havana and now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, said Rodriguez laid out a list of issues that Havana has long said it wanted to discuss in any bilateral talks. "He simply reiterated their position. I don't see anything new there," Smith said. "This is a nonstarter. Same demands as in the past. No offers of major concessions on human rights, etc.," Jaime Suchlicki, head of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami, wrote in an email.

Arturo Lopez-Levy, a former Cuban government analyst now lecturing at the University of Denver, called Rodriguez's speech "a list of maximum demands that shows the bilateral conflict can be handled better but not solved" during Obama's next term. But he added that the foreign minister's words evoked Obama's offer of a "new start" in relations with Cuba shortly after he won the White House in 2008. The U.S. State Department said it had no comment on the Rodriguez proposal.

"Today, here and now, I am again submitting to the U.S. government a draft agenda for a bilateral dialogue aimed at moving towards the normalization of relations," Rodriguez said. His agenda items included lifting all U.S. sanctions; removing Cuba from the U.S. list of countries with links to international terrorism; and ending the Cuban Adjustment Act and the wet-foot, dry-foot policies, which Havana complains unfairly lure Cuban migrants to the United States.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/11/15/2769003/cuba-hints-at-swapping-us-contractor.html#storylink=cpy

Ex Tte. Coronel del MININT en Miami: no renuncio a mi historia ni a mis principios

Chris Simmons

por Chuny Montaner, Univision Radio

MIAMI, Florida - Carlos Santana logró lo que parecía imposible: encontrar, retratar, entrevistar y lograr que el escurridizo ex Teniente Coronel del Ministerio del Interior de Cuba, Crescencio Marino Rivero Toledo, quién desde el año 2010 reside en Miami con su esposa Juana Ferrer, también ex Teniente Coronel del aparato de represión castrista, admitiera que había mentido y omitido información al llenar su aplicación de inmigración.

Los ex tenientes coroneles Rivero y Ferrer, hoy con 71 y 65 años, respectivamente, en sus costillas, visitaron a su hija tres veces en Miami, y en la cuarta visita, “se quedaron”. El matrimonio y su hija comparten un apartamento en el segundo piso de un edificio situado en la zona sur oeste de la ciudad y trataban de pasar desapercibidos, sin saber que su recorrido estaba siendo investigado por dos abogados de esta ciudad.

Declaración del ex Teniente Coronel del MININT

Respondiendo a las acusaciones que se le hacen, Rivero accedió a ser entrevistado por Santana. “El MININT no organiza turbas, eso lo hace el pueblo, y la presencia de los agentes es para evitar que el pueblo agreda a los opositores”, dijo, (todavía) repitiendo el libreto del MININT, después de residir más de dos años en este país.

Rivero reconoció que había mentido a las autoridades de Estados Unidos sobre su pasado en Cuba como miembro del aparato represivo del Ministerio del Interior MININT, que se desempeñaba como Jefe del Departamento Provincial del Sistema Penitenciario en Santa Clara y que su esposa Ferrer era oficial de migración.

“En Cuba no se tortura en las cárceles”, aseguró Rivero a Santana, pretendiendo con unas desafiantes palabras borrar no solo los testimonios de centenares de presos que se escuchan a diario en esta ciudad, sino también las declaraciones de otros oficiales, tanto de las Fuerzas Armadas como de distintas ramas del gobierno castrista, que se han refugiado en suelo americano, buscando la libertad política que no existe en Cuba desde 1959.

“No voy a renunciar a mi historia y mis principios”, dijo Rivero Toledo a Santana, añadiendo: “Si tengo que regresar a Cuba, lo haré”, a la vez que su esposa se negaba a hablar de los actos de repudio (de los cuales es acusada de participar), exponiendo: “Yo no vine aquí a hablar de política”.

A Rivero y a su esposa, ya residentes legales de Estados Unidos, se les investiga por que pueden haber mentido a las autoridades de inmigración norteamericanas sobre su pasado como miembros del represivo aparato del Ministerio del Interior, por sus siglas MININT, así como no haber declarado que fueron miembros del Partido Comunista de Cuba.

artículo continúa aquí:   http://radiomambi710.univision.com/noticias/article/2012-11-02/ex-coronel-del-minint-no-renuncia-historia-principios-dice-que-mintio

“Cuban 5” Propaganda Film Wins Award

Desde “Cuba Confidential
30 de octubre de 2012
especial a freethefive.orgl

"The Cuban Wives" por Alberto Antonio Dandolo ganó el Premio Malvinas en el 27º Festival de Cine Latinoamericano de Trieste. El Premio Malvinas destinado a promover la convivencia entre los pueblos y el Derecho Internacional, ha sido concedido por un jurado compuesto por el escritor argentino Juan Octavio Prenz, el escritor y periodista italiano Massimiliano Cocozza y Héctor Sommerkamp (Perú) Profesor de la Universidad de Trieste, por las siguientes razones:

"Debido a la sensibilidad y la atención a la cuestión de la justicia como fundamento de una sociedad mejor. Una historia enternecedora y objetiva sobre las pruebas de nuestros tiempos."

artículo continúa aquí:  http://www.freethefive.org/updates/Wives/WivesFilmAward103012.htm

Cuban Blackmail, 50 Years After the Missile Crisis

Chris Simmons

The past decades have shown that the Castro brothers' behavior in October 1962 was perfectly characteristic.

By Jeb Bush & Frank Calzon, Wall Street Journal --  October 23, 2012, 7:16 p.m. ET

With this week marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, Americans are recalling the 13 days in October 1962 when the Soviet Union and Cuba's Fidel Castro brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

But in assessing the crisis, and President John F. Kennedy's decisions over those 13 days, it is equally important to consider what has happened since. Using what the late U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick called the "politics of deception," Cuba's Castro brothers have maintained power through international deceit, blackmail and hostage-taking.

The past decades have shown that the behavior of the Castro brothers in 1962 was perfectly characteristic. Fidel Castro has never shied away from a political gamble such as deploying secret Soviet missiles and then lying about them. He assured other governments that he would never do such a thing, just as the Soviet Union's ambassador to the United States told the Kennedy administration that rumors about missiles were false. But the missiles were there, and their deployment was an effort to intimidate and blackmail America.

Today, Havana's intimidation and blackmail are of a different magnitude, but there are plenty of examples.

Days ago, a Cuban court sentenced young Spanish politician Angel Carromero to four years in prison for committing manslaughter in the death of Oswaldo Payá, one of Cuba's most prominent human rights leaders. Payá died while a passenger in a car Mr. Carromero was driving, when it veered off the road and hit a tree under suspicious circumstances. Payá's family says that Mr. Carromero has sent text messages saying that a vehicle (presumably driven by Cuba's state security police) was attempting to force him off the road. The family was prevented from attending the trial and is calling for an international investigation.

For years, state security had tried to intimidate Payá and his foreign visitors, part of a larger effort to discourage democracy advocates from visiting or contacting Cuban dissidents. Havana similarly tries to intimidate other countries—such as Spain, whose nationals have business interests in Cuba—into accepting its routine violations of human rights, including the beatings of dissidents.

Joining Mr. Carromero as a hostage in Cuba is Alan Gross, an American development worker held since December 2009. His supposed crime: giving a laptop computer and satellite telephone to a group of Cuban Jews.

Mr. Gross has lost some 100 pounds in prison, according to his wife, who also reports that he has a growth on his shoulder that may be cancerous. The Castro regime intends to keep him in prison until the U.S. government releases five Cuban spies from prison in the U.S.

There is long history here. In 1962, Fidel Castro wrung $53 million from Washington in exchange for releasing the prisoners he had taken after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Before that, during the guerrilla war against the Batista dictatorship, Raúl Castro extorted thousands of dollars from owners of sugar mills, threatening to burn down their homes and mills unless they aided the guerrillas. In June 1958, he tried to force negotiations with Washington by kidnapping 29 American sailors and marines; when word got out that Washington might send U.S. Marines to rescue the hostages, the Castros freed them.

In dealing with Cuba's regime, the Obama administration has too often sent contradictory signals of U.S. resolve. Though Raúl Castro (who now heads the Cuban government) has refused to allow Mr. Gross to return to the U.S. to visit his seriously ill mother, the Obama administration allowed a Cuban spy to leave an American halfway house to visit his sick mother. While Mr. Gross remains in prison, the Obama administration last year issued visas to Raúl Castro's daughter and her retinue so they could visit America and attack its Cuba policy.

The lessons of October 1962 must not be forgotten. President Kennedy showed fortitude and resolve in forcing the Soviet Union to stand down. Whoever wins the Nov. 6 election ought to deal similarly with today's intimidation and deception from the Castro regime.

Mr. Bush is a former governor of Florida. Mr. Calzon is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington, D.C.

Canadian Diplomats Spied on Cuba for CIA in Aftermath of Missile Crisis: Envoy

Chris Simmons

John Graham at his home in Ottawa.
(Dave Chan for The Globe and Mail)

By Michael Posner, [Ottawa] The Globe and Mail 

In a little-known chapter of the Cold War, Canadian diplomats spied for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba in the aftermath of the 1962 missile crisis – and for years afterward. A major part of that story is told in a forthcoming memoir by retired Canadian envoy John Graham. Mr. Graham was one of a series of Canadian diplomats recruited to spy for the CIA in Havana. The missions went on for at least seven years, during the 1960s. “We didn’t have a military attaché in the Canadian embassy,” explained Mr. Graham, who worked under the cover of Political Officer. “And to send one at the time might have raised questions. So it was decided to make our purpose less visible.” Mr. Graham said he worked as a spy for two years, between 1962 and 1964. His mandate was to visit Soviet bases, identify weapons and electronic equipment and monitor troop movements.

The espionage missions began after President John Kennedy asked Prime Minister Lester Pearson – at their May, 1963, summit in Hyannis Port, Mass. – whether Canada would abet American intelligence-gathering efforts in Cuba. As a result of the crisis, which brought the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war, the Soviets had agreed to withdraw nuclear missiles from Cuban territory, in exchange for Washington’s pledge to remove its own missile batteries from Turkey and Italy. To monitor Russian compliance, the United States needed to supplement data gleaned from almost daily U-2 reconnaissance flights. It had few assets on the ground. Its networks of Cuban agents had been progressively rolled up by Castro’s efficient counterintelligence service. And having severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, it had no embassy of its own through which to infiltrate American spies.

Soon after the summit meeting, Ottawa sent diplomat George Cowley to Havana. Now deceased, Mr. Cowley, who had served in the Canadian embassy in Japan and sold encyclopedias in Africa, spent about two months in Havana in the late spring of 1963. He was followed by Mr. Graham, seconded from his post as chargé d’affaires in the Dominican Republic. His formal training, he told The Globe and Mail, was minimal – a few days at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. At the end of it, an agency officer offered him a farewell gift – a sophisticated camera with an assortment of telephoto lenses. He declined the present, arguing that if he were ever caught with it, he’d surely be arrested. “But how will we know what the Soviet military convoys are carrying?” a CIA officer asked him. “We need precision. Configuration is essential for recognition.” “I’ll draw you pictures,” Mr. Graham said. “It was a bit like the character in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana, but that’s what I did.”

Story continues here:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadian-diplomats-spied-on-cuba-for-cia-in-aftermath-of-missile-crisis-envoy/article4614595/

Warning signal from Venezuela: The harassment of Jorge Lanata

By Chris Simmons

Jorge Lanata

by Robert Cox, in today's Buenos Aires Herald

Secret Police Target Lanata

The harassment in Venezuela of Jorge Lanata, the journalist who has become an unofficial leader of the political opposition to the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is more significant than it might seem at first sight.

Lanata, who was travelling with a camera crew to cover the presidential elections for the Clarín Group, was detained for questioning by state intelligence agents both going into and out of Caracas. The procedures used to harass him and his colleagues are familiar, reminding me of the time when I travelled to Cuba to represent a human rights non-governmental organization at a United Nations conference in Havana.

Upon arrival, I had my first encounter with the men from the Minint, the somewhat sinister name given to the Ministry of Interior. They wanted to send me back to Miami. But as a condition for holding the conference in Havana, which gave Castro-Communist Cuba a token of international prestige, the United Nations secured a guarantee that everyone from organizations affiliated with the UN must be allowed into Cuba to attend the conference. A journalist who travelled on the same plane was sent back because his US passport revealed that he had been born in Cuba.

Once in Cuba, I was followed and harassed in ways both picaresque and menacing. A colleague from the human rights organization got the jitters and left early.

When I finally left Havana my bags were searched and my notes and documents reporting the human rights situation were seized at the José Martí international airport.

It was routine police state procedure and it was exactly what Lanata and the other Grupo Clarín journalists were subjected to at the Simón Bolívar airport in Caracas. (How galling it is that two countries that restrict freedom of expression have airports named after genuine advocates for freedom.) Lanata, José Gil Vidal and Nicolás Wiñazki, of Clarín, and Gabriel Conte, editor of MDZOL, a digital newspaper in Mendoza, were given special attention by secret police who erased their reportage from their electronic equipment, alleging espionage, a charge that was not followed up.

The significance of this quasi-totalitarian attempt to restrict freedom of information by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service is that it is an indication of what could happen in Argentina if President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner should decide to imitate her friend President Hugo Chávez by trying to silence dissident voices and establish state control of the media.

It was clear from the start that the late president Néstor Kirchner and his widow viewed a free press as an enemy. Both the Kirchners set out to continue on the national stage the same policies restricting freedom of information that were imposed in their native province of Santa Cruz, which Néstor Kirchner dominated for almost two decades.

In my view, this caudillo-like attitude has kept the Kirchner administrations in the dark. Without a free flow of information from varied media outlets, any government is bound to lose touch with reality.

Freedom of information is not the same as freedom of expression. In Argentina today there is no limit on the latter, but there is a severe lack of public information. Instead of interplay between the government and the press, which requires not only frequent news conferences called by the President and her ministers, but also access to them by individual reporters, Cristina, like her husband, speaks over the heads of journalists. Instead of allowing the press to be a bridge to the people, the Kircher style of government bypasses the media. Without an established right to know, similar to that secured by the US Freedom of Information Act, the press and the people are locked out. Another consequence of the Kirchner “dog in a manger” attitude is a deepening estrangement from mainstream international thought. That is partially explained by the refusal of the President to give interviews to foreign correspondents. Their requests are not even acknowledged.

President Fernández de Kirchner pays lip service to freedom of expression but does not “walk the walk” by encouraging an exchange of views. The result has been a polemical cacophony of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Because of the lack of leadership and no identified common cause that brings politicians together, the place that, in a democracy, is occupied by the political opposition has been filled by journalists.

The opposition press, which prefers to call itself the independent press, has become like a political alliance, a coalition that has formed around key issues that the traditional parties have so far failed to communicate effectively to the public. These issues are, in no particular order but in line with my own preference: the defence of democracy; indignation over corruption; and concern about personal safety.

The star role has been filled by Jorge Lanata, who, in response to the government’s programme 6,7,8, came up with Periodismo para todos (“Journalism for everyone” which is also a jibe at the government’s Fútbol para todos, which provides free coverage of Argentine Soccer League matches.) Lanata has assumed the leading role in opposing the government with his popular Sunday night programme. It is a mixture of stand-up comedy, which Lanata does fairly well, exposure of corruption, which he does brilliantly, and saucy satire at the expense of official idiocy.

The satire is delivered by Fátima Florez, who does a devastating impersonation of Cristina Fernández http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=IE-OCDexYrU&feature=endscreen and Martin Bilyk, who is hilarious as former Cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández and as Hugo Chávez. Florez reminded me of Tina Fey’s exquisite send-up of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.

I have followed Lanata’s career from afar since 1983 when he was the founder with Gabriel Levinas of the magazine El Porteño, which was the first serious journalistic challenge to the military dictatorship.

Returning for four months every year since 2010, I was here when he announced on the eve of his 50th birthday that he had decided that he would celebrate his half century by speaking out, never holding anything back.

He has been able to keep that promise with even greater effectiveness by joining the Clarín Group, which has provided the resources that have allowed him to reach a larger audience.

He has been critical of Grupo Clarín which, while far from being a monopoly, became the biggest media organization in Argentina by buying up newspapers and buying out radio and television stations. However, in a country where the state owns radio and television networks, no rival can ever achieve a monopoly. Additionally, the Kirchner administration has built up a network of private media that support the government.

Ten years ago, the expansion of Grupo Clarín was a problem because independent media were being squeezed out. Today the problem is the expansion of media that is either state-controlled or aligned totally with the government.

The fact that Jorge Lanata was targeted in Venezuela and that the Argentine ambassador sided with the secret police should serve as a warning that totalitarianism is a temptation that authoritarian governments and their officials find hard to resist.

That is why it is important to defend both media and journalists that oppose the imposition of a quasi-totalitarian state like Venezuela or a totally totalitarian state like Cuba, both of which would probably get an “I like” on their Facebook pages from many in the Kirchner administration.

Bobc59@gmail.com

Cuban Senior Spy Targeted Academic Conference

Chris Simmons

ifajs.org

October 12, 2001:  Johanna Tablada, met with educators from the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA) during their weeklong academic conference on Cuban history, held in Havana. Tablada briefed them while serving undercover as a member of the North America Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX).

When Cuban Intelligence Used Two-Tier Effort to Exploit Rafter Exodus

Chris Simmons

Exodo de Camarioca [1965]/ balancecubano.blogspot.com

In October 1965, Fidel Castro allowed a flotilla of over 3000 Cubans to leave Cuba from the port of Camarioca. According to DGI defector Castro Hidalgo, a year prior to the exodus, the service had begun training operatives who used the chaos of the mass influx as both a means to get to the US and to quickly and convincingly assume new identities as Illegal agents. The DGI also coerced legitimate rafters to work for them following their arrival in the US. Afraid to refuse the DGI, many rafters agreed to cooperate.  However, poor pre-departure tradecraft training doomed this latter effort.

Carta de los senadores a Raul Castro [Alan Gross]

By Chris Simmons

September 24, 2012

President Raúl Castro

Republic of Cuba

c/o Cuban Interests Section

2630 16^th Street, NW

Washington, D.C. 20009

Dear President Castro:

We are writing to express our serious and ongoing concern regarding the detention of Alan Gross, an American citizen, and to urge you to release him from prison on humanitarian grounds. As you are aware, Mr. Gross was a U.S.-government subcontractor who was arrested on December 3, 2009. He was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison for alleged “actions against the independence or territorial integrity of the state.”

Since his arrest, Mr. Gross has lost 105 pounds (47.63 kg). He has degenerative arthritis and a mass behind his shoulder, which he fears may become permanent. He also suffers from mental anguish because of separation from his family, several of whom have serious medical conditions. Specifically, his daughter has been diagnosed and is being treated for breast cancer. And his 90-year-old mother, to whom he is exceptionally close, was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in February 2011. Her condition continues to deteriorate and they both fear they will be unable to see each other again.

Members of the Senate have traveled to your country, written to you and your dignitaries, and employed other creative means to encourage Mr. Gross’s release. Yet these attempts thus far have been futile, and Mr. Gross’s ongoing detention in your country presents a major obstacle to any further actions to improve our bilateral relations.

We very much hope that you will take our concerns seriously. As we approach the three-year anniversary of Alan’s imprisonment, we call on you to take action and grant him the belated release his situation warrants.

Sincerely,

Led by Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Jerry Moran (R-KS),  the letter was also signed by Richard Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Carl Levin (D-MI), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Al Franken (D-MN), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tom Udall (D-NM), Mark Begich (D-AK), Dean Heller (R-NV), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Robert P. Casey (D-PA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jack Reed (D-RI), John F. Kerry (D-MA), Thomas R. Carper (D-DE), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mark Warner (D-VA), John McCain (R-AZ), Tom Coburn (R-OK), John Boozman (R-AR), Roger F. Wicker (R-Miss.), Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-NY), Dan Coats (R-IN), Mark L. Pryor (D-AR), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

Toronto: Nobody pays attention to the court of "The 5 Cuban spies"

From  Chris Simmon

The 5 propaganda logo

One cannot help but laugh at the hypocrisy of the Canadian Comedy Club, also known as the “Peoples’ Tribunal & Assembly | Justice for the Five.”  The following extractfrom theirwebsite (http://canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/tribunal/index.html) demanded comment: 

“How will the Tribunal be run?

The tribunal will take place on September 22nd. During the proceedings lawyers from Canada, Cuba and the US will provide details of the areas where there was the greatest miscarriage of justice in the courts of south Florida. The Tribunal will hear from impact witnesses and also experts from Europe, Canada, the US and Cuba. The families of the Cuban Five will bear testimony to their hardships concerning the barriers to prisoner rights and denial of visits imposed on them.  [Emphasis added by Cuba Confidential]”

Webster’s dictionary defines tribunal as “a court or forum of justice.”  However, yesterday’s tribunal offered neither an open forum nor justice.  As noted above, the tribunal only heard evidence AGAINST the United States.  This unjust panel featured a de facto prosecuting team, but made no allowance for a defense team or even an unbiased fact-checker.  Based on the arbitrary and prejudicial standards emplaced, it is safe to say that this tribunal, given the chance, would have convicted a squirrel of stealing acorns.

The People’s Tribunal was not only blatantly biased, but it also made for very poor propaganda, as evidenced by the lack of media coverage.  But then again, perhaps that was the greatest justice of all……

------------------------

just see who are involved [source de cuba-canada propaganda machine: http://canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/tribunal/index.html]

Attending:

• Family members of the "Cuban Five" • Livio Di Celmo, Victim of Terror, Montréal, Québec • Danny Glover, Actor U.S.A. • Saul Landau, Award Winning Film Maker and Author • Gloria La Riva, Free The Five, National Committee - U.S.A. • Cindy Sheehan, Anti–War activist- U.S.A. • Tony Woodley, UNITE the UNION, UK • José Pertierra, Lawyer, Washington, D.C. • Denis Lemelin, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers • Isaac Saney, Professor, Dalhousie University, Halifax • Arnold August, Writer, Montréal, Québec • Raymundo Navarro, Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) • Julian Rivas, Journalist, Venezuela • Wes Elliott, Grand River Territory • Keith Bolender, Freelance Journalist and Author Based in Toronto • Richard Klugh, Lawyer for the Cuban Five, USA • Ken Neumann, National Director for Canada, United Steelworkers • Stephen Kimber, Professor of Journalism, University of Kings College, Halifax • Alicia Jrapko, International Committee to Free the Cuban Five, U.S.A. • William Sloan, Civil Rights Lawyer, Montréal, Québec • Naveen Mehta, Labour Lawyer, United Food and Commercial Workers • Marie Clarke Walker, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists • Lee Maracle, First Nations Writer, Poet and Performing Artist • Reverend Chris Levan, Minister, United Church of Canada • Abelardo Paisan Reyes, National Union of Education Workers (SNTECD), Cuba • Miguel Barnet, Writer and Novelist, Cuba 

Sponsors:

• United Food and Commercial Workers • United Steelworkers, Canada • Canadian Union of Postal Workers • Canadian Network on Cuba • International Council of Latin American and Caribbean Women - LATIN@S • The Worker to Worker, Canada-Cuba Labour Solidarity Network • Carranza LLP • Canadian Cuban Friendship Association - Toronto • Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network • Canadian Union of Public Employees • Tim Louis, Tim Louis & Co, Vancouver Lawyer and Vancouver City Councillor 1999 - 2005 • Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 4400 • Ontario Federation of Labour

Endorsers:

• International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, USA • National Network on Cuba, U.S.A. • Toronto Forum on Cuba • Communist League/Ligue communiste • International Festival of Poetry of Resistance • Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association of Kingston • Dr. James Cockcroft, Montréal, Québec • Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba • Canadian Cuban Friendship Association - Vancouver • Free the Cuban 5 Committee Vancouver • La Asociación de Cubanos Juan Gualberto Gómez • Socialist Action • The United Jewish People's Order • Association United Ukranian Canadians Toronto Branch • Manitoba-Cuba Solidarity Committee • Don Currie, Chair of Canada for Peace and Socialism and associate member of the Canadian Peace Congress • Brian Gordon Sinclair, Hemingway On Stage • The North Simcoe and Muskoka Labour Council • NDP Socialist Caucus • Associazione Nazionale di Amicizia Italia-Cuba • Jim Neill, Deputy Mayor, City of Kingston, Ontario • Northstar Compass • Libby Davies, NDP-MP, Vancouver East • The Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees (NUMGE) • Toronto Haiti Action Committee • Toronto and York Region Labour Council • Barrio Nuevo • "DISCUSSION" Wednesday evening public affairs program, Vancouver Co-Op Radio, 102.7 FM (100.5 FM September 10th) • The Young Communist League of Canada • UNITE the UNION, United Kingdom (U.K.) • Latin American Trade Unionist Coalition (LATUC) • Communist Party of Canada • Walter Lippmann, Editor, CubaNews newsgroup • Chicago Committee to free the Cuban Five • Law Union of Ontario • Toronto Bolivia Solidarity • Krittibas Literary Group of Toronto • Solidarity with Iran - SI • House of Latin America (HOLA) • Common Frontiers • International Socialists • Hamilton Friendship Association with Cuba • Canadian Lawyers' Committee in Support of the Anti-Terrorist Cuban Five • Ryerson Students' Union Local 24 – Canadian Federation of Students • Sea of Red Open Collective [SoR(..)C]

Today in History: Castro Spy Ana Belen Montes Arrested

By Chris Simmons

September 21, 2001:  On this Friday morning, Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana B. Montes was told to report to the Inspector General’s (IG) office.  She believed the IG was finally ready to close out a lingering inquiry regarding her unsanctioned interaction with Soldier of Fortune magazine.  She entered the IG’s Office to discover it had been a ruse – waiting FBI agents arrested her and discreetly exited her from the building. 

Her last contact with Havana had been just five days earlier – on Sunday, September 16^th.