A World Conspiracy

Trevor Loudon's New Zeal Blog »

By: Brent Parrish
The Right Planet

There probably is not a more loaded word these days than “conspiracy.” So often I hear people who may believe something nefarious might be going on anxiously qualify their position by insisting they are not a “conspiracy theorist.” And I completely understand the sentiment. Let’s face it, there are a lot of crackpot theories going around on numerous issues these days. So much so, the word conspiracy evokes an almost Pavlovian reaction in many people.

But just what is a conspiracy? It’s simply the act of two or more people agreeing to commit an illegal or immoral act. Conspiracies happen all the time—both big and small. The trick is to determine if it really is a conspiracy or not. And often times, the bigger the conspiracy, the harder it is to prove.

One of the greatest conspiracies of all time, in my opinion, is communism itself. Oh, and that’s not just my opinion. Conspiracy is one of the essential parts of communism, as I hope to point out in this article. Once again, this is not just my opinion, it comes straight from the communists themselves.

In my own experience, quite a few people I have encountered really have no idea what communism is all about. They might know the history of communism, but they often times don’t understand or grasp the ideology behind it. And let’s face it, the mere mention of the word communism is enough to make some people look at their watch and say, “Well, I better get going now.” The reaction is similar to when one uses the word “conspiracy.”

Another reason I believe a number of people glaze over when the subject of communism is brought is up is due to the dangerously misguided belief communism was defeated when the Berlin Wall came down. But the fact of the matter is one out of every five people on earth still lives under an oppressive communist regime. The countries that are still communist are:

• China
• Laos
• Cuba
• Vietnam
• North Korea

Of course, I would still consider the regime in Russia as communist. Furthermore, the above list only includes regimes openly identifying themselves as communist. Most of South America and Africa are ruled by leftist regimes who embrace some form of socialism. (Brazil just elected a former communist terrorist for president.) And the ideological foundation of the European Union has been called Eurocommunism. Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky has described the EU as a “pale version of the Soviet Union.”

Communist regimes have killed more than 100 million people worldwide in the 20th Century alone. And I would venture to say, that is a conservative estimate. So how can one think communism does not still pose a grave and ominous threat to all of humanity? It seems one must suspend all logic and reason to come to such a conclusion. This is why I feel so strongly that it is of paramount importance freedom-loving people understand the ideology and political goals behind communism and its implementation.

Naturally, it is not easy to boil a massive subject like communism down to a nutshell. But I have been studying the subject matter for several years know, and I’m going to attempt to do just that—boil some things down to a nutshell.

Most communist leaders rarely invoke the term communism. Instead, they talk of socialism. Remember, the USSR stood for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Stalin almost always referred to communism as socialism, as have many other communist leaders.

Granted, there is a fair amount of debate between scholars and historians on how socialism and communism differ. But many of these perceived differences are merely academic. In practice, there is very little difference between socialism and communism. But there are some things worth mentioning concerning the differences between socialism and communism.

One of the more concise definitions on the differences between socialism and communism, that I have heard is “a communist is a socialist in a hurry.” Others have stated, “A communist is someone who is not afraid to pull the trigger.” Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) is quoted as saying, “Socialism is the road to communism.”

Of course, there would be no communism without Marxism. The economic, social and cultural theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels form the ideological foundation of communism, i.e. socialism. But Marx was a theoretician, not a practitioner of socialism, per se. It was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who first put the theories of Marx & Engels into practice—referred to as Marxism-Leninism.

Interestingly, about ninety-percent of what Karl Marx wrote solely concerned economics, as evidenced by his seminal work Das Kapital—which coined the term “capitalism.” (From the best I can gather, the term capitalism was not used in the United States until the latter part of the 19th Century.) But it was Marx’s call for “revolutionary struggle,” as outlined in the Communist Manifesto (published in 1848), that so captured the imaginations of many radicals at the time—and to the present day.

The entire premise of the Communist Manifesto rests upon the notion of “class struggle.” This is immediately evident when one reads the introductory lines of the Manifesto:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another…

The concept of oppressor-oppressed lies at the heart of Marxian socialism—us versus them. The oppressor-oppressed model is prevalent in today’s political landscape, as is the notion of “class struggle”—rich vs. poor (see 1% vs. 99%), the haves vs. the have nots, the capitalist vs. the worker, the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat, and so on. Most Americans have been subjected to class rhetoric all of their lives—lower-class, middle-class, upper-class … blue collar vs. white collar, etc.

Some modern-day Marxists and their fellow travelers (sympathizers) have expanded upon the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. A good example would be the godfather of “community organizing,” Saul Alinsky. Alinsky added yet another division to the mix: “the have some, want mores.” So now we have the haves (rich) vs. the have some, want mores (middle-class) vs. the have nots (poor), according to Alinsky.

It is important to note, that in the eyes of a Marxian socialist, the middle-class and upper-class represent the “petty bourgeoisie,” as Dr. Carroll Quigly disparagingly refers to the them in his mammoth work Tragedy and Hope.

The middle and upper classes are the economic engine of the United States. But socialism-communism wishes to control the means of production and distribution. In order to control production, one must control the producer–meaning, the individual. Individualism must be wiped out in order to create a true socialistic system, whereby the state will provide the individual with all of their emotional, spiritual and physical needs.

If I were to boil the Communist Manifesto down to its essence, it would be the abolition of private property. And if I were to reduce Marxism down to just one word, it would be sameness. We all will think alike, earn alike, live alike, work alike, dress alike … there will be no flavor for our fare, only sameness … a gray, dreary sameness. And all of this is sold to “the masses“ with lovable slogans like “unity in diversity” and “equality and fairness” and “progress and change.” Sound familiar? Once again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

(Screencap credit: Yuri Maltsev)

There is another important point to consider regarding Marx’s theory of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” as outlined in the Communist Manifesto. Communism is a utopia. It does not exist. The theory is the state will eventually “wither away” to nothing. And this will bring in the long awaited “workers’ paradise.” But this is all to occur sometime in the distant future. Soviet defector Yuri Maltsev has explained these concepts in greater depth in some videos I’ve posted here at the blog (see here and here).

(Screencap credit: Yuri Maltsev)

But before the long hoped for communist utopia can be realized (where every whim and need will be realized for all the “workers”), nations must be wiped out. This is what is referred to as the “transitional stage.” Many scholars have commented that this part of the Manifesto is not very well thought out. It is analogous to a person who does not like their house, so they decide to burn it down with themselves still in it. It is almost a juvenile belief that from the ashes will arise some great, new utopia the embodies perfect fairness and equality. Joseph Stalin said the Communist Party must originally be destructive. – See more at: http://www.therightplanet.com/2014/12/a-world-conspiracy/#sthash.ESixsPSO.dpuf

(Screencap credit: Yuri Maltsev)

So, at this point, I would like to start breaking down how communism is organized and implemented. I am going to refer to the lessons and experiences of ex-communists. Two of the sources I will be drawing from are Dr. Bella V. Dodd (19o4 – 1969) and Mike Vanderboegh (who claims he was the one who first broke the Fast and Furious story). Both are ex-communists who turned vocal anti-communists.

Bella Dodd points out there are three terms that are important to differentiate concerning communism—meaning: the Communist Conspiracy (world conspiracy), the Communist Party and the Communist Movement. These are three different concepts, and each one must be dealt with differently.

The Communist Conspiracy

The communist conspiracy should really not have the word communist before it, for it is a conspiracy for world control, according to Dr. Bella Dodd.

What is it that the world conspiracy hopes to accomplish?

The world conspiracy compromises a small group of elites located in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, London, Moscow, Hong Kong, etc. Dodd points out that they are a determined group who wish to control the resources of the world. They wish to control all of the world’s natural resources—oil, iron, steel, tin, uranium, timber, and the land itself. (Dodd mentions the late Freddie Fields of Vanderbilt Steel, a card-carrying communist.) In order to control all the natural resources of the world, one must control all the people of the world—all seven billion of them.

Dodd points out that this leads to a rather strange phenomenon—one that confuses many Americans, since they believe that those who would be interested in business and industry would stand staunchly against communism. But the world conspiracy is compromised of many different and disparate groups and individuals.

The world conspiracy operates under different labels at different times: communism, socialism, humanism, goodwill, global governance, internationalism, globalism, economic democracy, industrial democracy, social democracy, and so on—whatever it takes to move people to mass action.

Mike Vanderboegh, a former card-carrying communist, explains it is all just collectivism at the end of the day. Whether one wishes to call it nazism, communism, socialism, fascism, progressivism, liberalism, nativism, tribalism, racism—ism, ism, ism—everything is in service to the collective.

One of the main goals of communism is to divide the people. When people are busy fighting amongst themselves, they are unable to organize and form an effective opposition. This is where all the class struggle and oppressed-oppressor rhetoric comes into play. And, unfortunately, the tactic has proved wildly successful. So much so, that even communists themselves have been astonished at how effective the tactic of pitting one group against the other has proven to be.

The communist conspiracy has a secret and a public face. Communists are taught to lie; they are masters of the “language of the lie.” Shrouding their true intentions in lovable labels and slogans (semantic manipulation, as the KGB/FSB calls it) is what communists do best. Examples include phrases like “sustainability,” “economic justice,” “environmental justice,” “global citizenship,” “assault weapons,” “gun control,” “white privilege,” “diversity,” “climate change,” “agents of change,” “progress,” “progressive,” etc.

“If you’ve got the language up front, you’ve already won the debate … They suck you into their worldview,” says Mike Vanderboegh.

The party teaches to never use an outright lie. Instead, communists employ disinformation (Soviet term) to agitate honest grievances. In a similar vein, Saul Alinsky taught, “Rub raw the resentments of the people.”

Mike Vanderboegh explains, “They [the party] take a kernel of truth and wrap it in a lie … packaged so credulous people will pass it on to other credulous people to influence their behavior to go in a certain way.”

There were less than 20,000 Bolsheviks in Russia during the 1917 October revolution who managed to wrest hegemony and control over 200 million Russian citizens, adding credence to the adage that “the organized minority will beat out the unorganized mob every time.”

The communist conspiracy has many different channels of offerings, but it all works toward the same goal: world control.

The Communist Party

The original Communist Party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party—a group of revolutionaries led by Vladimir I. Lenin. (Bolshevik means “majority” in Russian.)

In 1919, the Communist International (Comintern for short), also known as the Third International, was initiated in Moscow. In the same year, the Communist Party USA was founded in the United States. The Comintern was an international communist organization whose goal was to fight “by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State.”

The Communist Party was established as a blueprint and framework for a future world government. Communist parties (sometimes referred to as the Labor Party or Socialist Labor Party) were established in every nation of the world. Communist parties established internationally were, in effect, skeletons for a future government, not a political party.

The party focuses on politics, economics, social issues—and is particularly interested in the educational systems, and in the cultural life of the people. The party concerns itself with the “morality of the people,” but only for the sake of expediency. The party makes it a point to be out front on any social ill or injustice. But strictly for the purpose of gaining control, and for the ear of the people.

Within the party, members are judged on their “ideological purity.” Mike Vanderboegh describes the levels of “purity” as follows:

“There are radishes, tomatoes and killer tomatoes. A radish (negative term) is a party member who is red on the outside but white on the inside. A tomato is a party member who is red through and through. But a killer tomato is a communist who is willing to pull the trigger.”

There really isn’t a lot of difference between a radical revolutionary and a religious zealot. (Note: I’m not disparaging religion, per se, but rather fanaticism.) A true revolutionary devotes themselves to the struggle much like a religious zealot devotes themselves to their religion. Marxian socialism is a religion in its own right—a faith, albeit one marked by fanatical, atheistic fervor. Nothing comes before the cause, i.e. “the struggle.” Nothing. The precepts of the Marxian faith are well spelled out in Cleon Skousen’s book The Naked Communist.

The Communist Movement

The purpose of the communist movement is to establish a social and ideological attitude that is pro-left. It comes to the people through very pleasing devices.

Communism in the U.S dates back to before and after the Civil War when Karl Marx visited the States. Marx lectured in New York City, Philadelphia and Boston. He even corresponded with the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The First International (First Comintern) was disbanded at the Philadelphia Conference in July 1876.

The Communist Movement on a worldwide basis does different things at different times. Communists will do everything they can to unleash confusion, chaos, depravity, perversion, conflict—parent vs. child, black vs. white, gay vs. straight, one religion vs. the other, man vs. woman, etc., etc.

Promising members within the Communist Party were often sent to Lenin’s Institute for Higher Learning, where they were taught such things as racial agitation, trade union building, every facet of Russian history (apparently the Russian communists are rather “patriotic,” cf. irony), small arms training and guerrilla tactics.

Inflaming minds on a racial and ethnic basis has proved to be one of the most effective tactics for the communists to divide people and create conflict. (Sound familiar?)

Gaining complete dominance over media, entertainment and educational systems (see Common Core) is of intense importance to the communists, for these institutions and power centers have proven to be the most effective way to divide the people and forward the party agenda.

Dr. Bella Dodd believed there weren’t but a dozen universities that deserved the name “university.” All the others were simply institutions of indoctrination, moving people in a direction the elites wanted them to go. The purpose of these indoctrination centers is to demoralize students, creating within them a feeling of alienation with everything and everyone around them, particularly with their biological families.

Communists strive to make people ashamed, dissatisfied and unhappy with their country, for they eschew the very notion of national sovereignty and patriotism, since communism employs “radical social change” to move the world toward a “classless, borderless” society. This is why communists often refer to themselves as “citizens of the world,” and not proud citizens of their respective countries. (By the way, Barack Obama considers himself a “citizen of the world.”)

While the press is willing to expose the horrific crimes of Adolf Hitler (and rightly so), they have steadfastly refused to report on the monstrous crimes committed by communist regimes, such as the former Soviet Union and Red China, where mass killings occurred on an industrial scale. The astonishing brutality and barbarism employed by communist regimes is unlike anything that has ever been seen in the history of humanity.

For example, according to Bella Dodd, in North Korea, a million men were transported to Inner Mongolia because the “Korean type” was not a “type” the communists wanted to procreate. The communists decided they were the ones who will decide which nation shall exist, and which “racial stock” should be promoted.

Dodd claims the same forces that moved Communist development also moved fascist development. Communism enthrones the proletariat, the common man. Fascism enthroned the state.

The communist movement is not one monolithic block, but operates under many labels, i.e. organizations. The communist theory of change revolves around creating conflict. This is born out of the theory of dialectical materialism that states all progress is brought about by conflict. They will often create an organization for the sole purpose of creating conflict. If there is no conflict, they engender conflict in order to move public opinion to the left, in the direction of communism. They will create a right in order have people oppose it so they will be pulled toward the left. This is the notion of “controlled opposition.” Vladimir Lenin once said, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”

From my own research into the origins of communist ideology, I have run up against some rather astonishing and incredibly disturbing claims and allegations. There is a real “heart of darkness” that lies at the center of all this. I can’t fully explain it at this point. I just don’t have enough verifiable and concrete information. But I have been coming to the rather startling conclusion that is something quite sinister that seems to be above communism itself.

In Cleon Skousen’s book The Naked Capitalist (1970), which is a critique of Dr. Carroll Quigly’s book Tragedy and Hope, Chapter One includes a rather sobering quote from Dr. Bella Dodd. When I first read the quote, I about fell out of my chair, because it corroborates a lot of related research I have done over the years. But I just didn’t want to believe it was true. It just seemed too incredible … like a bunch of crackpot nonsense. But I’m not so sure now. So, I’ll leave the reader with this excerpt from Chapter One of Skousen’s book, and the reader can make up their own mind.

“I think the Communist conspiracy is merely a branch of a much bigger conspiracy!”
The above statement was made to this reviewer [Cleon Skousen] several years ago by Dr. Bella Dodd, a former member of the National Committee of the U.S. Communist Party.
Perhaps this is an appropriate introduction to a review of Dr. Carroll Quigley’s book,
Tragedy And Hope.
Dr. Dodd said she first became aware of some mysterious super-leadership right after World War II when the U.S. Communist Party had difficulty getting instructions from Moscow on several vital matters requiring immediate attention. The American Communist hierarchy was told that any time they had an emergency of this kind they should contact any one of three designated persons at the Waldorf Towers. Dr. Dodd noted that whenever the Party obtained instructions from any of these three men, Moscow always ratified them.
What puzzled Dr. Dodd was the fact that not one of these three contacts was a Russian. Nor were any of them Communists. In fact, all three were extremely wealthy American capitalists!
Dr. Dodd said, “I would certainly like to find out who is really running things.”

Two double agents, a prison swap and code from outer space: did these spies save US-Cuba relations?

The Guardian

Jim Popkin 

“It’s like a time-lapse photo,” one US intelligence official says of Rolando Sarraff Trujillo’s guidance in helping multiple agencies unravel Cuban cryptography. Ana Montes will live behind bars until 2023. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion

From a maximum-security prison in Texas, former United States military analyst Ana Montes has been offering up bumper-sticker justifications for why she betrayed her country and spied on behalf of the Cuban government over the course of 17 years. “I believe that the morality of espionage is relative,” Montes wrote in a private letter to a friend last year. “The activity always betrays someone, and some observers will think that it is justified and others not, in every case.”

Montes had no idea how prophetic her words would be. While the 57-year-old American citizen remains locked up as one of the most damaging spies in US history, the Cuban-born spy who led American investigators to Montes was set free to worldwide applause last week, during a landmark thaw in US-Cuban relations. Several news outlets have since identified the Cuban double-agent as Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, and multiple US officials I’ve interviewed this past week have described him as a cryptographer whose code-breaking secrets have been the gift that keeps on giving to the CIA, NSA and FBI.

I have been following the Montes case for more than a decade, and profiled Montes and her family for the Washington Post Magazine last year. Despite extensive interviews with the officials who pursued her – and even access to a secret CIA profile of Montes – I never learned of the existence of the Cuban code geek who helped bring her down. On Wednesday, President Obama broke the news, hailing the Cuban double-agent as “one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba”.

As I retraced the colliding paths of these dueling spies, a senior Obama administration official revealed to me on Friday that the Cubans had never requested the release of Ana Montes – not a single time over 18 months of secret prisoner-swap negotiations. The once-revered Pentagon analyst known as the “Queen of Cuba” had been left behind, a fitting betrayal for a woman who made a career out of duplicity and deceit.

Then-CIA director George Tenet presented Montes with a certificate of distinction in 1997.

By the time Montes attended graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University in the early 1980s, her anti-authoritarian worldview was fully baked. It didn’t take long for her to meet a like-minded student who seemed eager for a friend. The gregarious grad student was, in fact, a Cuban talent scout who wanted “to facilitate the recruitment of Montes to serve as an agent of the Cuban Intelligence Service,” prosecutors divulged last year.

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In 1985, Montes would find herself on a clandestine trip to Cuba for operational training, and before long she had found work with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s major producer of foreign military intelligence. The Cubans “tried to appeal to my conviction that what I was doing was right,” Montes would later admit to investigators, in the first of many naïve assumptions that would come back to haunt her.

For the next 16 years, Montes feverishly worked two jobs, her star rising in Washington and Havana. By day she was a whip-smart analyst for the DIA. At night, she re-typed every top-secret document she could remember onto a Toshiba laptop provided by the Cuban intelligence service. Soon she was briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, and won a certificate of distinction from then-CIA Director George Tenet.

All the while, Montes was meeting handlers in Washington-area Chinese restaurants, and artfully slipping in and out of Cuba to debrief the island’s intelligence officers. As Cuban-American relations stalled, the Soviet-trained masters of deception taught Montes how to pass packages to agents innocuously, beat the lie detector and, importantly, retrieve coded messages in the privacy of her DC apartment.

Montes got her orders the Cold War way: through numeric messages transmitted anonymously over shortwave radio. Tres-cero-uno-cero-siete, dos-cuatro-seis-dos-cuatro, a haunting female voice would drone on into the night, cutting through the otherworldly static. Montes would key the digits into her laptop, and a Cuban-installed decryption program would convert the numbers into Spanish-language text.

It was a code almost from another universe, practically begging to be broken by an enemy not that far away.

When asked by the Guardian, spokespeople for the CIA, DNI and NSC would not confirm or deny if Roly Sarraff Trujillo is the unnamed Cuban released last week as part of one of the prisoner swaps that led to improved US-Cuban relations. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion

More than 1,000 miles south in Cuba, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo was making a name for himself, too. After graduating in 1990 from the University of Havana, the handsome father of one – known to friends as “Roly” – began work for Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI). According to an online biography posted by his family, Sarraff Trujillo was employed as a lowly journalist assisting the intelligence directorate. In reality, he was a skilled cryptographer helping to encrypt messages to and from Cuba’s far-flung network of spies, said Chris Simmons, a former chief of a Cuban counterintelligence unit in the DIA who helped investigate Montes. “He worked on agent communications,” Simmons told me.

But Roly Sarraff Trujillo did more than that – he was a one-man intelligence goldmine. As a cryptographer, Sarraff Trujillo understood precisely how Cuba communicated with agents in the field, chiefly through the same “numbers station” broadcasts that Montes picked up night after night on her store-bought Sony radio. “He gave up how the Cubans transmitted HF [high frequency] broadcasts,” Simmons said. “He revealed communications shortfalls” that the CIA could take advantage of.

As a backroom comms guy, Sarraff Trujillo likely did not know the true identities of the Americans working on Havana’s behalf, Montes included. But the technical data and mastery of Cuban cryptography keys that Sarraff Trujillo imparted to the CIA would guide and even supercharge Americans investigators’ efforts for more than a decade – inextricably linking him with his polar opposite in espionage, even as he helped to out her.

“It’s like a time-lapse photo ... a gradual process,” said one current US intelligence official of Sarraff Trujillo’s codebreaking breakthroughs.

Another US official with knowledge of the case told me that Sarraff Trujillo and two Cuban defectors working for the CIA provided computer records straight from Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence. “That data is a treasure trove of information about Cuban intelligence,” the second official told me.

That data is a treasure trove of information about Cuban intelligence.

From the records, the CIA was able to deduce how many agents the Cubans were running, their rough geographical locations and the command structure of the DI. Now American investigators knew where to look, and how to decipher encrypted messages sent to illegal agents hiding in the US.

US intelligence officials refuse to confirm or deny if Sarraff Trujillo is, in fact, the mystery Cuban released last week in exchange for three Cuban spies held in the United States along with, in a separate deal announced on the same morning as the expanded diplomatic relations, the imprisoned American contractor Alan Gross. Sarraff Trujillo’s sister, Vilma, declined comment in an email, as did spokespeople for the CIA, National Security Council and Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

But the DNI gave clues to Sarraff Trujillo’s identity by revealing on Wednesday that the man “has spent nearly 20 years in a Cuban prison due to his efforts on behalf of the United States”. The Cubans arrested Trujillo in November 1995, on espionage charges, meaning he’s been imprisoned for the last 19 years. US officials have told the New York Times, the Associated Press and other media outlets that Sarraff Trujillo was indeed the CIA’s man in Havana. “I know of all the Cubans on the list of people in jail and he is the only one who fits the description” of the unnamed asset in question, Simmons told Newsweek on Wednesday. “I am 99.9% sure that Roly is the guy.”

Ana Montes would tune this radio to a short-wave frequency and wait for a spy broadcast full of seemingly random numbers to begin. Roly Sarraff Trujillo helped US investigators crack the code.

In the years following Sarraff Trujillo’s arrest, American investigators began to methodically work their way towards Montes. Ironically, it was Ana’s own sister, Lucy, who would play a key role in helping the FBI identify and capture the Queen of Cuba.

It began with a Cuban spy ring based in Florida. More than a dozen members strong, the so-called Wasp Network was infiltrating Cuban exile organizations and US military sites in Florida. Armed with Sarraff Trujillo’s intelligence and aided by other tipsters, American officials were able to pinpoint key Wasp conspirators. The FBI’s Miami field office began searching their homes surreptitiously and uncovered secret “crypto keys” on their laptops that deciphered ongoing communications with Havana, a US official familiar with the case told me.

The Cubans fucked up. They used the crypto keys more than once.

The Cubans were supposed to change the crypto codes every six months, the official said, to minimize security risks. But they got careless. “The Cubans fucked up. They occasionally used the crypto keys more than once,” the official said.

By applying the crypto keys to older coded shortwave transmissions that the NSA routinely recorded, the FBI began to build a profile of a senior US official who was aiding the Cubans. FBI special agents now knew that their “UNSUB” – or unidentified subject – had high-level access to US intelligence on Cuba and had purchased a specific type of Toshiba laptop to communicate with Havana.

It was 1998, and Lucy Montes was working in Miami as an FBI language analyst who translated wiretaps and other sensitive communications. The FBI called on her to translate hours of wiretapped conversations of the Wasp spies. Although Ana presumably would have been proud to learn that her sister had helped expose a Cuban spy ring, Lucy knew from years of frustrating trial and error that Ana refused to discuss her career. Ever. Lucy never even brought it up.

With the Wasp arrests, Ana’s handlers pulled back and assessed the fallout. Ana was alone, and she was scared – with good reason.

By September 2000, Chris Simmons learned from a fellow intelligence officer that the FBI was having difficulty identifying an UNSUB spying for the Cubans. Simmons shared the tip with Scott Carmichael, a “mole hunter” whose job it was to ferret our spies and other security risks within the DIA. Carmichael and a colleague began inputting some of the FBI’s closely held clues into their employee databases. After scanning through a hundred possible employee matches, a name popped up. Except this name came from deep within the bureaucracy: ANA BELEN MONTES.

Following months of investigative scrutiny, the FBI put a tail on Montes. They videotaped her making suspicious calls on pay phones, even though she carried a cellphone. They gained access to her banking accounts, through the use of a national security letter, and learned that Montes had applied for a line of credit in 1996 at CompUSA. Her purchase? The same model of Toshiba laptop that had been referenced in the coded Cuban communications that Sarraff Trujillo knew so much about.

Once FBI black-bag operatives searched Montes’s apartment and discovered a Sony shortwave radio and Toshiba laptop, it was all over. The hard drive, which Montes had tried to wipe clean, included instructions on how to translate Cuban high-frequency broadcasts. One file mentioned the true last name of a US intelligence officer operating undercover in Cuba. Montes had revealed the agent’s identity, and her Cuban intelligence officer thanked her in writing: “We were waiting here for him with open arms.”

The Cubans “tried to appeal to my conviction that what I was doing was right,” Montes would admit to investigators. “There’s nothing to be admired,” her sister says. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion

After pleading guilty to espionage, Montes told her CIA debriefers she felt she had a duty to protect Cuba from its neighbor up north. “All the world is one country,” she said. “In such a world-country, the principle of loving one’s neighbor as much as oneself seems to me to be the essential guide to harmonious relations.”

But despite last week’s détente between the United States and Cuba, it’s hard to imagine that the events Montes and Sarraff Trujillo set into motion more than two decades ago will amount to any kind of lasting harmony. One current US intelligence official predicted last week, as the White House was declaring a man who sounded a lot like Roly Sarraff Trujillo “a legitimate hero”, that the opening of embassies in Havana and Washington will simply make spying more convenient – with each nation’s spies more abundant and easier to follow.

“You still have an intelligence service, and we still have an intelligence service,” he told me. “It won’t be a sudden change of heart for either side.”

Telequinesis coital y Gitmo

la sapiencia popular sentencio aquello que "secretico en reunion es mala educacion", pero esta gentuza se pasa por los overocos la opinion publica ciudadana y la transforman de conciencia critica social en objeto de manipulacion. varias son las clausulas secretas del pacto que se iran develando como el que no quiere la cosa. luego de la telequinesis coital autorizada del gerardito con adrianita o de ella con el, sobre el que levita -entre otros quizas- el ghost del infeliz aquel a cargo de su atencion en cierta epoca y que voluntariamente se reventara la cabeza contra la acera en caida libre desde el piso 14 del edificio de linea y A, porque eso de mariquitas y tarruos es pasatiempo publicitario de la infanta marielita castro, pero defenestrados para los cojonudos guerrileros geriatricos.

y gitmo no puede faltar en la agenda por revelar.

es un viejo sueno compartido por los brothers y el califa. en lo que va del mes de diciembre este ultimo mando a 6 terroristas para uruguay, donde el godfather guerrillero de mujica les brindo proteccion humanitaria con todos los gastos pagados y libre circulacion nacional e internacional y gustoso espera a otros; mientras tanto 4 aterrizaron en kabul. de los 132 restantes, 63 tienen aprobados sus traslados y en el caso de otros 59 se esta evaluando. quedarian 10  con cargos o cumpliendo sentencias que seran levantados o cambiados por asuntos si importancia y definitivamente devueltos a casa o a la capital que mas les plazca.

entonces, con los recortes al presupuesto de defensa andando, para que quiere el imperio una base militar en cuba, si esta no representa ningun peligro militar ni geoestrategico -putin por donde va y su complejo de tipo duro en cualquier momento se pone a vender hielo siberiano derretido como agua potable-, maxime ahora que somos pangas?: cambiarsela a raulito por 11.2 millones de vasitos de leche.
la operacion patty candela 2 esta en marcha, asi que en mayami que vayan levantando el protestodromo. estan avisados.

Sarah Palin: Light a Candle for Cuban Freedom Fighters

The Sarah Palin Channel

Breitbart

By Tony Lee

On Monday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin urged Americans to light a candle and put it in their windows this Christmas eve to show solidarity with Cubans who are still fighting for their freedom and human rights.
Palin accused under President Barack Obama of emboldening the oppressive Castro regime with his announcement last week that the two countries will begin to ease its relations.
“I am so ashamed with what the Obama administration has done to Cuban people. I do not support it,” Palin, speaking in front of a lit candle, says in a video that will be seen on The Sarah Palin Channel. “This Christmas eve, I intend to light a candle and put it in my window to show my solidarity with every brave Cuban fighting for freedom and every political dissident languishing in Castro’s prisons.
“I encourage you to do the same. Let’s join together in this. Let’s show them that the light of freedom shall never be extinguished.”
Palin is taking a page out of President Ronald Reagan’s playbook. In 1981, Reagan addressed Americans and asked them to light a candle to support Polish freedom fighters against the oppressive Soviet Union.
After the Soviet Union declared martial law in Poland in 1981, former Polish Ambassador Romuald Spasowski defected and was granted asylum in the United States. In a meeting with Reagan, Spasowski asked if Reagan would light a candle and put it in his window for the people of Poland.
Reagan, Palin says, “did him one better” with a televised address in which Reagan urged every American to light a candle for the people of Poland so the millions of candles can give notice that the light of freedom won’t be extinguished.
“Once, earlier in this century, an evil influence threatened that the lights were going out all over the world. Let the light of millions of candles in American homes give notice that the light of freedom is not going to be extinguished,” Reagan told Americans then. “We are blessed with a freedom and abundance denied to so many. Let those candles remind us that these blessings bring with them a solid obligation, an obligation to the God who guides us, an obligation to the heritage of liberty and dignity handed down to us by our forefathers and an obligation to the children of the world, whose future will be shaped by the way we live our lives today.
“Christmas means so much because of one special child. But Christmas also reminds us that all children are special, that they are gifts from God, gifts beyond price that mean more than any presents money can buy. In their love and laughter, in our hopes for their future lies the true meaning of Christmas.”
Palin said Obama’s actions on Cuba reminded her of how Ronald Reagan dealt with communists. She referenced Stephen K. Bannon’s In The Face of Evil documentary, which Palin said was one of her “favorite documentaries about President Reagan.” It is clear that Obama has probably neither seen it nor learned its lessons.
Reagan, Palin says, rejected the notion that the Soviet Union was here to stay and Americans “had to get used to it” and pretend there was some type of moral equivalency.
Palin contrasted Reagan’s “moral clarity” during the Cold War against the Soviet Union with Obama’s recent appeasement on Cuba. She mentioned that Reagan knew that the Soviet Union’s economic model was “a total failure” but did not collapse only because the Soviets were able to manipulate Americans into propping it up with grain deals and technology exchanges. She blamed “naive diplomats” and “Wall Street greed” for combining to “prop up the most repressive regime in human history” that “would have crumbled so much sooner under the weight of its own incompetence if it were not for” the policies of appeasement.
Reagan, Palin notes, had the “moral clarity” to call the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and declare that his strategy for the Cold War was simply, “we win, they lose.”
When Reagan supported Lech Walesa and the shipyard workers in Poland who were demanding basic human rights and freedom, it was a pebble that would start an avalanche, Palin says. Reagan’s gestures were not “empty” and “symbolic” because he “gave assistance behind the scenes to the freedom fighters,” and that is how Reagan won the Cold War.
Palin urged viewers to contrast Reagan’s moral clarity with Obama’s decision to “spit in the face of every human rights activist in Cuba.” She said Obama’s decision to reverse U.S. policy toward Cuba “enriched their oppressors and sanctioned their abuse.” She said that “greedy crony capitalists are propping up a failing Communist regime” in Cuba, and Obama just gave the “Castro regime the hard currency and the economic boost to remain in power forever.”
Palin said it is “ludicrous” to think that Cubans will enjoy democracy and human rights because corporations can sell products there.
“Ask human rights activists in China how that’s working for them,” Palin said, noting that the Cuban government will pocket 92% of wages of their workers to empower the apparatus that controls them.
She ultimately accused Obama of giving “away all of our leverage to fight for human rights” and betraying “the people who are courageously putting their lives on the line fighting for freedom.” She even said Obama was “spitting in the face of every human rights activist on the globe” before asking Americans to light candles to support the Cuban freedom fighters that the Obama administration betrayed.

How Investors Can Cash In on Cuba

DailyFinance

Rick Aristotle Munarriz

After President Barack Obama last week proposed to relax trading restrictions with Cuba, the subject has been stirring plenty of debate on both sides of the political decision -- but investors know that they simply have to follow the money for a shot at success. There will be plenty of opportunities to make money if the decades-long embargo is effectively lifted, easing trade and travel between the U.S. and the island nation.

The knee-jerk reaction was for investors to bid up shares of The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund (CUBA), a closed-end fund that was created two decades ago to benefit from either a free Cuba or at least one where restrictions are relaxed. The problem there is that the lightly traded fund is now worth a lot more than the value of its underlying assets.

Herzfeld's fund closed last week at $11.67, even though the total value of its stocks clocked in with a net asset value of just $8.21 as of Thursday's close. That's an insane premium. Do the right thing, and avoid chasing that fund higher. It has these spikes whenever there's a whiff of change in Cuba, and ultimately it trades back down below its net asset value. Besides, as an investor you can buy into the same stocks the fund owns at market price and without the fund's management fees. Let's go over a few of the stocks that are well positioned to make the most of the loosening of restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba.

Bon Voyage

It probably isn't a surprise that the biggest industry concentration for The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund is the cruise line sector. Carnival (CCL), Royal Caribbean (RCL), Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCLH), and cruise ship spa operator Steiner Leisure (STNR) combine to make up nearly 15 percent of the fund's portfolio.

It's easy to see the appeal of the leading cruise lines. Cuba will make a no-brainer port-of-call for Caribbean-based sailings, and all three lines rely heavily on sailings that originate in Florida. Cuba's hotels, restaurants and customer service aren't exactly up to snuff with American standards, making cruise ships a more logical way to experience the island until it builds out its infrastructure and retrains its workforce.

It's not the only way to cash in on sea travel to the country, however. After all, for an island, imports and exports typically travel by water. Seaboard (SEB) and Copa Holdings (CPA) are two of the fund's three biggest holdings, and it's easy to see why. Copa Holdings is a leading provider of passenger and cargo services through Latin America. Seaboard has a strong ocean transportation business, but it also stands to benefit from other operations, including commodity merchandising, grain processing, sugar production, pork processing and electric power generation.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Getting tourists and goods in and out of the island will be huge, but let's not forget about the investments in infrastructure. Cuba is, in many ways, an island lost in time. Buildings and amenities need to be modernized. Roads need to be repaved.

Mexican cement producer Cemex (CX), South Florida homebuilder Lennar (LEN), and underground utility contractor MasTec (MTZ) are among the fund's largest holdings. It should be pointed out that MasTec gets its name from the now deceased Jorge Mas Canosa, the founder of the Miami-based Cuban-American National Foundation and the person that many Cuban exiles figured would usher in the era of a democratic Cuba after Fidel Castro's passing. MasTec is run by his three sons.

There will also be plenty of leisure and banking plays as Cuba's impoverished state improves with the flow of trade and tourism, but that will take time to play out. Sticking to cruise lines and the nearby infrastructure providers as the initial beneficiaries is what investors wanting to cash in on the movement should do with their money for now.

WSJ: Who Would Benefit if the Cuban Embargo is Lifted?

capitolhillcubans

By Mary Anastasia O'Grady in The Wall Street Journal:

Who Benefits if the Embargo Is Lifted?

The Castros already welcome foreign trade and investment. Fat lot of good it’s done for Cubans.

On a trip to Havana in the late 1990s, I toured the restoration of a 17th century convent with a Cuban architect. He told me the project was having trouble getting replacement floor tiles because of the U.S. embargo. I smiled and told him there was no blockade of the island and that the tiles could be sourced in Mexico. He grinned back at me.

“Well, OK,” he said. “The real problem is that we don’t have any money to buy them.”

Cubans are programmed from an early age to complain to anyone who will listen that “el bloqueo” is the cause of the island’s dire poverty. They know it’s a lie. But obediently repeating it is a survival skill. It raises the odds that the demented dictator won’t suspect you of having counterrevolutionary thoughts, boot you from your job, kick your children out of school and haul you off to jail.

President Obama appeared to be trying to prove his own revolutionary bona fides when he announced on Wednesday new diplomatic relations with the military dictatorship and plans to make it easier for Americans to travel to the island and engage in commerce with Cubans. He repeatedly linked the isolation of the Cuban people to U.S. policy, as the regime teaches Cuban children to do. He complained that the embargo strives to keep “Cuba closed off from an interconnected world.” In a reference to the limited access that Cubans have to telecommunications, he said “our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe.”

Even the humblest Cuban peasant would split his sides laughing if he heard those statements, which none did because they do not have access to anything other than Cuban state television—speaking of isolation. Cubans know that the island is not isolated from foreigners. According to Cuban statistics in 2013 there were 2.85 million visitors to the island of 11 million inhabitants. These included European, Chinese, Latin American, Canadian and American tourists and investors. In the first six months of this year, according to The Havana Consulting Group, there were 327,000 visitors to Cuba from the U.S.

The isolation (news flash Rand Paul) is caused by the police state, which controls and surveils foreigners’ movements, herding most visitors into resort enclaves. Foreign journalists who vocally oppose the Communist Party line are not allowed into the country.

More visitors won’t do anything to reduce Cuban poverty. The regime pockets the hard currency that they leave behind and pays workers in worthless pesos. Foreigners who decide to reward good workers without state approval can face prison.

It’s true that the Cuban people lack access to technology, but Mr. Obama’s suggestion that it is because of the embargo is a howler. Carlos Slim , the Mexican telecom monopolist and global player; Telefónica , the Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider; Vietnam’s Natcom; Ireland’s Digicel and countless other companies can do business on the island. But they can’t provide Internet access in homes because the state prohibits it.

U.S. telecom companies are lobbying Washington to be able to do business with the dictator. So to peddle the idea to the rest of us, Mr. Obama claims that this small, backward Caribbean country is a huge untapped export market. Question: How come the likes of Mexico and Spain haven’t flooded the virgin paradise for capitalists and turbocharged the Cuban middle class? Maybe because a couple of hoodlums have rigged the game. They decide who and what enters the country, treat Cubans like slaves, and arbitrarily jail foreign entrepreneurs and take property when it suits them.

Some delusional pro-market pundits think the anti-market Mr. Obama is suddenly pushing their ideas in Cuba. Mr. Obama wants us to believe that when Americans do business in Cuba, Cubans will be empowered. Funny that he didn’t feel that way about helping democratic Colombia when its U.S. free-trade agreement was up for ratification. Back then the White House was fretting about Colombian workers’ rights. Now, well, never mind.

The Castros are in full-blown panic mode because Venezuela, which has been their financial lifeline for 15 years, is broke. The last time things were this bad, when Soviet subsidies dried up in the early 1990s and the regime ran out of money, Castro introduced the “special period.”

Cubans were permitted to run restaurants in their homes, operate taxis and provide other services to foreigners and locals. As entrepreneurship blossomed, the state began to lose the absolute control it had relied on since 1959. Fidel clamped down as soon as Cuba stabilized.

Now the gangsters are again on the ropes. If they can up the number of U.S. travelers to the island and later wrangle multilateral funding now blocked by the U.S., they might squeeze by. But if not, the dictatorship is likely to come unglued, which raises the question of just who Mr. Obama is trying to help by stepping in now.

Obama’s Faulty Logic on Cuba

capitolhillcubans

By Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post:

Obama’s faulty logic on Cuba

The most revealing sentence in President Obama’s explanation of his radical revision of U.S. Cuba policy last week was his admonition to Americans, and Cubans, that they should not seek the “collapse” of the Castro regime. “Even if that worked,” the president asserted, “we know from hard-earned experience that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos.”

Embedded in that short remark is the essential logic behind Obama’s decision to lift — or seek to lift — all U.S. sanctions on Cuba without requiring the “significant steps towards democracy” he once said would be needed for such a normalization. It is also the organizing principle of much of his foreign policy. If regime collapse is not a desirable outcome in Cuba — or, for that matter, in Syria, Iran and other dictatorships — it follows that the correct policy is U.S. “engagement” or “direct diplomacy” with such regimes, aimed not at overturning them but at gradually nudging them toward more civilized behavior.

The no-chaos rule explains why Obama would have declined to support the 2009 Green Movement in Iran while dispatching letters to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offering detente. It lies behind his refusal to provide decisive support to Syrian rebels, instead seeking a negotiated solution with the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And it answers those who wonder why he would provide what amounts to a bailout to the Castros just as they were facing the twin threats of losing Venezuelan oil subsidies and mounting popular pressure for basic freedoms.

Obama cited “hard-earned experience” for his nostrum, and he’s certainly had some he can point to: Libya, Iraq or Egypt, where the overthrow of regimes led to counterrevolution or civil war. The president, however, articulated his ideology before he took office — and the failures on his watch stem in part from his own reluctance to vigorously support democratic transitions.

They also don’t negate two historical facts: A large number of successful democracies have grown out of regime collapse; and U.S. “engagement” with Stalinist-style totalitarian regimes, such as Cuba, has never produced such a transition.

Obama’s chaos theory won’t make much sense to former citizens of East Germany, who last month celebrated the 25th anniversary of the sudden collapse of their regime — and the Berlin Wall. Nor to Romanians, who a month later lived through bloody anarchy in the streets of Bucharest and Timisoara as the Stalinist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu imploded — and for the past two decades have built a peaceful and increasingly prosperous democracy.

As a visiting journalist I witnessed the havoc wreaked on Jakarta in 1998 when the Suharto dictatorship abruptly collapsed and mobs looted the capital. Indonesia shortly thereafter became the world’s largest majority Muslim democracy, and it remains so nearly 17 years later.

It’s easy to go on: the Philippines in 1987; Serbia in 2000; Georgia in 2003. People took to the streets; regimes quickly collapsed; “chaos” ensued for a time; and the result was an enduring transition to democracy. U.S. “engagement” with dictatorships, on the other hand, has a much thinner record of results — and none in the former Soviet Bloc.

Authoritarian leaders themselves, from the Castros to Egypt’s generals to China’s first secretaries, routinely offer a version of Obama’s argument — that the alternative to them is chaos — as reason for dodging the liberalizing steps Washington urges. Governments such those in China and Vietnam have proved far more adept than U.S. policymakers anticipated in pocketing the profits of U.S. investment and trade while preventing political liberalization.

Cooperating with such regimes yields other goods, of course. The opening to China has helped produce the largest reduction of poverty in history. Dictatorships in the Middle East offer bases for the U.S. military, not to mention oil supplies. While Cuba has little value in strategic terms, detente with Havana will remove an irritant from U.S. relations with more important countries, like Brazil. And though Obama didn’t say so, a Castro collapse could have unpleasant short-term consequences for the United States, such as a massive flow of refugees.

It’s possible, in short, to articulate a rationale for engaging with regimes like Cuba’s. Contrary to Obama’s rhetoric, however, it is a policy that reduces the possibility of near-term democratization in favor of economic benefits and geopolitical stability. China is a country where the gains from such a strategy outweigh the costs, particularly as U.S. leverage to bring about political change is limited. In Cuba the calculus is different: The economic benefits of engagement are minor, while the possibility that continued sanctions could be used to engineer regime change — or at least meaningful political concessions — is far greater.

Obama, of course, can make the case for appeasing the Castros. But his claim that Cubans should not hope for their collapse as a route to freedom is not only patronizing; it’s wrong.

Inversiones norteamericanas en Cuba: Pasta dentrifica e indigencia akademica concreta

elrincondelacienciaytecnologia.blogspot.com

la akademia experta que nunca prevee ni pronostica, sino que actua reactiva y tardiamente, mete la pata por ansia protagonista, cuando lo prudente y sensato seria informarse previamente de lo que no sabe. entonces surge un panel que dictamina como una bula papal que:  «No habrá inversión masiva de empresas norteamericanas en Cuba»

mauricio, en cuba operan numerosas sucursales de bancos extranjeros de 1er y 2do nivel. por otra parte un mercado potencial de 11.2 millones con necesidades acumuladas por decadas aunque ciertamente de bajo poder adquisitivo [pero con demanda creciente for fuentes externas e internas], le segrega los jugos gastricos hasta a don slim. los problemas son otros.

azel, en la mayoria de los paises y en todos los desarrollados, los gobiernos centrales promueven el comercio internacional mediante fondos de estimulos central e incluso territorialmente establecidos, que permiten asegurar contra riesgos las inversiones y exportaciones de empresarios nativos con esos recursos gubernamentales. cuando se ha afirmado que al armenio-canadiense cy tokmakjian le tumbaron $100 millones en cuba, realmente se los esquilmaron a los contribuyentes canadienses a traves del "acercamiento constructivo" ya clasico de los gobiernos centrales del pais nordico. si la kraft foods no puede descontar la carta de credito del banco central de la rinconada, su ceo, la mrs blecker, se vira contra el U.S Trade Development Agency Grants   http://www.export.gov/finance/eg_main_018099.asp, u otro creado oportuna y especificamente para cuba por encargo del mr. president a cuenta del taxpayers money y asunto resuelto. 

en estos asunto ocurre como la pasta dentrifica. cuando empieza a salir no hay manera de devolverla a dentro del tubo. 

Los padres de Sarraff, el supuesto topo de EE.UU. en Cuba, fueron agentes de la inteligencia cubana

y esta fotico no es del parqueo de coppelia, estarian de visita en espana o jayalia? pobres viejitos.

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

ABC.es

Carmen Muñoz

facebook katia sarraff

Odesa Trujillo y Rolando Sarraff Elías, los padres del preso político en paradero desconocido

Los padres de Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, el supuesto agente doble que Estados Unidos intercambió la semana pasada por tres espías cubanos, fueron agentes de la Dirección de Inteligencia del Ministerio del Interior de Cuba hasta que se jubilaron. Tanto Odesa Trujillo como el teniente coronel Rolando Sarraff Elías estudiaron en una escuela selecta del KGB para agentes especiales cubanos, según ha podido saber ABC de varias fuentes de la inteligencia cubana que desertaron en EE.UU. Uno de estos portavoces se formó en el mismo centro de Moscú.

Los familiares del teniente Sarraff, detenido en 1995 y condenado a 25 años por espionaje, han asegurado desconocer el paradero de su hijo desde que lo visitaron hace justo una semana en Villa Marista, el cuartel general de la Seguridad del Estado en La Habana. «Ha sido trasladado, y no para mal», fue la única explicación que recibieron de sus carceleros, según un portavoz de la disidencia interna.

«Es un hombre extraordinario con quien se han violado todos los derechos humanos»

Varios medios estadounidenses identificaron a Rolando Sarraff como el supuesto espía cubano descrito por Barack Obama como «uno de los activos de inteligencia más importantes que EE.UU. haya tenido jamás en Cuba». Sarraff, de 51 años, habría proporcionado a la CIA información clave para detener en 1998 a la llamada Red Avispa, de la que formaban parte «Los Cinco», así como a la agente Ana Belén Montes. Antes de su detención, en noviembre de 1995, Rolando estaba destinado en el departamento de criptografía de la Dirección de Inteligencia y era experto en los códigos utilizados por los espías cubanos en Estados Unidos para comunicarse con el régimen de La Habana. En ese momento estaba casado, tenía 32 años y un hijo pequeño.

Mientras todos los indicios apuntan a que ya se encuentra en territorio estadounidense -se afirma incluso que viajó en el mismo avión que el contratista preso durante cinco años Alan Gross- el hecho de que el supuesto agente doble no haya salido a la luz pública es «normal». «Además de los exámenes médicos, en estos casos existe un tiempo de entrevistas ("debriefing") para conocer muchos detalles que solo él conoce, como quien lo delató, así como otras informaciones que él sabía, que nunca pudo entregar y que posiblemente aún serían útiles», agregó uno de los exagentes cubanos.

«No es tan importante»

Sin embargo, Sarraff también podría no tener la importancia que le atribuyen: «Lo utilizaron como moneda de cambio para poder excarcelar a los tres últimos espías de la Red Avispa; no era de recibo cambiarlos solo por Alan Gross», destacaron las fuentes consultadas.

Tanto su familia como los activistas de derechos humanos han asegurado desconocer el supuesto pasado de agente doble de Rolando Sarraff, quien ha permanecido aislado la mayor parte de los diecinueve años de reclusión y siempre ha mantenido su inocencia. La Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional lo había incluido en su lista de presos políticos. El Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos había planteado su caso ante Naciones Unidas.

En España desde hace años

Su hermana Vilma Sarraff, que reside en Tarancón (Cuenca), explicó este domingo a ABC que las informaciones sobre su doble vida «son fantasía, la única persona que puede decir si es cierto o no es el propio Roli». Para esta bióloga, casada con un español y que se dedica al turismo, su hermano siempre ha sido «un hombre extraordinario, de gran formación y cultura, que no quiere protagonismos y con quien se han violado todos los derechos humanos».

Tanto Vilma como la pequeña de esta familia de abuelos libaneses, Katia, han sido muy activas para lograr la liberación de Rolando. Viven en España desde hace 20 y 16 años, respectivamente. Katia Sarraff es médico y se ha establecido en Palma de Mallorca. Los cinco miembros de la familia estudiaron en la Universidad de La Habana. Sus padres y Rolando hicieron Periodismo. Sarraff Elías llegó a ser corresponsal de Prensa Latina. Mientras espera inquieta sus noticias, Vilma Sarraff afirma que «me da lo mismo lo que sea Rolando, siempre será el hombre de mirada limpia de ojos azules que yo quiero y que se merece estar libre».

"You are so beautiful" - Fallecio Joe Cocker

Ricardo Ruiz

Leer en EL MUNDO >>

Reformas economicas en Cuba: El "Bruto" Valor Agregado de Marino Murillo

Marino Murillo con su tropa en el salto del Hanabanilla/ Mas fotos en cubaaldescubierto.com

leo que el cebado marino murillo jorge que hace de miembro del buro politico, vicepresidente del consejo de ministros, miembro del consejo de estado, ministro de economia y planificacion y jefe de la comisión permanente para la implementación y desarrollo "...comentó que para la retribución salarial asociada a los sistemas de rendimiento en el sector empresarial, el indicador fundamental será el gasto del salario por peso de Valor Agregado Bruto (VAB)". 

http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2014-12-19/presupuesto-del-estado-con-los-pies-en-la-tierra

la resena del granma no aclara -cosa rara- si sera solo un indicador analitico o si ademas se calculara el salario por el valor agregado bruto.

18 anos antes del aporte murillon [1996], se implanto en una empresa nacional de transporte de cargas con el pretexto de ser la primera entidad civil en realizar el perfeccionamiento empresarial y contando con el respaldo conspirativo de un burocrata entendido en los asuntos, un sistema de pago por rendimientos basado en el valor agregado NETO, que abarco a choferes, mecanicos, despachadores y hasta los comerciales y que brindo excelentes resultados en una empresa que iba a ser desintegrada por ineficiencia, incluso en aquella epoca cuando todo el mundo estaba safe y que paso a convertirse en apenas un ano, en una de las 3 empresas mas eficientes del pais. cierto que todos los "factores" ministeriales y politicos que debian aprobar el proyecto estaban en contra y solo la intervencion de un viceministro academicamente eminente, quien comentara que habia que darle un voto de confianza porque ese era el sistema que empleaba la toyota en sus plantas en japon.
pero donde el murillon que oye truenos y escucha campanadas se troca, es que el valor agregado bruto contiene la depreciacion contaminando con ello el nuevo valor creado, por lo que hay que deducirla para el calculo y arribar al valor agregado NETO. no fuera tan grave si en cuba hubiese una reposicion del capital fijo normal, sino que me atreveria a afirmar que arriba del 80% del capital fijo tiene muy poco valor residual [fisico y tecnologico, sin contar los errores contables y las reevaluaciones de activos que se hacen a ojo de buen cubero y no por el monto de la reparacion o renovacion que restituye la vida util del bien], mientras las restantes son inversiones menores a 10 anos o sin madurar como es el caso de la billonaria realizada en la zona especial de desarrollo de puerto mariel. entonces esto introduce ademas una distorsion en la determinacion de los coeficientes a aplicar por puesto de trabajo, que no se corresponde realmente con el nuevo valor creado por la fuerza laboral empleada.
el esfuerzo organizativo y la calidad de los registros de los hechos primarios no puede ser menos que impecable [ya sabemos por boca de la propia contralora general que el 89% de las empresas cubanas tienen una contabilidad evaluada de regular o deficiente], pues cualquier dedito mal metido o papelito de mas o extraviado, provoca aberraciones dificilmente subsanables en el moropo de la gente que piensa por el bolsillo. en las condiciones cubanas habria que tener un puesto de mando independiente que permanentemente revisara papelito por papelito y luego de tirada la prenomina y revisarla y revisarla nombre a nombre contra reportes de viajes, tarifas, consumos de combustible y partes y piezas, disponibilidad tecnica por vehiculo que da el taller y un larguisimo etc. no por gusto solo la toyota japonesa con la disciplina samurai y la entrega kamikaze, continua siendo hasta lo que se conoce, la unica empresa mundial que aplica este sistema. entonces va el murillon y le explica a raul que eso si garantiza el respaldo productivo del salario y, el aspirante eterno a locutor que no tiene o no quiere escuchar otra cosa que no sea el telefonito directo de la white house y sabiendo que si no funciona pone al cabeza de puerco de primero en el matadero, aunque de hecho ya este tocando la puerta. entonces ve y explicaselo al economico de la constructora integral de las tunas o al del complejo arrocero de los palacios y cuando te pregunten como le paga a los "negros" cuando el partido o tropas moviliza a la gente pa' dar palos o pa' una movilizacion, o no arriben de acuerdo al flujo tecnologico-productivo las materias primas y materiales, o se produzca un apagon, o  falte el tornillo de rosca zurda varado en el puerto de halifax por una carta de credito sin fondos, dile a cajas destempladas que es un kuadro y, que resuelva!