"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Meridian Hill Park protest site in Washington DC on June 5, 2021
GardaWorld, Montreal, Canada based privately owned security services company, reported on the June 5th protest at Meridian Hill Park and outside Embassy of Cuba in Washington, DC and warned of possible "localized disruptions" by "activists affiliated with the San Isidro Movement (Movimiento San Isidro) and other civil society groups."
Activists and artists preparing for march to the Cuban Embassy
Stations were set up to make protest posters, banners, and taking pictures behind a mock up of a Cuban prison that said that "I am also a political prisoner."
The protest that began at Meridian Hill Park continued down the street to the Cuban Embassy at 7:00pm and continued through 9:00pm.
Activists gathered across the street from the Cuban embassy with banners of political prisoners, and played Cuban songs of freedom.
Cubanos frente a la embajada castrista en Washington. Foto: Captura
Images of political prisoners were projected on the side of the Embassy
along with short videos of Cuban artists. One of them, Paquito D'Rivera
said: "I cannot be there physically, but my heart is next to you.Supporting those people who are fighting hard because one day we can finally achieve freedom for our country."
Latest updates on the story, and brief overview of Cuban diplomacy post-1959
Damage to column and Jose Marti statue at the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC
Thursday, April 30 at 2:00am a man wielding an AK-47 fired three dozen rounds into the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC. Embassy officials confirmed that no one was harmed, but there was some damage to the building.
SUV driven by the alleged shooter.
D.C. police arrested the man on the scene and a day later we learned that the individual, Alexander Alazo, 42, of Aubrey, Texas "had been living in his car and moving from state to state for
several months." Officials said that he "drove to Washington on Wednesday to target the Cuban
Embassy 'because he wanted to get them before they got him, referring to
the Cuban government, for the constant threats from the organized Cuban
criminal organization,' according to court papers."
Police "believe he had been sleeping at rest stops and in parking lots for at least nine months" and was "off his meds."
The Castro regime has tried to exploit this tragic episode by blaming U.S. Cuba policy and Castro's foreign minister pointed out "the responsibility of States to protect diplomats accredited to them and their facilities." The Center for a Free Cuba pointed out that the assailant had been arrested on the same day as the attack, but that the "scores of diplomats harmed since 2016" in Havana and was "still not cleared up."
Individual in custody within hours of the attack in which no diplomats were harmed. Meanwhile at US embassy in Cuba scores of diplomats harmed since 2016 and still not cleared up. What was that about “the responsibility of States to protect diplomats”? https://t.co/pS8DGLrbDD
Regime apologists began to tweet away that the attacks had never
happened, that they were psychosomatic, and a long series of unhelpful
talking points echoing the Castro regime's unhelpful response since
2016. The mystery surrounding the harm done to Canadian and U.S. diplomats remains unsolved.
Castro regime officials are calling the attack an act of terrorism and one of the dictatorship's diplomats based in New York City, Alejandro González Behmaras, posted a tweet denouncing the "act of terrorism" and the claim that "terrorism has never frightened Cuban diplomats!"
Last night's shooting against #Cuban Embassy in Washington is an act of terrorism. But terrorism has never frightened Cuban diplomats! We will continue to perform our duties on behalf of the noble people we have the honor to represent #SomosCuba#SomosContinuidadpic.twitter.com/tWiWRv5RuC
— Alejandro González Behmaras (@Behmaras1) May 1, 2020
Ambassador González Behmaras, who undiplomatically participated in the disruption of an event discussing the plight of political prisoners in Cuba on October 16, 2018, fails to mention that this lack of fear is due to the Castro regime viewing and promoting terrorism as a legitimate tactic.
Ambassador González Behmaras disrupts event on Cuban political prisoners
The Castro regime has explicitly viewed terrorism as a legitimate tactic to advance its revolutionary objectives. In 1970 the Cuban
government published the "Mini Manual for Revolutionaries" in the
official Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO) publication
Tricontinental and translated it into many languages, written by Brazilian urban terrorist Carlos Marighella,
which gives precise instructions in terror tactics, kidnappings, etc.
and translated into numerous languages which were distributed worldwide
by the Cuban dictatorship. There is a chapter on terrorism that declares, "Terrorism is a weapon the revolutionary can never
relinquish." This manual is still circulating today.
The Cuban dictatorship has trained terrorists that targeted the United States and other countries in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s with acts of violence with the objective of altering political behavior. John Hoyt Williams in a 1988 article in The Atlantic reported:
"In the Arab world some 3,000 [Cuban advisers] can be found in Libya
and Algeria, among other things training terrorists and Polisario
guerrillas."
State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on September 19, 2019 reported that "two
members of Cuba’s UN mission engaged in activities harmful to U.S.
national security, we asked them to leave the U.S. Members of Cuba’s UN
mission are also restricted to stay in Manhattan. We take any and all
attempts against the National Security of the U.S. seriously."
Nevertheless, this does not excuse violence carried out against the Cuban Embassy or against Cuban diplomats, but it does call for governments hosting a Cuban diplomatic delegation to be vigilant and aware of their past bad acts. The Free Cuba Foundation condemned the attack on the Cuban embassy, but at the same time recalled the past bad actions of Cuban diplomats.
We condemn the attack on the Cuban Embassy while at the same time recognizing its problematic history as a center of espionage, and past attacks by embassy staff against non-violent protesters . https://t.co/BLcT5OmZQT
We look forward to the day that the Cuban diplomatic corps return to the professionalism and democratic convictions of past great diplomats such as Willy De Blanc,Guy Pérez-Cisneros and Ernesto Dihigo. Individuals who played a leading and constructive role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
However, we cannot ignore the bad actions of Cuban diplomats in the United States since 1959, and what follows is only a partial revisiting of some of the most egregious examples.
New York City, New York (1969)
A Black Panther plot to bomb five Manhattan department stores on April 3, 1969 during the Easter shopping rush was broken up by the indictment of 21 members of the militant group on April 2nd. The Chicago Tribune reported
that they had planned to "set off bombs in the midtown stores of Macy's
Alexander's. Bloomingdale's, Korvette's and Abercombie & Fitch. The
bombings were to be accompanied by gunfire in the crowded stores." They
had also planned to dynamite the tracks of Penn Central railroad at six
location and bomb a police station in the Morrisania section of the
Bronx to divert police from the railroad bombings.
On April 10, 1969
Andrew Tulley reported in the Reading Eagle
that that the Communist Cuban mission to the United Nations has become a
financial and propaganda headquarters for promoting revolution by black
militants and white radicals. ... Specifically, it was said, these
include the Black Panther Party. The United States denied re-entry visas to two Cuban U.N. diplomats
..."as a normal reaction to evidence that the Cuban mission is engaged
in extensive subversive activities. One of the two diplomats, Jesus
Jimenez Escobar, a mission counselor, is described as one of the Havana
regime's leading experts in the export of revolution." Tully had met
one of the five other Cuban diplomats then under investigation in Cuba in 1959:
Lazaro Espinosa, third secretary at the U.N. missions was introduced to
him by Che Guevara at the Havana Hilton Hotel as Castro's "leading
technician in terrorism."
In
1983 the Castro regime provided financial and logistical support for
the Wells Fargo armored car robbery which netted the Macheteros $7.1
million dollars of which $2 million made its way back to Cuba via a diplomatic pouch. The whole story is detailed in a Hartford Courantinvestigative piece published in 1999. Below is a 2012 local news story about the case. The main culprit in the crime, Victor Manuel Gerena, is still a fugitive from American justice and is believed to be in Cuba. New York City, New York (1994)
The
United States expelled two Cuban diplomats on April 12, 1995, for having assaulted
people last August (1994) protesting in front of Cuba's mission to the United Nations. The diplomats, Edmundo Suarez Hernandez, a
counselor, and Saul Hermida Griego, an attache, and their families were
told are to leave by midnight Sunday. The Cuban Foreign Ministry responded with
a statement that the incident in August had been "provoked by terrorist
groups who go around unpunished because of the inefficiency of the New
York police."
On August 30, 1994 anti-Castro protesters chained themselves to the Cuban Mission door. Cuban diplomats attacked them with sticks, screaming, "Cuba
Our Way!" Two diplomats wielded a crowbar and ax handle. More
than a dozen police officers suffered injuries.
Four Cuban Mission employees were arrested on assault charges. All four
were released after claiming diplomatic immunity.
US officials said it's unusual for diplomats to be expelled for violent behavior.
Washington, DC (2000)
On April 14, 2000 nonviolent protesters gathered in front of the
Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC. In the early evening, a band
of about 10 Cuban
diplomats, alleged to have been drinking took off their coats, ties and
jewelry, began screaming obscenities and yelling threats, and
indiscriminately attacked 20 peaceful protesters with fists and sticks, even injuring a Secret
Service officer. Among the Cuban diplomats engaged in the violent assault, according to one of the victims, was Gustavo Machin Gomez.
The Castro regime's belief that terrorism is a legitimate instrument of struggle stretches back to their own bombing campaigns, and plane hijackings in the 1950s in their struggle against Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro in 1978 gave a speech where he lied when declared that the Cuban revolution had never engaged in terrorism, but perhaps revealed more than he planned saying: "if the Cuban government
were to dedicate itself to engage in terrorism, and to respond with
terrorism to terrorists, we believe we would be effective terrorists.
Let no one think otherwise. If we were to dedicate ourselves to
terrorism with all certainty we would be efficient." Terrorism is part of the Castro regime's DNA, of course Ambassador Alejandro González Behmaras isn't afraid of terrorism he is part of a diplomatic corps that has engaged in and sponsored it over decades.
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986
Independent journalist Roberto Quiñones faces year in prison.
Today at the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC a son demanded his father’s freedom. Roberto de Jesús Quiñones faces a one year prison sentence for exercising his fundamental rights. He is an independent journalist, attorney, Catholic lay person, and family man. His son, Roberto José Quiñones Castro, is a university student in Virginia who is working his way through school.
Last week on August 7th Roberto de Jesus Quiñones was sentenced to a year in prison in a rigged trial. Today his son brought a letter to the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC calling for his dad’s freedom.
Roberto José Quiñones with letter in hand protests dad's sentence
His father was unjustly imprisoned for five years for being an independent attorney in Cuba in 1998. No longer able to practice as a lawyer upon his release, he became an independent journalist.
On April 22, 2019 Roberto de Jesús Quiñones was beaten up for covering the trial of a religious couple sentenced to prison for homeschooling their kids. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on April 24th what had happened:
On April 22, at around 2:00 p.m., Cuban police agents detained Quiñones,a contributor to the news website CubaNet, as he was standing outside of the Guantánamo Municipal Tribunal, according to CubaNet and the Association for Press Freedom (APLP), a Cuban press freedom organization. At the time of his detention, Quiñones was covering the trial of two Cuban evangelical pastors facing charges for homeschooling their children, CubaNet reported.While being transported in the police car, agents beat Quiñones, injuring his mouth, tongue, and right thumb and causing an inflammation in his right ear, his wife toldAPLP.
Roberto Quiñones was physically assaulted on April 22, 2019.
Today the Cuban embassy did not respond to the petitions of this Cuban citizen. Since they would not accept the letter Roberto José read it aloud and in it he outlined the real reason for his father's political persecution:
"The rigged trial held against my father for his work as a journalist, independent lawyer, and Catholic activist in the Family and Penitentiary Ministry of the Guantánamo-Baracoa Diocese, was actually a reprimand for his dignified work in general, and especially for his accompaniment to the evangelical pastors Adya Expósito and Ramón Rigal, also tried and convicted in a rigged manner on April 22 in that same Court; and also when my father was beaten and arbitrarily detained."
When he concluded reading the letter, all present chanted: Free Roberto Jesús Quiñones! Following the protest Roberto José Quiñones gave a short interview in English outlining the circumstances of his father's case and how his dad is doing presently.
Picket today outside the Cuban embassy in Washington DC.
Earlier today 30 non-governmental organizations called on the Cuban state to respect and guarantee the rights of journalist Roberto Jesús Quiñones.
Posts
