Welcome to Spain, Suckers...

Carlos Eire, Yale University professor, Cuban exile and award winning author wrote this for Babalú readers which offers an excellent summary of what the former Cuban prisoners of conscience are now experiencing and calls us to action to keep them together and improve their conditions. It is being reproduced here in an effort to get the word out.

By Carlos Eire

When it comes to news from Castrolandia, which always stinks to high heaven, the deeper one digs beneath the surface, the worse the stench becomes. In the case of the recently released prisoners, the rottenness of the deal struck by Raul Castro and Miguel Angel de Moratinos and the stench generated by it, have reached toxic levels, enough to qualify as poison gas.

The Spanish newspaper ABC has revealed in a recent string of articles that the ex-prisoners are being harassed in a number of ways, almost as if the hand of the Castro regime were still pulling the strings. None of this information has surfaced yet in English-language reports.

The most significant points are these:

1. The Spanish government has lodged the released prisoners on the outskirts of Madrid, in Vallecas, at the very remote and prison-like Welcome Hostel, which Spanish authorities use as a shelter for illegal aliens.Their isolation is easy to detect on Google Maps, which allows you to view the entire neighborhood at street level. It is a largely industrial area, and the hostel is completely surrounded by warehouses, other large industrial buildings, and vacant lots. Getting back and forth from this remote location is extremely difficult. In one of the articles, one of the wives complains about how isolated they are. Central Madrid is full of cheap hostels which cost less than the one they've been sent to. (Rooms rates at the Welcome Hostel)Come to think of it, this is double exile — not in Cuba, not really in Madrid either.
2. The hostel at Vallecas has no private bathrooms. One of the prisoners is suffering from chronic diarrhea and has to use the bathroom constantly. He had this to say: “I don’t have the privacy that I need after being tortured for seven years in Castro’s prisons… It is very hard for me to share a collective bathroom with others, given my illness… We are not asking for a five-star hotel, only for something that meets our most basic needs.”
3. Even though the ex-prisoners have begged to remain together, the Spanish government is hell-bent on splitting them up, claiming that they don't have enough resources in Madrid to take care of them.

   Some will be sent to Valencia, others to Malaga. And you can bet they will not lodge them in a central location. At Malaga, they will be housed at a shelter for illegal African immigrants. In Valencia, they will also be housed at a public shelter (centro de acogida). Julio César Galvez, one of the prisoners, had this to say: “All of us want to stay together, but I have no say about my own fate here in Spain. I am in a prison without bars.”

4. The Spanish government has only committed to offering aid to the prisoners for 24 months. Spain has unemployment rates of over 20%. Buena suerte ...adiós.
   
5. The ex-prisoners are painfully aware of the fact that they are in a “legal limbo” of sorts, since the Minister of Exterior Affairs, Miguel Angel Moratinos has classified them as “immigrants” rather than refugees. Yesterday, July 15, they asked at a news conference to be treated with more dignity. One of them, Ricardo González, said : “It is obvious that we are not criminals and that we didn’t come here because of poor economic conditions in our country; we are being persecuted for our ideas.”Another ex-prisoner, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, said: “If the Zapatero administration has agreed to receive us in Spain, I think that they should at least have the decency of granting us the status and the living conditions that we deserve.”

So, things are really far from hunky-dory. All of these items indicate that the Spanish authorities are complicit in a very heavy-handed attempt to dilute their presence and their impact abroad, and to demoralize them and keep them out of the public eye.

Carlos Herrero at ABC apologizes to the ex-prisoners for the deal struck between Moratinos and Castrolandia, and for the way in which they have been forced into exile. Herrero points out that none of the leading lights of the Left in Spain have come forward to greet the ex-prisoners, even though they are always grandstanding about “prisoners of conscience” elsewhere. He sums up the whole deal by saying: “Welcome to Spain, anyway, and enjoy the sacred right of freedom. Our government is full of cretins, but here, at least, you can’t be thrown in jail for saying that.”

This information needs to be broadcast far and wide.

And... an international campaign needs to be mounted so the freed prisoners can all stay together.

References:

http://www.abc.es/20100716/opinion-colaboraciones/bienvenidos-libertad-20100716.html

http://www.abc.es/20100715/espana/ppdefiendecubanos-201007152035.html

http://www.abc.es/20100715/espana/presoscubanos-201007151910.html

http://www.abc.es/20100715/espana/presos-cubanos-201007151349.html

http://www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-15-07-2010/abc/Nacional/desde-el-punto-de-vista-legal-no-soy-un-desterrado;-realmente-si_140390770600.html

http://www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-14-07-2010/abc/Nacional/las-liberaciones-no-significan-una-mejora-de-los-derechos-humanos-en-cuba_140389120726.html

The British Ambassador to Cuba's Reality Check

Before Moratinos arrived on the scene between March 18, 2003 and December 2004 fourteen prisoners of conscience were released while EU sanctions were in place along with Spain backing greater international pressure on Cuba. The British Ambassador to Cuba until 2004, Paul Webster Hare, in the essay below observes that since the dropping of EU sanctions there were no other mass releases of prisoners until July 2010. This underscores the case that it was the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo after 83 days on hunger strike combined with Ladies in White marching for 7 days on the 7th anniversary of the March 18, 2003 crackdown that brought the dictatorship to the point of being willing to release the remaining prisoners of conscience from the March 2003 crackdown.

Former British ambassador to Cuba Paul Webster Hare

CUBA'S POLITICAL PRISONERS

It took more than dialogue to free them

BY PAUL WEBSTER HARE

paulhare@bu.edu

Cuban political prisoners are being released because of dialogue, Spanish Minister Moratinos is telling the European Union. He is claiming the Spanish government's approach is vindicated and that the EU Common Position on Cuba should now be abandoned. There is a ``new era'' in Cuba.

The promised release (or exile) of 52 political prisoners is welcome news, but how really did it happen and how should the international community now engage with Cuba?

Dialogue with Cuba is nothing new to the EU. Since the Common Position was agreed upon in 1996, scores of EU ministers from member countries have visited Cuba, and many Cuban government officials have visited Europe. The EU has sponsored major cooperation programs with Cuba and exchanges in science, education, sport and culture. EU tourists and foreign investment have followed. The objective is to promote greater political and economic openness from within Cuba.

This EU dialogue and engagement with Cuba has been achieved with a Common Position. Indeed such instruments are widely used to coordinate EU foreign policy. The EU and Cuba opened a formal EU Commission office in Havana in March 2003 and the Cuban government was delighted.

However, five days later, when the eyes of the rest of the world were on Iraq, the EU reacted to Cuba's crackdown and jailing of the 75, whose releases we see now. The EU imposed diplomatic sanctions on Cuba and invited the dissidents and their families to their parties, alongside members of the government. Fidel Castro was furious, staging massive rallies against the Spanish and Italian embassies and freezing diplomatic contacts. The British embassy received a bomb threat. The solidarity which the EU fostered helped the formation of the Damas de Blanco group. They and Oswaldo Paya have both won EU Parliament prizes. All this was under the Common Position.

Moratinos came to office in 2004 and proposed a radical shift in EU policy. He questioned the purpose of the sanctions, arguing the Common Position stood in the way of ``a serene and confident relationship'' between the EU and Cuba. Moratinos set about negotiating the sanctions away.

Fourteen prisoners were released by December 2004 (while the EU sanctions were still in place) including prominent figures like Raul Rivero, Martha Beatriz Roque and Oscar Espinosa Chepe. Since the dropping of the EU sanctions there were no other mass releases of prisoners -- until July 2010.

Moratinos' diplomacy has involved regular contact with the Cuban government. Yet when in Havana he has refused to meet opposition figures and did not question the Cuban government's record on human rights. In 2009 Moratinos said that the scrapping of the Common Position on Cuba would be a centerpiece of the Spanish EU presidency in the first half of 2010.

Why? Because it was disrespectful to the Cuban government and stood in the way of a ``normal'' relationship between Cuba and the EU.

As often in Cuba policy, events have intervened. Five years after the EU dropped its sanctions, Yoani Sánchez was being attacked, the Damas de Blanco were being harassed and threatened and Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died for the cause of the dissident prisoners. On March 11, the European Parliament condemned the Cuban government for Zapata's death and called for renewed EU attention to human rights. On March 24, President Obama echoed the same sentiments. In April 2010, Cardinal Jaime Ortega gave his now famous, forthright interview to the Catholic Church's Palabra Nueva, and respected Cubans like Silvio Rodríguez and Carlos Varela criticized repression in Cuba.

The prisoner releases are not then simply attributable to ``dialogue.'' The EU has had to play a more versatile role as Cubans themselves have been emboldened. The church's assertiveness followed EU and international outrage and showed what many suspected -- that the church had long underused it potential for political influence.

The church has now embraced the dissidents' cause and wider frustrations. Combined with the opposition's own courage they have forged an effective alliance. But the EU has also continued to focus on Cuba. Its tourists, investment and cooperation are still there. But it refused to abandon the Common Position in June 2010 as Moratinos wanted, postponing their review until September. We see the results today.

Moratinos can claim credit for keeping the EU's attention on Cuba but the firmness of the collective EU in denouncing Cuban repression has surely proved more valuable since 1996. It has helped to produce more than dialogue for its own sake. The EU should heed these lessons when it reviews Cuba policy -- and the continued lack of basic freedoms on the island -- in September.

Paul Webster Hare was British ambassador to Cuba from 2001-04 and was in Havana at the time of the jailing of the 75 political prisoners in 2003. He is also the author of Moncada: A Cuban Story

Original link: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/18/1735259/it-took-more-than-dialogue-to.html#ixzz0u0YHj2mH

Cuban Blogger: Concessions, Convenience, & Exits Disguised as Dialogue

This entry is a double copy. The following text was written by Claudia Cadelo and translated to English by good Samaritans at http://hemosoido.com/ and reproduced by Marc Masferrer on his blog Uncommon Sense which inspired me to do the same. She has summed up in a mere 498 words the zeitgeist of the moment in Cuba. It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I hope that it is taken in that spirit.

The One Who Understands Nothing is Me

"Don't believe, don't fear, don't beg."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The last days have been dizzying, torn between joy and uncertainty. I didn’t say goodbye to Pablo Pacheco because he sneaked out of the country, I haven’t been able to talk with Pedro Argüelle and I still have my eyes fixed on the image of Fariñas, frozen in the moment when the grimace on his face proved that to take a sip of liquid was, for him, Pure Misery.

I felt a little disconnected, running here and there, from Pinar del Rio to Santa Clara, finding out about everything going on through a flow of text messages that we managed to keep going between some friends. I have seen many people with the faith that one day we will live in a free country, I was struck by the network of solidarity outside Coco’s hospital, a score of his loyal friends and colleagues desperately watching the ups and downs of his health, turning to the clueless, like me, who arrived three hours before the visit, bringing everything they have, and that is: almost nothing. I sincerely regret that not a single journalist has taken the trouble, until now, to talk with these people who for four months, silently, have cared for the life of the freest man in Cuba.

It is sometimes unsettling to see so much courage and the kindness in people, like the mother of Fariñas, and so much indolence and hypocrisy in articles like this*. There are times when it is preferable not to connect to the Internet.

It bothers me deeply, horribly, to see the sleight of hand that has been shown to the voices of civil society in pursuit of a policy so opportunistic towards those who live in my country today: the release of the innocents. At what point in history was the dialog between the Church and the Cuban government, and with Moratinos left as mediator? When will the prisoners who want to live in Cuba be released? Why, in an international airport, don’t “free people” board the plane like the rest of the passengers? If they can come to Cuba whenever they want, why couldn’t they say goodbye to their friends today, or stop and have a cup of coffee at home before leaving the island?

Today for the first time I saw José Luis García Paneque’s face in a photo on the Internet, my feelings are indescribable, this post would become absurd if I indulged all my questions. I hate to say this, but so far only one word describes the achievement of this unique dialog that excludes the protagonists and victims of one of the two parties: Exile.

When at least one of the ex-prisoners of conscience released in Madrid puts his feet on Cuban soil again, when Pedro Argüelles, Eduardo Díaz and Regis Iglesias are in their homes, when the laypersons Dagoberto Valdes and Osvaldo Payá are invited to the negotiations between the government and the Catholic Church, and can express their opinions on equal terms, then we will be engaged in DIALOGUE; until that time we are only talking about concessions, convenience and emergency exits.

* Translator’s note: The link is to an article, in Spanish, titled, “Dissident Cubans in Spain Face an Uncertain Future”

Just when the dictatorship in Havana thought things couldn't get worse

An ally's health care system is exposed as broken

The Cuban regime has excellent relations and bilateral ties with North Korea along with a shared ideological Marxist-Leninist worldview. According to "official" i.e. the dictatorship's media they are also improving relations and integrating further. No doubt Cuba's foreign ministry are sending instructions to their "diplomats" at the United Nations to discredit an Amnesty International report that exposes North Korea's broken health care system. Beyond the embarrassment for an ally there is a direct danger to the regime because the report contradicts the World Health Organization's glowing claim that "North Korea's health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available." Sound familiar? For example that Cuba has twice as many doctors per capita as the United States. At the same time there is plenty of evidence that the Cuban health care system is also broken, but UN officials paint a similar rosy picture.

North Korea's crumbling health system in dire need of aid

15 July 2010

Amputation and other major surgeries carried out without anaesthesia are just one indication of the dire state of North Korea’s healthcare system, a new Amnesty International report has found.

The Crumbling state of health care in North Korea draws on interviews with North Koreans and health workers to paint a picture of barely-functioning hospitals void of medicines and epidemics brought on by malnutrition.

Witnesses described hospitals where hypodermic needles were not sterilized and sheets were not regularly washed.

“North Korea has failed to provide for the most basic health and survival needs of its people. This is especially true of those who are too poor to pay for medical care,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific.

According to the World Health Organization’s last available figures, North Korea spent less on healthcare than any other country in the world – under US$1 per person per year in total.

The North Korean government still claims that its healthcare system is free for all, but many witnesses told Amnesty International that they have had to pay for all services since the 1990s, with doctors usually paid in cigarettes, alcohol or food for the most basic consults, and taking cash for tests or surgery.

The North Korean government still claims that its
healthcare system is free for all © BBC World Service

The report found that many North Koreans bypass doctors altogether, going straight to the markets to buy medicine, self-medicating according to their own guesswork or the advice of market vendors. The North Korean authorities recently banned a highly addictive narcotic painkiller than many North Koreans routinely used as a cure-all.

“The government’s failure to provide basic education about using medication is especially worrying as North Korea fights a tuberculosis (TB) epidemic,” said Catherine Baber. “A growing number of patients have developed a resistance to first-line anti-TB drugs.”

“The North Korean people are in critical need of medical and food aid,” said Catherine Baber. “It is crucial that aid to North Korea is not used as a political football by donor countries.”

Amnesty International is urging donor countries to continue providing humanitarian aid to North Korea through the UN, and to base it on need and not political considerations.

North Korea needs far more international assistance to improve its public health infrastructure. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) in North Korea is also grossly underfunded, needing more donor support and political backing.

Food shortages remain constant in North Korea. After a botched currency revaluation in December 2009, the price of rice more than doubled and according to an NGO quoted in the report, thousands of people starved to death between January and February of this year in one province alone.

Many of the interviewees reported chronic health problems brought on by a lack of food, and had coped with hunger by eating grass, tree bark and roots. Tuberculosis has made a comeback in North Korea, aggravated by malnutrition.

The report is based on interviews with more than 40 North Koreans now living abroad, most of whom left the North between 2004 and 2009, and with health professionals who work with North Koreans.

“International law, including covenants ratified by North Korea, demands that the government provide adequate levels of food and health care to its population, and to seek international cooperation and assistance when it cannot,” said Catherine Baber.

North Korea was hit by famine in the early 1990s, resulting in the deaths of about a million people, followed by food shortages, which are still ongoing. Government policies significantly exacerbated the crisis.

In 1995 the government finally made an appeal to the international community for food aid and assistance.

But even after the UN and humanitarian aid agencies began distributing food and other essentials in the country, the government impeded their work on the ground, preventing them from accessing large segments of the population.

With the collapse of the government-run food rations and mass job losses due to closures of factories and other state-run enterprises in the 1990s, many North Koreans suffered immense hardship and struggled to survive.

Between 1995 and 2005, the WFP’s emergency operations in North Korea supported up to one-third of the population. Adhering to its “no access, no food” policy, the WFP improved its monitoring of food distribution in North Korea due to greater access within the country.

In September 2005, North Korean authorities announced that it had enough food and ordered the WFP to end its humanitarian aid programme citing better harvests. The North Korean government stated that only medium- and long-term (technical) development assistance would be permitted. However, international food aid through the WFP, which ended in December 2005, resumed a year later after devastating floods in 2006 and 2007.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/north-koreas-crumbling-health-system-dire-need-aid-2010-07-14

Some of what is described with regards to North Korea's health care system sounds similar to what goes on in Cuba. Check out the video below:

Something was (is?) Rotten at Foggy Bottom

Ana Belen Montes spied for decades at the Defense Intelligence Agency for the Cuban regime and Walter Kendall Myers for 30 years did the same at the State Department despite Cuba's status as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Walter Kendally Myers & Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers
Spies for the totalitarian dictatorship in Cuba

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

Friday, July 16, 2010

Former State Department Official Sentenced to Life in Prison for Nearly 30-year Espionage Conspiracy

Wife of Official Sentenced to Nearly Seven Years in Prison for Her Role

WASHINGTON -- Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and 81 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in a nearly 30-year conspiracy to provide highly-classified U.S. national defense information to the Republic of Cuba.

The sentences, handed down today by Judge Reggie B. Walton in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Shawn Henry, Assistant Director for the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Ambassador Eric J. Boswell, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security.

On Nov. 20, 2009, defendant Kendall Myers, 73, aka “Agent 202,” pleaded guilty to a three-count criminal information charging him with conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud. His wife, Gwendolyn Myers, 72, aka “Agent 123,” and “Agent E-634,” pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging her with conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information. The defendants, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested on June 4, 2009, by FBI agents and have remained in custody ever since.

Both defendants have agreed to the entry of a monetary judgment against them in the amount of $1,735,054. The assets that will be forfeited to the government towards satisfaction of that judgment include the proceeds from the sale of the defendants’ apartment and vehicle, and various bank and investment accounts.

“For nearly 30 years, this couple proudly committed espionage on behalf of a long-standing foreign adversary. Today, they are being held accountable for their actions. Their sentences should serve as a clear warning to others who would willingly compromise our nation’s most sensitive classified information,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

“Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were brought to justice not because they were careless, but because of an extremely well-planned and executed counterintelligence investigation that required the unprecedented cooperation of multiple agencies of the U.S. government tasked with protecting our national security,” said Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. “Others like the Myers who are presently betraying the trust that this country has placed in them should know that they are not safe from prosecution regardless of how careful they think they are being. As with Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers, they will be caught and brought to justice.”

Shawn Henry, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said: “The Myers made a conscious decision to betray the United States and its citizens. The FBI, along with its partners in the U.S. Intelligence Community, will continue to aggressively pursue anyone who seeks to cause the same harm.”

“Walter Kendall Myers betrayed his country. By committing acts of espionage Myers grievously violated the confidence placed in him by the U.S. Department of State and the American people. Today, he has been rightfully sentenced for crimes against our nation,” said Assistant Secretary for State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell.

Background

According to the sentencing memorandum, plea agreements and other documents filed in court by the United States:

Kendall Myers began working at the State Department in 1977 as a contract instructor at the Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Va. After living briefly with Gwendolyn in South Dakota, he returned to Washington, D.C., and resumed employment as an instructor with FSI. From 1988 to 1999, in addition to his FSI duties, he performed work for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). He later worked full-time in INR and, from July 2001 until his retirement in October 2007, was an intelligence analyst for Europe in INR where he specialized on European matters and had daily access to classified information through computer databases and otherwise. He received a “Top Secret” security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, received access to “Sensitive Compartmental Information.”

Gwendolyn Myers moved to Washington, D.C., in 1980 and married Kendall Myers in May 1982. She later obtained employment with a local bank as an administrative analyst and later as a special assistant. Gwendolyn Myers was never granted a security clearance by the U.S. government.

Recruitment

In December 1978, while an employee of the State Department’s FSI, Kendall Myers traveled to Cuba after being invited by a Cuban government official who had made a presentation at FSI. That Cuban official was an intelligence officer for the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS). This trip provided CuIS with the opportunity to assess or develop Myers as a Cuban agent. Myers kept a diary of his two-week trip to Cuba in which he explicitly declared his affinity for Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. The diary was recovered by the FBI in the investigation.

In 1979, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were visited in South Dakota by the same Cuban intelligence officer who had invited Kendall Myers to Cuba. During the visit, the Cuban intelligence officer recruited both of them to be clandestine agents for Cuba, a role in which they served for the next 30 years. Their recruitment by CuIS as “paired” agents is consistent with CuIS’s past practice in the United States. Afterwards, CuIS directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at the State Department or the CIA to gain access to classified information. Kendall Myers, accompanied by his wife, returned to Washington, D.C., where he pursued a position at the State Department.

During the time frame in which Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were serving as clandestine agents for Cuba, the CuIS often communicated with its clandestine agents in the United States by broadcasting encrypted radio messages from Cuba on shortwave radio frequencies. Clandestine agents in the United States monitoring the frequency on shortwave radio could decode the messages using a decryption program provided by CuIS. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers communicated with CuIS by this method. The shortwave radio they used to receive clandestine communications was purchased with money provided by CuIS. The shortwave radio was later recovered by the FBI.

Undercover Operation

According to the court documents, in April 2009, the FBI launched an undercover operation against the pair. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers met four times with an undercover FBI source, on April 15^th, 16^th and 30^th, and on June 4, 2009. The meetings were all video- and audio-taped.

During the meetings, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers made a series of statements about their past activities on behalf of CuIS, including how they used code names and how they had transmitted information to their CuIS handlers through personal meetings, “dead drops,” “hand-to-hand” passes, and in at least one case, the exchange of shopping carts in a grocery store. The couple also stated that they had traveled to meet Cuban agents in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and other locations.

When asked by the undercover FBI agent if he had ever transmitted information to CuIS that was classified higher than “Secret,” Kendall Myers replied, “oh yeah…oh yeah.” He said he typically removed information from the State Department by memory or by taking notes, although he did take some classified documents home. Gwendolyn Myers admitted she would process the classified documents at home for delivery to their CuIS handlers. In the final meeting with the FBI source, Kendall Myers disclosed “Top Secret” national defense information related to sources and methods of gathering intelligence. He also admitted that he had previously disclosed the information to CuIS.

Corroboration

The admissions by Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were corroborated by other evidence collected in the investigation. The FBI seized a shortwave radio in their apartment and confirmed overseas trips by the couple that corresponded to statements they made. The FBI also identified encrypted shortwave radio messages between CuIS and a handler for the couple that were broadcast in 1996 and 1997.

Furthermore, an analysis of Kendall Myers’ State Department computer revealed that, from August 22, 2006, until his retirement on Oct. 31, 2007, he viewed more than 200 intelligence reports concerning the subject of Cuba. Of these reports concerning Cuba, the majority was classified and marked “Secret” or “Top Secret.” The FBI also located handwritten notes by Kendall Myers reflecting the gathering and retention of “Top Secret” information which he intended to provide the CuIS, but never did.

Finally, since at least 1983 and until 2007, Kendall Myers made repeated false statements to government investigators responsible for conducting background investigations which determined his continued suitability for a “Top Secret” security clearance. By not disclosing his and his wife’s clandestine activity on behalf of CuIS and by making false statements to the State Department about their status as clandestine Cuban agents, he defrauded the United States whenever he received his government salary. Based on these false representations and promises, Kendall Myers obtained at least $1,735,054 in salary from the U.S. government for the benefit of him and his wife.

This investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Michael Harvey, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and Senior Trial Attorney Clifford I. Rones, from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/July/10-ag-825.html