Latest updates on the story, and brief overview of Cuban diplomacy post-1959
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.
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."
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!"
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.
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 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.
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.
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| Damage to column and Jose Marti statue at the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC |
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| SUV driven by the alleged shooter. |
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— Center for Free Cuba (@cubacenter) April 30, 2020
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 #SomosContinuidad pic.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 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— Free Cuba Foundation (@freecubafndtn) April 30, 2020
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 (1962)
Cuban diplomats Elsa Montera Maldonado and Jose Gomez Abad, a husband and wife team at the Cuba Mission in New York City, who in reality were State Security agents who plotted to murder large numbers of Americans. Both were expelled for their role in a planned terrorist attack on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1962 which sought to detonate 500 kilos of explosives inside Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal.
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."
The judge presiding over the Black Panther trial on February 21, 1970 had three gasoline bombs explode in front of his home. On May 13, 1971 a jury with five African American members acquitted the thirteen Black Panther members of murder conspiracy charges.
West Hartford, Connecticut (1983)
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 Courant investigative 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.
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