"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)
Showing posts with label Gerardo Hernández. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gerardo Hernández. Show all posts
On February 24, 1996, at 3:21 and 3:27 PM, heat-seeking air-to-air
missiles fired from a MiG-29 UB piloted by Lorenzo Alberto Peréz Peréz
that destroyed the two planes the men were onboard, and killed
Mario de la Peña, age 24; Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, both 30, and
Armando Alejandre Jr., 45. Mario, Carlos,Pablo and Armando were members
of the humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue.
This was a premeditated act of state terrorism carried out by Mr.
Peréz Peréz on the orders of both Fidel and Raul Castro and through the
chain of command issuing the unlawful order that murdered these four men.
Cuban spies
learned the flight schedules and were instructed not to fly on February
24 and, if they had to, to alert the MiGs with a motion while in flight
to save them from suffering the same fate as the other planes.
Twenty eight years later, and we are just learning that Ambassador Manuel Roche, a high level spy for Havana, who in 1996 was the principal deputy of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, and may have played a role in assisting the Cuban dictatorship minimize its accountability in this act of terrorism it committed against U.S. civilians in international airspace.
This was a premeditated killing over international airspace. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) concluded that
the two planes "were shot down miles away from Cuba’s boundary having
never entered or touched it on that day and the planes had been in
contact with the Cuban tower throughout the flight."
They failed to destroy a third plane with Sylvia Iriondo, Andrés Iriondo, Jose Basulto, and Arnaldo Iglesias on board.
There is no statue of limitations on murder and state terrorism. There is much more in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
Over
the past 28 years friends, and family have continued to demand truth,
respect memory and demand justice through protests, petitions, and law suits.
Family members held a silent vigil for their loved ones on February 23rd, gathering at 3:15 pm at Florida International University, with the vigil starting at 3:21pm and ending at 3:27pm. On February 22nd a vigil was held in Washington DC outside of the Embassy of Cuba.
Today at 10:30am at Opa-locka airport, where Brothers to the Rescue had their hangar, Jose Basulto, and other survivors of the February 24, 1996 shoot down will gather together to hold a vigil.
On Saturday,
September 12, 1998, the FBI dismantled the largest
Cuban spy ring ever discovered in the United States. Ten Cubans were
charged with spying for the Cuban regime. Cuba’s government has spent 25 years
airbrushing and distorting what they did.
According to the Defense Human Resources Activity at the U.S. Department of Defense, the
ten members of the WASP network captured were: "GERARDO HERNANDEZ, 31
(alias Manuel Viramontes), the spymaster; FERNANDO GONZALEZ, 33 (alias
Ruben Campa), and RAMON LABANINO, 30 (alias Luis Medina), Cuban
intelligence officers. The remaining seven were mid-level or junior
agents who reported to the three senior agents.
Included were ANTONIO GUERRERO, 39, who observed aircraft landings at
the Boca Chica Naval Air Station from his job as a sheet-metal worker
there; ALEJANDRO ALONSO, 39, a boat pilot; and RENE GONZALEZ,
42, a
skilled aircraft pilot and the only Cuban national among these seven.
Both joined the exile group Movimiento Democracia to report on its
activities -all non-violent- against the Castro regime. Also, two
married couples, Americans, worked in the spy network: NILO and LINDA HERNANDEZ, 44 and 41 respectively, and JOSEPH and AMARYLIS SANTOS, both 39."
Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque escaped.
JUAN PABLO ROQUE, an eleventh spy also charged
and linked to the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, had fled
to Cuba one day before Cuban MiGs launched missiles destroying two
Brothers to the Rescue planes, and killing four pilots. Three others, identified as John Does, were also charged.
Five
defendants -Alejandro Alonso, Nilo and Linda Hernandez,
Joseph and Amarylis Santos- accepted plea bargains and cooperated
with prosecutors. These five Cuban spies provided information about the
other five. These five eventually went on trial, where it was revealed
that the Cuban spy ring was engaged in both espionage and
terrorism.
Hernandez guilty of murder conspiracy in 2/24/96 shoot down.
The Wasp Network gathered personal information on American military personnel, "compiling the names, home addresses, and medical files of the top officers of the United States Southern Command as well as hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica Naval Station in Key West."
The spies had received orders from Havana to burn down an airport hangar; sabotage planes; and to terrorize a CIA operative identified as Jesus Cruza Flor, with warnings that he was "nearing execution,'' and then to send a mail bomb to murder him at his Bal Harbour residence.
Cuban spies targeted military personnel at the Boca Chica Naval Station.
On June 8,
2001, the five Wasp defendants who had not entered into plea bargains
were found guilty on all counts. In December 2001, three of the spies
were sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit espionage.
Gerardo Hernandez and Ramon Labanino, both Cuban nationals, and Antonio
Guerrero, a U.S. citizen, were sentenced to life in prison. Fernando
Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, both Cuban nationals, were sentenced to 19
and 10 years in prison, respectively, for conspiracy and operating as unregistered
agents of a foreign power.
The five who pleaded
guilty to one count of acting as unregistered agents of a foreign power
and cooperated received lesser sentences: Alejandro Alonso, Nilo and
Linda Hernandez were sentenced to seven years in prison; Joseph Santos
was sentenced to four years, and Amarylis Santos was
sentenced to three and a half years. Gerardo Hernandez, the head of the network, was convicted of murder conspiracy and espionage and condemned to a double life sentence.
President Obama commuted Hernandez's double life sentences on December 17, 2014, as part of the concessions made in the effort to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States. Once back in Cuba, Hernandez was promoted to Deputy National Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) in April 2020, tasked with monitoring neighborhood committees to spy on all Cubans on the island. He was also appointed to the Castro dictatorship's Council of State, the 31-member body that oversees day-to-day life on the island, on December 17, 2020. Gerardo Hernández visited Moscow on May 31, 2023, and laid a wreath on a monument to Fidel Castro.
Cuban spy convicted in 2000 of murder conspiracy in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, Gerardo Hernández, is visiting Russia. On 5/31/23 he placed a wreath at a monument erected by Putin to Fidel Castro in Moscow. Mr. Obama commuted his life sentence in 2014. #WeRememberpic.twitter.com/llSlABVT0X
— Center for a Free Cuba (@cubacenter) May 31, 2023
On May 17, 2012 the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere in the U.S. Congress's Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing on "Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence, and Warfare." Among the experts who spoke at the hearing was Mr. Christopher Simmons, founding editor of Cuba Confidential, an online blog and source for news on Cuban espionage worldwide. He is an international authority on the Cuban Intelligence Service and retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency with over 23 years of experience as a counterintelligence officer, and played an important role in the capture of Ana Belen Montes.
Simmons ended his presentation outlining and summarizing the high profile act of state terrorism that killed four Cuban Americans in an operation conducted on orders from highest levels of the Castro regime.
"Last, but not least, of the highlighted issues, I'd like to address Operation Scorpion which was addressed earlier as a shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue. While this mission on February 24, 1996 predates the other information I discussed, it is important because this act of terrorism involves highest levels of the Castro regime. On February 24, 1996, Cuban MiGs shot down two U.S. search and rescue aircraft in international waters. Code named Operation Scorpion, it was led by General Eduardo Delgado Rodriguez, the current head of Cuban intelligence. It was personally approved by Fidel Castro and supported by Raul Castro, the current President of Cuba. Four Americans were murdered in this act of terrorism."
In order to achieve true
reconciliation and peace, the regime in Havana would have to recognize
its past crimes, repent, and stop sponsoring and engaging in terrorism.
Its continuing repressive actions in Venezuela, and Nicaragua; its ongoing support for the war in Ukraine, and its murder of non-violent dissidents in Cuba demonstrate that the Cuban dictatorship presently is not interested in reforming its behavior, or in true reconciliation, but rather in
continuing its international outlaw status that is on a par with North Korea.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. - Martin Luther King Jr
South Florida Sun Sentinel, December 23, 2020
Obama’s Cuba policy only emboldened Castro | Opinion
By John Suarez
Special to the Sun Sentinel| Dec 23, 2020 at 1:46 PM
President Obama’s détente began in 2009 with sanctions loosened and
calls for a willingness to negotiate with Havana. This coincided with
increasing violence against dissidents, including high-profile
opposition leader Oswaldo Payá, who died in a suspicious car crash in
Bayamo, Cuba, on July 22, 2012. Payá's children and the driver of his
car that night all say the car was run off the road. The Cuban
government, of course, says otherwise.
In June 2014,
a U.S. Hellfire missile used in NATO exercises in Europe ended up in
Havana’s possession instead of being sent back to the United States.
Although U.S. officials said this was the result of a shipping mishap by
Lockheed Martin, the missile’s manufacturer, this was at a time during
which the U.S. was already secretly negotiating with Castro. Relations
were officially reestablished in July 2015, and yet, the United States
was unable to obtain the return of this weapon, despite repeated
requests, until the story went public in January 2016.
The Hellfire missile, filled with sensitive technology, was returned in
February 2016, after over a year and a half in Havana’s possession.
On Dec. 17, 2014, when President Obama opened what he called “a new
chapter” in U.S.-Cuba relations, he commuted the sentence of Cuban spies
who planned terrorist acts on U.S. soil and freed Gerardo Hernandez,
who was serving a double life sentence for espionage and murder
conspiracy, as part of a prisoner exchange.
The murder conspiracy
charges were for his role in the killing of three American citizens and a
Cuban national with residency in the United States on Feb. 24, 1996.
The four were shot down by Cuban fighter jets as they flew small
aircraft with Brothers to the Rescue, a group that searched the seas for
Cuban refugees in trouble. Hernandez’s spy group had infiltrated
Brothers to the Rescue. Hernandez returned to Cuba and became tasked
with spying on Cubans on a national level. Last week, on Dec. 17, he was
promoted to the Castro dictatorship’s Council of State, the 31-member
body that governs day-to-day life on the island.
LeoGrande and Kornbluh give a false impression when they state that
“Obama restored full diplomatic relations and fully staffed the embassy
and consulate in Havana.” The president did restore full diplomatic
relations, renaming the Interests Section an Embassy, but the Interests
Section had been fully staffed for years. What the authors left out was
that, beginning in November 2016, on President Obama’s watch, scores of
U.S. diplomats began suffering neurological injuries, and the Cuban
government failed in its duty to protect them on their territory. This
was the reason for the reduction in personnel.
Moreover, they write about “diplomatic civility” but omit that on Jan.
2, 2017, Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in which Cuban soldiers chanted:
“Obama! Obama! With what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness,
give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and make you a hat out of
bullets to the head.”
This was a one-sided and failed détente that did not serve U.S.
interests or improve the lot of Cubans on the island, but it did empower
the dictatorship that oppresses them.
John
Suarez is the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, an
independent nonprofit institution dedicated to promoting human rights
and a nonviolent transition to democracy and the rule of law in Cuba.
Glitz and glamour versus the harsh reality: Castro spies took part in murder conspiracy
The Cuban intelligence service should not be either romanticized or underestimated. It appears that the new film by Olivier Assayas errs on both counts.
They were
"compiling the names, home addresses, and medical files of the U.S.
Southern Command’s top officers and that of hundreds of officers
stationed at Boca Chica Naval Station in Key West."
This is not surprising because apologists tend to avoid open and transparent debates due to the weakness of their position, and the Castro regime and its agents of influence have conducted an effective disinformation campaign to smear the victims and white wash the Cuban spy network, better known as the Wasp Network (Red Avispa).
The Castro regime and their agents of influence have sought to portray these agents as unsophisticated and not a threat. "They were just trying to stop violent exiles from carrying out terrorist acts." However the two groups the Wasp Network targeted and infiltrated: Movimiento Democracia and Brothers to the Rescue were (and are) nonviolent. Secondly, the reality is that the Cuban intelligence service is incredibly sophisticated, ruthless and punches above its weight. This requires providing some historical context.
First, the Cuban intelligence service has gone by different names over the years. It was initially called the Direccion General de Inteligencia (DGI), later renamed the Direccion de Inteligencia (DI), but it was also known as G2. The Soviet intelligence service (KGB) played a role in its founding, but the much more effective and feared East German intelligence service (the Stasi) played a more formative role. John O. Koehler on page 297 of his book Stasi: the untold story of the East German secret police outlined the relationship between the Cuban and East German intelligence services.:
"The Stasi's first major task abroad was in Cuba, after Fidel Castro and Vice Premier Anastas Mikoyan signed the Soviet-Cuban pact on February 13, 1960, officially placing Cuba in the Soviet bloc. As Soviet arms shipments began, Mielke sent a number of Stasi officers of General Wolf's HVA to Havana. Led by Colonel Siegfried Fiedler, they assisted in setting up what became a first-rate intelligence service and an oppressive secret police. As a result Cuba's relations with East Germany developed as closely as those with the Soviet Union. Intelligence gathered in the United States by the Cubans was routinely shared with the Stasi. Much of the information contained in the dossier the Stasi maintained on President Ronald Reagan, for example, originated with the Cubans."
Fidel and Raul Castro were not shy about using unconventional methods, weapons and alliances. This also included drug trafficking. Havana has sought to smuggle narcotics into the United States since 1961, and been implicated time and time again. Indictments have been issued and documentaries produced that have caught the illicit activities of this dictatorship on film.
According to the UPI in 1982
the following high ranking Cuban officials were indicted by the United
States for operating a drug ring out of Cuba: Aldo Santamaria-Cuadrado,
head of the navy and a member of the Communist
Central Committee; Fernando Ravelo-Renedo, ambassador to Colombia;
Gonzalo Bassols-Suarez, a former staff member at the Cuban embassy in
Colombia; and Rene Rodriguez-Cruz, a Central Committee member and
president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People.
In a 1991 Frontline documentary, Cuba and Cocaine,
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Commander Jeff Karonis, stated, "We would observe
in the middle of the day an air drop going on inside Cuban waters. The
scenario would be for a small twin-engine airplane with maybe 1,000 to
2,000 pounds of cocaine to fly over Cuba, drop the drugs to a
predesignated rendezvous point to several boats. Then it would exit back
down off Cuba, and many times a Cuban military vessel would be in the
immediate vicinity, right on scene with them.''
''The
evidence of Cuban involvement in narcotics trafficking was becoming so
abundant that the regime moved to protect Fidel Castro by dissociating
him from those activities.''
Patricio and Tony de la Guardia: twin brothers implicated in drug trafficking
If one still has any doubts then take a look at the role the Castro regime played in Venezuela with regards to narcotics trafficking. Consider for a moment that one of Cuba's most high ranking spies was executed in a show trial allegedly for his role in massive drug smuggling, a short time after Manuel Noriega was taken prisoner by the Americans for drug trafficking.
Partners in Crime: Manuel Noriega and Fidel Castro
"Federal
prosecutors say Noriega traveled to Havana to ask [Fidel] Castro to
mediate a potentially deadly dispute with top members of Colombia`s
Medellin cocaine cartel. They say the cartel chiefs were upset because a
major drug lab had been seized in Panama despite payment of millions of
dollars in protection money to Noriega. According to the Noriega
indictment, Castro negotiated a peace accord between the cartel and
Noriega at the 1984 meeting. The allegation forms a cornerstone of the
racketeering and drug trafficking charges against Noriega."
This brings us back to the WASP Network (La Red Avispa). The network was made up of over forty officers and agents, four escaped to Cuba when the FBI began rounding them up. Ten were captured, and five of them pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution. They are unpersons in Cuba.
The Cuban Five should have been the Cuban Ten
The remaining five
spies, who had refused to cooperate with U.S. authorities or plead
guilty went on trial and the evidence against them was overwhelming.
In the first excerpt it declares that their primary
objective was "penetrating and obtaining information on the naval
station located in that city." In the next excerpt intelligence
operatives communicated about "burning down the warehouse" and sabotaging Brothers to the Rescue equipment. Also requested that they attempt to identify who would be flying at certain times.
Ten captured Wasp Network spies
In the final excerpt operatives discuss plans to prepare a "book bomb" so that it evades post office security while at the same time phoning death threats to a man they describe as a CIA agent and then having him killed via the mail bomb.
The seriousness of these planned action items would be confirmed by the February 24, 1996 shoot down where two MiGs hunted Brothers to the Rescue
planes in international airspace and used air to air missiles to
destroy two of the planes killing two pilots and two passengers based on
intelligence supplied by the WASP network.
Why was Brothers to the Rescue targeted? Brothers to the Rescue volunteers risked their lives in the Florida Straits to rescue Cuban rafters and at the same time Brothers
to the Rescue challenged the
Cuban exile community to abandon both the failed violent resistance and
appeasement approaches in order to embrace strategic
nonviolence. This
path followed the way of Martin Luther King Jr. with both civil disobedience and a constructive program. What was the end result?
Brothers to the Rescue saved more than 4,200 men, women, and children
ranging from a five-day old infant to a 79 year old man, and rescued
thousands more during the 1994 refugee crisis.
The real story is that Havana targeted Brothers to the Rescue for slander,
infiltration, sabotage and extrajudicial execution on February 24, 1996
because it viewed the organization’s nonviolent approach as an existential threat to the Castro dictatorship. International organizations recognized that Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales
were murdered by agents of the Cuban government on February 24, 1996 when they were blown out of the sky by air-to-air missiles fired by a Cuban MiG. This was a criminal conspiracy organized by an outlaw regime.
The first of the participants in the conspiracy to be held accountable
for his actions was Gerardo Hernandez who was sentenced to life in
prison for conspiracy to commit murder.
Transcribed and translated excerpts from seized diskettes:
DAV-118 (E) RTF (AIRPORT.DIR)
WORK DIRECTIVES FOR OPERATION “AEROPUERTO”
1-. THE IDEA OF THE OPERATION:
SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING THE ESSENTIAL IDEA OF THE OPERATION WAS FOR A-32 TO JOIN WITH THE ILLEGAL CENTER THAT WAS BEING DIRECTED BY A-4 AND WAS FUNCTIONING IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA.
2-. OPERATIONAL OBJECTIVES:
THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVE OF THE OPERATION
IS TO ESTABLISH S/A A-32 IN KEY WEST FOR THE PURPOSE OF PENETRATING AND
OBTAINING INFORMATION ON THE NAVAL AIR STATION LOCATED IN THAT CITY.
ALSO, TO MAKE CONTACTS WHICH CAN PROVIDE US
WITH MILITARY, POLITICAL , BIOGRAPHICAL AND OPERATIONAL INFORMATION AS
AS TO STUDY COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATIONS EXISTING IN THE AREA AND
CARRY OUT STUDIES ON THE OPERATIONAL SITUATION OF ROADS, MAINLY IN KEY
WEST.
3-. PARTICIPANTS
A-32 WILL BE THE MAIN PARTICIPANT AND HE WILL BE DIRECTLY UNDER I.O. A-4.
WORK DIRECTIVES FOR OPERATION “GIRÓN.”
1-. IDEA OF THE OPERATION
Reviewed by: LS Salomon
Declassified by: KMDJr / RJG
Cred. #10517
11/27/00 1
[…]
DHo-101 (E) CMA (Disk 17).wpd
OPERATION “PICADA’
OBJECTIVES:
1.-) TRY TO IMPEDE THE CONSUMPTION OF
INTENTIONS OF THE OPERATION P.A.L. (PAN, AMOR Y LIBERTAD) OF THE
COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION BROTHER’S TO THE RESCUE.
2.-) AFFECT AND DISCREDIT THE IMAGE OF SAID ORGANIZATION.
ACTIONS TO BE DEVELOPED:
1.-) PERFORM THE OPERATIONAL SITUATION
STUDY OF THE HANGAR AT THE OPA LOCKA BASE WHERE THE ORGANIZATION KEEPS
AND OPERATES THEIR PLANES.
2.-) THE POSSIBILITY OF BURNING DOWN THE
WAREHOUSE OF THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION, AND AFFECT THEIR
PLANES, MAKING IT SEEM LIKE AN ACCIDENT, NEGLIGENCE OR SELF DAMAGE.
KEEPING IN MIND THAT THIS PLACE MAY BE
SECURED AND THAT IN CASES LIKE THESE, INVESTIGATIONS ARE PERFORMED,
RUMORS WILL LEAK THAT BASULTO AND HIS PEOPLE CAUSED THE DAMAGE
THEMSELVES TO COLLECT THE INSURANCE AND GET MORE MONEY FROM THEIR
CONTRIBUTORS.
3.-) ATTEMPT TO DISABLE THEIR EQUIPMENT AND
TRANSMISSION ANTENNAE ON LAND, THE ONES THEY USE TO COMMUNICATE WITH
DURING THEIR MISSIONS, MAKING IT SEEM LIKE NEGLIGENCE.
NOTE: THESE THREE POINTS WERE REQUESTED OF CASTOR VIA RADIO MESSAGE. IT HAS TO BE DETERMINED WHAT HE HAS BEEN ABLE TO OBTAIN.
4.-) ANALYZE WITH CASTOR IF HE COULD INFORM
US AHEAD OF TIME (DETERMINE PRECISE TIME) WHEN THE BROTHER’S TO THE
RESCUE PLANES WILL BE TAKING OFF, WHO IS IN THEM AND IF THEY ARE GOING
TO LAND AT A SPECIFIC PLACE. WHAT PERSONNEL KNOWS THIS INFORMATION BEFOREHAND. AT SOME POINT, CAN IT BE DETERMINED WHO PROVIDED THIS INFORMATION.
5.-) ACCORDING TO THE FEATURES OF THE
PLANES, THEIR SECURITY SYSTEM, AS WELL AS THE HANGAR WHERE THEY ARE
LOCATED, IF AT ANY SPECIFIC MOMENT HE COULD HIDE SOME TYPE OF MATERIAL
AND KEEP IT THERE WITHOUT BEING DETECTED. WHAT SIZE WOULD THAT MATERIAL
HAVE TO BE
OPERATION PARALLELO:
THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS OPERATION IS TO DEVELOP A SERIES OF ACTIONS AGAINST CIA AGENT JESUS CRUZA FLOR.
THESE ACTIONS WOULD BE:
1.-) PHOTOGRAPH OR VIDEO TAPE HIS HOUSE, LOCATED AT:
1440 S. BAYSHORE DR.
MIAMI, FLORIDA 33131
TELEPHONE (305)358-0762
2.-) ONCE THE HOUSE IS PHOTOGRAPHED, MAKE VARIOUS THREATENING TELEPHONE CALLS (TWO OR THREE) CONCERNING HIS NEARING EXECUTION.
THESE CALLS WOULD BE AT DIFFERENT HOURS AND
DIFFERENT DAYS. TRY TO USE THE EQUIPMENT (CALLED SCRAMBLER OR SOMETHING
SIMILAR) TO CHANGE THE VOICE. PHONE BOOTHS SHOULD BE SELECTED THAT
ALLOW A QUICK EXIT OUT OF THE AREA. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE MEASURES IS
AGAINST A CIA AGENT AND HE COULD HAVE CALLER ID TO FIND OUT THE
TELEPHONE NUMBER THAT IS CALLING AND THE ADDRESS WHERE IT IS LOCATED. ON
THE OTHER HAND, KEEP IN MIND THE REST OF THE SECURITY MEASURES THAT
SHOULD BE TAKEN IN THE BOOTH, SUCH AS FINGERPRINTS, HAIR, ODORS, SALIVA,
DRESS, THAT THERE BE NO PERMANENT PERSONNEL IN THE AREA TO RECOGNIZE
THE CALLER. DO NOT LEAVE THE CAR WHERE IT CAN BE OBSERVED, THE DURATION
OF THE CALL. DO NOT RESPOND TO ANY QUESTIONS ASKED.
3.-) PREPARE AN ALLEGED BOOK-BOMB (BOOK,
CABLE, BATTERIES, PLASTIQUE, ETC., AND SEND IT VIA EXPRESS MAIL. KEEP IN
MIND TO WRAP THE BOOK IN A PROTECTIVE PAPER, WHICH IF THE ENVELOPE IS
PASSED THROUGH THE X-RAY MACHINES, IMPEDES THE DETECTION OF WHAT IS
INSIDE, AND THEREFORE IT WILL NOT BE ROUTED THROUGH THE MAIL.
KEEP IN MIND TO OBTAIN THE ENVELOPE, AS
WELL AS THE POSTAGE, MANY DAYS IN ADVANCE AND SELECT A BUSY PLACE. USE A
SPECIFIC CAMOUFLAGE.
STUDY THE MAILBOX WHERE THE PACKAGE WILL BE
DEPOSITED, AS WELL AS THE TIME IT WILL BE DEPOSITED. ANALYZE HOW YOU
WILL GET OUT OF THE AREA.
DURING THE ENTIRE PROCESS KEEP THE SECURITY
MEASURES IN MIND, SUCH AS THE ONES MENTIONED BEFORE, GIVING SPECIAL
ATTENTION TO FINGER PRINTS DURING THE ENTIRE PROCESS.
EVALUATE THE POSSIBILITY OF USING MANOLO TO MAKE THE CALL, THE TOPOS TO DEPOSIT THE ENVELOPE AND A-4 TO PREPARE THE BOOK-BOMB.
--------------
FEBRUARY 1, 1994
CONTACT AGENDA WITH 0-4 “ESELIN”
Reviewed by: LS Salomon
Declassified by: KMDJr
MM-#10517
9/24/00 2-6
This is not my first time commenting on a film by Olivier Assayas in which Edgar Ramirez had a starring role. Back in 2010 I saw the film Carlos and highly recommended it. However on this occasion, The WASP Network movie, leaves a lot to be desired, and this is without having seen the film. The description on IMDb reads "The story of five Cuban political prisoners who had been imprisoned by the United States since the late 1990s on charges of espionage and murder."
Technically they are political prisoners but they are not prisoners of conscience. The two should not be confused with each other, but are on too many occasions. Both Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro had been political prisoners because they killed people in the service of a political purpose, were caught, tried in a court room of their peers, and justly imprisoned for their crimes. This is very different from a prisoner of conscience, someone jailed for non-violently exercising their fundamental human rights.
The Wasp Network had planned to burn down a airport hangar, first terrorize then send a mail bomb to kill someone, and provided material intelligence that assisted in the shoot down of two civilian planes on February 24, 1996 killing four. This came out during their trial. Gerardo Hernandez, the head of the network was convicted of murder conspiracy and espionage and condemned to a double life sentence.
There has been an effort to erase the crimes of Castroism. Both the Brazilian director, Olivier Assayas, and Mexican actor, Gael García Bernal, at the WASP network press conference, perhaps unintentionally, took part in this process when they claimed that the Cuban spies had done nothing violent and were not spying but were acting out of love. This is not reality, and a slander against the victims.
It is important to recognize that this was not an isolated incident or restricted to Cuba. The founder of the Cuban intelligence service and his spy networks have played and continue to play an important role in Venezuela today.
Cuban Comandant Ramiro Valdes and President Hugo Chavez
Ramiro Valdes went to Venezuela in 2010 supposedly to address the then already existing electricity crisis .In February of 2010 Ramiro Valdes,
then age 77, was hired "as a consultant for that country's energy
crisis" but his expertise is not in energy. He is viewed by some Cuba
experts as "the No. 3
man in the Cuban hierarchy."
Valdes in 2010 was the Vice President of the Council of State and Minister of
Communications in the Cuban government. His role in Communications was figuring out in 2007 a way to muzzle the internet, what he called a "wild colt of new technologies." Afro-Cuban
scholar Carlos Moore offered the following observation on Commander Valdes in 1961 and in 2010:
Ramiro Valdes was an inflexible, totalitarian and brutal person. He was
the most feared man in Cuba. The repressive policies of the regime were
crafted by him. Valdes
struck fear into the hearts of Cubans (even revolutionary ones). Today,
he apparently continues to be the same dogmatic, sectarian and brutal
person he was at the height of his power, but he is no longer the
powerful figure that he used to be.
In addition to domestic repressive forces there is a foreign presence heavily embedded in the Venezuelan military and intelligence services. The head of the opposition National Assembly of Venezuela
on May 15, 2016 complained, over social media, of the presence of
60 Cuban officers. This included a Cuban general, who he identified by
the last name Gregorich, who had a leadership role that included issuing
orders to Venezuelan troops. Capitol Hill Cubans identified the Cuban General as Raul Acosta Gregorich.
The Venezuelan regime, that Cuban spies and military helped to build, looks remarkably more similar with each passing year to the dystopian regime they created in
Cuba.
"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." - Elie Wiesel
Murdered, 2/24/96 in a conspiracy carried out by Castro regime and its spy network
Twenty one years ago on February 24, 1996 on a Saturday afternoon over the Florida Straits two civilian planes were blown out of international airspace on the orders of Fidel and Raul Castro in an act of state terrorism that claimed the lives of three U.S. citizens, Carlos Costa, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre and U.S. resident Pablo Morales.
Two years later in 1998 when Castro's wasp spy network was broken up and Gerardo Hernandez arrested the one person to be held accountable was finally in custody. In 2000 following a lengthy trial he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for conspiracy to commit murder and espionage. On December 15, 2014 President Obama commuted his sentence and on December 17, 2014 announced that Gerardo Hernandez had been returned to Cuba. He was welcomed back by Raul Castro where he proudly declared that he was ready to complete another such mission for the dictatorship. Two days later in a year end press conference President Obama sought to rewrite history declaring this premeditated crime "a tragic circumstance." Thi is why it is so important to continue to stand up silently on February 24th at the times both planes were shot down and hold a moment of silence, remember, and continue to demand justice. We must also remind our fellow countrymen that U.S. courts have also found the Castro regime guilty of premeditation in this shoot down on three occasions.
U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King found Cuba guilty in civil court of planning the shoot down before the actual attack, and noted that there had been ample time to issue warnings to the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft if these had been needed.
A jury in criminal court presided by U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard found Miami-based Cuban spy Gerardo Hernandez guilty of conspiracy to commit murder because of his role in providing information to the Cuban government on the flight plans of Brothers to the Rescue.
On August 21, 2003 a U.S. grand jury indicted the two fighter pilots and their commanding general on murder charges for the 1996 shoot down.
The Free Cuba Foundation has announced on its blog that once against it will join together with the victim's families at Florida International University at the main fountain on University Park Campus on February 24, 2017 in a moment of silence from 3:21pm to 3:27pm the times that the two planes were shot down.
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