GABO (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), HIS GOOD FRIENDS FIDEL AND BILL CLINTON… AND THE CUBAN FIVE

[Mika]

GABO, HIS GOOD FRIENDS FIDEL AND BILL… AND THE CUBAN FIVE

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the famed Colombian novelist who died April 17, 2014, played a fascinating cameo role in the story of the Cuban Five. In the spring of 1998, he carried a secret message about a terrorist plot against Cuba from Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton. That session led to an unprecedented sit-down between the FBI and Cuban State Security in Havana in June 1998. And it was those meetings that triggered the events that ultimately led to the arrest of the Cuban Five on September 12, 1998.

You can learn more about that backstory in this excerpt from What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuba Five.

www.freethefive.org

[Judi Lynn]

1. Just finished reading this material. Horrendous! How could they do that?

We remember so well the fact Bill Clinton made a BIG noise over the fact he absolutely adored Gabriel García Márquez' writing, and held him in the greatest esteem. They made a point of having the corporate stenographers make a great point of it.

Maybe they thought giving him effusive strokes in the public media would be adequate compensation for betraying the great trust of a nation, and of its leader, and of the man who so carefully guarded the horrendous information they needed so badly to formally deliver before more tragedy would strike.

As we see now, and as we saw earlier, the FBI never intended to prevent tragedy at any stage of this filthy situation. Not for a moment.

I would include one of the photos of Gabriel García Marquez with Bill Clinton, but to do that would be to leave the impression Clinton was a friend of his, and obviously that wasn't the case, was it?

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Thank you for posting this, Mika, it's extraordinary, and so damned sad.

[Mika]

2. Also, remember that Jose Basulto led the other 2 BttR planes into Cuban airspace to get shot down.

He had direct contact (via sat phone) with Pensacola naval station radar controllers, who alerted Basulto exactly when the Cuban AF planes took off and how fast they were coming. Basulto rented a fast twin turbo prop FOR THAT DAY ONLY. He got the warning from Pensacola, and turned tail and flew fast out of Cuban airspace before the Cuban Migs got to him - but, he NEVER radioed a warning to the other two BttR pilots of the Cuban Migs fast approach. They were shot down in Cuban airspace, still flying illegally toward Cuba -just as Cuba had repeatedly threatened to do, and gave the US Dept of State a FINAL warning the day before. Basulto knew. He set the whole situation up.

One of the Cuban five is serving 25 years for the deaths THAT HE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH.
Jose Basulto should be behind bars. Of course, he's not. He's a HERO in Miami.


on edit;

After four Brothers to the Rescue pilots were killed February 24, Cotton noticed that commissioners had changed a portion of Coral Way to Brothers to the Rescue Martyrs Boulevard.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1996-05-22/news/9605210495_1_street-sign-dade-county-commissioners

[Judi Lynn]

3. It's a bitter shame the defense couldn't demand information from Pensacola for their trial in Miami.

There would have been no doubt whatsoever what had happened with the truth as part of the proceedings.

How hideous it must have been for the 5 to know REAL terrorists, real bombers, real murderers were sitting right there in plain sight in that court room, smirking as their entire futures were held up, and torn apart right in front of them, in that bogus "trial" they couldn't even hope would be fair. Seeing those smirks from the true terrorists would have driven a lot of people insane.

So now they've got "Brothers to the Rescue Martyrs Boulevard." Is it anywhere close to the street they named for Orlando Bosch, the mass murdering airline bomber? "Martyrs Boulevard." That's a hot one. They were on their way to make martyrs of innocent Cubans.

I did read, many years ago that the family of one of the downed pilots believed the one responsible was Jose Basulto from the moment their son was killed, and the dust settled, and from that point they have NEVER wanted to see or speak with Jose Basulto ever again, and they totally hold him responsible for the deaths.

That's the way it is with these right-wing clowns: they always want blood to be shed to make a bigger statement for their side, but they NEVER are the ones who will offer to sacrifice themselves to get that attention they want to use for fanning the flames of hatred which follows after they drop their lies bomb. No one could ever get dirtier than that. Jose Basulto. What a bag of dirt.

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[Mika]

4. Miami's Orlando Bosch street intersects Jorge Mas Canosa Ave. (aka, Brickel Ave). in dwntwn Miami.

Judi, I think you'll want to read this ...

Free Alan Gross—and the Cuban Five!
If the U.S. wants Cuba to release
USAID contractor Alan Gross, it
should give up its own political
prisoners from Cuba.

The USAID program that landed Gross in prison was designed during the George W. Bush administration. It received approval under the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 law that essentially committed the U.S. government to the overthrow of the Cuban regime.

Gross’ program took an indisputably covert and incendiary approach to democracy promotion, never bothering to obtain the informed consent of the Cuban Jewish community. Like most Cuban religious groups, Jews in Cuba have opposed any attempt to politicize religious organizations by turning them into tools to promote opposition to the regime. The Bush administration’s holy warriors at USAID, however, had aspirations far beyond the temple doors¾they aimed to overthrow the Cuban government. If that involved getting Cuban Jews in trouble without their consent, then so be it.

USAID made a peculiar choice in selecting Gross for actions that would come to be condemned in Cuba as subversive. Gross did not know Cuba and did not speak Spanish. He loved Cuban music, but that hardly qualified him for the covert mission he was sent on. Moreover, the U.S. government systematically misinformed Gross about Cuba. According to a confidential summary of an August 2008 meeting between USAID high officials and representatives of Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI)—the contractor that hired Gross—Bush-era USAID officials recommended that project team members “stay well informed” about Cuba by reading certain blogs. At the head of the USAID-recommended list of go-to sources about Cuba was Babalu, a rabidly right wing blog based in Miami. One of Babalu’s more recent posts labels current U.S. president Barack Obama a “Marxist tyrant” in the tradition of “Mao, Stalin, and Fidel Castro.”

Rather than revising USAID’s regime change program, the Obama administration preferred to cover up the mess that the Bush administration had left behind. Worse still, as we just learned this April, even after Gross’ arrest, USAID implemented another covert operation in Cuba: ZunZuneo, or “Cuban Twitter.”

More here --> http://fpif.org/free-alan-gross-cuban-five/

[Mika]

5. And this ...

Cuba Document Archive | Alan Gross
http://www.american.edu/clals/cuba-archive_alan-gross.cfm

[Judi Lynn]

6. Alan Gross has to be amazingly stupid if he, an adult, couldn't see through crap like USAID's list

of recommended reading for someone considering taking questionable material into Cuba.

Babalu ? Oh, for crying out loud. Any child would think that one's simply stupid.

This article is well done, and I'm even more convinced Gross had a pretty good idea what he was doing was NOT on the level.

Why on earth have they been trying to pretend he was there "helping" the Jewish community, anyway? Everyone most clearly knows otherwise.