Cuba warns dissidents over US aid

[Mika]

Cuba warns dissidents over US aid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5171836.stm

A top Cuban official has warned dissidents they will face consequences if they accept funds from a new US plan to promote political change in Cuba.

Cuba's National Assembly president, Ricardo Alarcon, said the plan was a "politically delirious provocation".

-

Mr Alarcon told the Spanish news agency, Efe, that any dissidents who "conspired " with Washington and accepted its funding would have to "face the consequences".

It would be a crime to accept such money under Cuban law, as it would be in any country, Mr Alarcon aid.

"Imagine that someone in the US were to be supported, trained, equipped and advised by a foreign government, that in itself would be a crime. It would be a serious crime in the US, punished with far more years in prison than here in Cuba," Mr Alarcon said.
The plan drew a mixed reaction among dissidents in Havana.

The legitimate Cuban domestic opposition that functions quite freely doesn't want the taint of US funding - the US paid mercs do.

Of course, when those who accept the US mercenary funding get arrested, the usual mewling ("but they were just speaking their minds" BS) by the Cubaphobes will result.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Remarks by U.S. former Interests Section head, Wayne S. Smith

on _Bush's bright ideas about taking over Cuba:

July 11, 2006

Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots
Bush's New Cuba Plan
By WAYNE S. SMITH

In May of 2004, the Bush Administration's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba issued an almost 500-page report that seemed to conclude the Castro government was virtually at the point of collapse. Just a few more nudges--a few more Radio Marti broadcasts, denials of a few more travel licenses, and support to a few more dissidents--and it would all be over. The United States, the report seemed to suggest, would then come in and show the Cubans how to operate their schools properly, make their trains run on time, and grow their crops more efficiently. It was envisaged as such a U.S.-run operation that in July of 2005, a U.S. transition coordinator was appointed. One skeptical observer noted at the time that in the case of Iraq, the Bush Administration had at least waited until it invaded and occupied the country before appointing a transition coordinator. Did his appointment in this case mean the U.S. intended to invade Cuba as well? And if not, what was the U.S. transition coordinator supposed to do from his office in the State Department building? Even today, that remains unclear.

Perhaps OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza's reaction to the idea of a U.S. transition coordinator for Cuba summed it up best. "But there is no transition," he said, "and it isn't your country."

Indeed, the transition plan put forward in 2004 had such a "made-in-the-USA" tone to it that it backfired in Cuba. Even Cubans who had their disagreements with the Castro government did not want to be told by the United States how they should run their country. Leading dissidents described the new approach as counterproductive. Elizardo Sanchez of the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, for example, noted that the U.S. policy announced in 2004, "has had an effect exactly the opposite of the one you should want."

Cuba's Catholic Bishops also disagreed with the U.S. approach, saying its measures "threaten both the present and the future of our nation."

Nor did many Cubans agree with the idea that they should give up free health care and education, and various other services provided by the government.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/smith07112006.html

[Mika]

5. Note what the domestic political "opposition" says

From the counterpunch article you linked..

Leading dissidents described the new approach as counterproductive. Elizardo Sanchez of the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, for example, noted that the U.S. policy announced in 2004, "has had an effect exactly the opposite of the one you should want."

Just as I've mentioned in earlier threads, Bushco's intention is to get the very "dissidents" that they fund arrested just for the propaganda purposes that will be used by the mewling Cubaphobes.

Cuba's Catholic Bishops also disagreed with the U.S. approach, saying its measures "threaten both the present and the future of our nation."

Threaten Cubans and the system that they overwhelmingly support to rally them behind their leadership. Then, continue funding the many "transition" groups and exile foundations that funnel said funding back to the political campaigns of the politicians that vote for such funding (both Rs and Ds).

Mission accomplished.

[Judi Lynn]

2. MSNBC report on this new bright idea from the Republican pResident

Bush offers help to Cuba but only without Castro
By Guy Dinmore in Washington

Updated: 11:12 p.m. CT July 10, 2006

~snip~
The report does not mention "regime change" but it explicitly offers support to Cubans who want to overthrow their government. Ms Rice said the US would help those "who are willing to push for freedom despite the consequences".

The US also leaves open the possibility that a post-Castro government would turn to it for help. The US would only respond if there was a genuine commitment to implement free elections and a free-market economy within 18 months.

No mention is made of possible US military intervention, although a separate classified annex to the report was not made public.

Caleb McCarry, the State Department's Cuba transition co-ordinator, said the report included a recommendation on how to "assist the Cuban security forces" during the envisaged transition. He declined to comment on possible US military involvement.

Meanwhile, the US will spend an additional $80m (€63m, £43m) supporting Cuban civil society and broadcasting, while tightening up enforcement of its unilateral embargo and restrictions on US citizens visiting Cuba.

"This is about the president's freedom agenda," Mr McCarry said.

Political analysts in Washington said it was also about securing the crucial support of the exiled Cuban community in Florida ahead of mid-term congressional elections.
(snip)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13806504/

[Mika]

4. Any guesses as to the classified annex portion of the report?

More terror funding?

Operation Northwoods ver 2.0?

[ronnie624]

6. Oh, brother.

Talk about hyperbole.

"The US report calls Cuba a "destabilising force in the region" and accuses Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez of providing funding to enable Cuba to reactivate networks aimed at subverting democratic governments.

And this little jewel:

"This is about the president's freedom agenda," Mr McCarry said.

Does it get any more Orwellian than that?

[killbotfactory]

7. Any country that doesn't do what we want is considered a...

"destabalizing force"

Our foreign policy down there is a sick, unfunny, joke.

[ronnie624]

8. It's amazing how many people

can be made to believe such twaddle. Anyone who believes this tiny country, the biggest concerns of which are food, housing, health care and education is somehow a threat or a "destabilizing force" could be easily led to believe anything. And yet there are such fools, even here on DU.

[oasis]

15. Help Cuba? Hey Bush, how about helping Americans for a change?

Remember Katrina? :puke:

[Judi Lynn]

3. Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[Bucky]

9. "Cuban domestic opposition that functions quite freely". Help me out here

Can you tell me where I can find out more about this? Last I heard, Amnesty International still had Cuba on its "Bad Guy" list.

Cuba - Renewed Crackdown on Peaceful Government Critics

Cuba - summary

Restrictions on freedom of expression, association and movement continued to cause great concern. Nearly 70 prisoners of conscience remained in prison. The US embargo continued to have a negative effect on the enjoyment of the full range of human rights in Cuba. The economic situation deteriorated and the government attempted to suppress private entrepreneurship. More than 30 prisoners remained on death row; no one was executed....

Human rights activists, political dissidents and trade unionists were harassed and intimidated. Such attacks were frequently perpetrated by quasi-official groups, the rapid-response brigades, allegedly acting in collusion with members of the security forces.

Freedom of expression and association continued to be under attack. All legal media outlets were under government control and independent media remained banned. Independent journalists faced intimidation, harassment and imprisonment for publishing articles outside Cuba. Human rights defenders also faced intimidation and politically motivated and arbitrary arrests.

The laws used to arrest and imprison journalists, relating to defamation, national security and disturbing public order, did not comply with international standards. According to the international NGO Reporters Without Borders, 24 journalists were imprisoned at the end of 2005....

Why, hell, it's a workers' paradise.

[Mika]

10. Interesting that AI doesn't mention that the arrested are..

.. on the payroll of the country (the US) that seeks to overthrow the government, and has attacked and funded/planned multiple terrorist attacks on Cuba in the past.

Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, if you read the article, the leadership of Cuba's native opposition parties doesn't want the US to fund other "dissident" groups because it taints the legitimate opposition groups - and is illegal.

The very intention of the US anti Cuba funding ops is to get these "independent journalists" arrested so that ignorant-about-Cuba Americans will mewl just what AI is mewling.

"Prisoners of conscience" - my ass. Just like Al Queda, right? Foreign paid (US state sponsored) anti government operatives is more like it.

Do you really think that the US gov would tolerate foreign paid operatives seeking to overthrow the system of government in the US - especially if they were being funded by state sponsors of terrorism? Get real.

[Judi Lynn]

11. It doesn't seem to help mentioning the screaming double standards

to Republicans. AS is consistent with their view of the "rule of law," the law actually was written for non-right-wingnuts, as everyone knows Republicans can't be expected to tailor their behavior so narrowly. It's too much of a hassle, and they can't get what they want from life being lawful. So we get a lot of hot air, finger pointing, pontificating while they expect everyone to look the other way as they break the law, literal and moral, continually.

CUBA: Dissidents funded by US government
BY ROBERTO JORQUERA

At an April 8 press conference in Havana, Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque presented vouchers, bank receipts and photos demonstrating the truth behind the charges against 75 dissidents found guilty of conspiring with the US Interests Section (USIS) at the Swiss embassy in Havana.

Perez exhibited vouchers of monies received last year from the US by several illegal organisations in Cuba. The Centre for a Free Cuba received US$2.3 million. The Task Force for the Internal Dissidency received US$250,000. The Program for Transition in Cuba, headed by Frank Calzon, received $325,000. Support Group for the Dissidency received $1.2 million from the International Republican Institute. Cubanet, an internet magazine, received $98,000 and the American Centre for International Labor Solidarity, whose mission is to persuade foreign investors not to invest in Cuba, received $168,575.

At a series of trials of Cuban dissidents in early April it was revealed that James Cason, the current head of the USIS, had conspired with them to provide information that Washington can use in its economic, political and propaganda war against the Cuban workers' and peasants' government.
On March 18, Cuban police began charging those involved in the US-funded dissident network. They were charged under a number of different articles in the Cuban penal code and subsequently sentenced to between 15 and 27 years imprisonment.

Article 5.1 of the penal code, under which many of those arrested were charged, states that any Cuban citizen “who seeks out information to be used in the application of the Helms-Burton Act, the blockade and the economic war against our people aimed at disrupting internal order, destabilising the country and liquidating the socialist state and the independence of Cuba, shall incur a sanction of deprivation of liberty”.

Article 6.1 states that any Cuban citizen “who gathers, reproduces, disseminates subversive material from the government of the United States of America, its agencies, representative bodies, officials or any foreign entity to support the objectives of the Helms-Burton Act, the blockade and the war, shall incur a sanction of deprivation of liberty”.
(snip)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2003/535/535p21.htm

[Billy Burnett]

12. A little tidbit in the 1997 A.I. report you linked

So, Cuba shouldn't crackdown on a terrorist network?

The renewed crackdown is the most widespread since the round-up of dozens of members of unofficial groups supporting the project known as Concilio Cubano, Cuban Concilium, in February 1996 <2>, and appears to be even more serious in its intent. It has coincided with reports during June and July of bomb explosions at three Havana hotels which caused minor injuries. The Cuban authorities have told the US Government that they have proof that persons based in the USA were behind the explosions

Related Miami Herald article from their archive., (note the Al Queda like comment on innocent bystanders who might be killed)

Bomber tells his story
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/11824179.htm

HAVANA -- As he explains precisely how he planted a string of bombs at hotels around the Cuban capital in the summer of 1997, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon mentions the Hotel Nacional.

The Nacional?

``Nacional, sí, bomba.''

I tell him that's where I'm staying. He laughs and then smiles and shrugs.

Among Cubans, Cruz Leon is known simply as ''The Salvadoran,'' the man who placed six of the dozen or more bombs that rocked Cuban tourist sites that year, including the bomb at the Copacabana that killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

He was captured not long after the Copa bombing and was sentenced to death in March 1999. His sentence is under appeal -- which means the Cuban government values him more alive than dead, at least for now.

In his first interview with a U.S. newspaper since his conviction six years ago, Cruz Leon talked about his life in Cuba's Guanajay Prison, the death of di Celmo, and his feelings toward Luis Posada Carriles, the man responsible for sending him on what he once believed was a ``heroic mission.''

Our meeting takes place away from the prison, in a house used by Cuban state security in Siboney, a neighborhood on the west side of the city. Dressed in jeans, a polo shirt and sneakers -- as opposed to his normal prison uniform -- and with his hair neatly trimmed, Cruz Leon appeared healthy.

A former member of El Salvador's military, Cruz Leon was 26 when he was recruited in San Salvador for the bombing campaign. He said he was approached by another Salvadoran, Francisco Chavez Abarca, who was familiar with what Cruz Leon described as his ``spirit of adventure.''

''He also knew I had right-wing thoughts,'' Cruz Leon said.

Cruz Leon never met Posada, but as a Herald investigation discovered in 1997, Chavez worked for Posada and was one of the first people recruited by Posada to initiate the bombing campaign.

Cruz Leon said he was to be paid approximately $2,000 for each bomb detonated. He was given a list of hotels, but it was up to Cruz Leon to decide the exact location inside each building. Cruz Leon claimed he balked at first because he didn't want anyone to get hurt. He told me that Abarca responded by saying: ``Well, try to put it in the lobby in a place where you won't kill anybody, but if there are people that die, that's the price. If there are people that die, they die.''

`HEROIC MISSION'

After his first set of bombs went off in July 1997, he felt great. ''I thought that I had accomplished a heroic mission,'' he said. ``I thought it was an action against the evil.''

He returned a few weeks later to plant a second string of bombs. One of them at the Copacabana. He only learned someone died in that blast after being arrested two days later by Cuban police.

As Dr. Mika has indicated, AI doesn't really seem to be overly concerned with the US based terror ops against Cuba, and calls those who aid and abet the activities of killers "prisoners of conscience".


As to the so called US funded "independent libraries" and "independent librarians" that A.I. mentions as being harrassed, here's and interesting read,

Cuba and the Myth of the 'Independent Libraries'
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5960

[Judi Lynn]

13. They never have seemed aware of the terrorism campaign going on

continually originating within the Cuban "exile" community, with occassional gov't support, in the U.S. which has lasted for over 45 years. We've seen first hand what happened here, in a country impacted by ONE intentional mass murder.

Cuba has been living with this moment by moment, knowing it will continue, since 1959.

It's so sad realizing Cuba sent a group of men to Miami who did all the footwork, got all the necessary information collected on Miami "exile" terrorists, took it to the FBI to ask for help, and were, themselves thrown in jail, where they languish, still, even after a higher court has determined they didn't get a fair trial.

There is NO protection for leftists. That's why there have been reigns of terror throughout Latin America, from Argentina, and Brazil, Chile, going north throughout Central America and Mexico, all carried out with full U.S. right-wing Presidential support, with deaths in the hundreds of thousands, and it's all been peachy keen, A-OK with groups like A-International. Couldn't be better. Some of the worst butchers were personal friends of people like "Rev." Pat Robertson.

Where WAS A-I, etc., during the unbelievable slaughter encompassing generations and decades? Bitching about some U.S. paid "political" activists in Cuba.

[ronnie624]

14. "They never have seemed aware

of the terrorism campaign going on continually originating within the Cuban "exile" community, with occassional gov't support, in the U.S. which has lasted for over 45 years."

And no matter how many times you make them aware, providing irrefutable documentation, they will be right back the next day repeating the same nonsense. :crazy:

[Judi Lynn]

16. Washington Plots Regime Change:Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New

July 13, 2006

Washington Plots Regime Change
Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New Cuba Plan?
By JOSÉ PERTIERRA

Cuba calls the shots; and Venezuela pays the bills. That is the major premise underlying the Report made public last Monday by the U.S. State Department concerning Cuba. Its findings are as much about the Bush Administration's plans for regime change in Cuba, as they are about the alleged threat that Venezuela poses to U.S. national security interests.

The ninety-three page Report was prepared by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. Its recommendations were accepted by President George W. Bush. They include a budget of $80 million during the next two years to ensure a transition, rather than a succession of leadership, in Cuba. The Report also contains a classified attachment that contains a secret plan for regime change in Cuba.

Although the Commission's Report and its recommendations are ostensibly about Cuba, Venezuela is a featured star player in the drama. It mentions Venezuela at least nine different times, always emphasizing Washington's perception that the Chávez government is bankrolling the Cuban government: "Cuba can only meet its budget needs with the considerable support of foreign donors, primarily Venezuela," says the Report.

SUBVERSION IN LATIN AMERICA

Besides keeping the Cuban government afloat, Venezuelan money is allegedly also responsible for subversion in Latin America. The first paragraph of the Report boldly proclaims that "there are clear signs the regime is using money provided by the Chavez government in Venezuela to reactivate its networks in the hemisphere to subvert democratic governments." We are not told which countries the Bush Administration thinks Cuba and Venezuela are subverting, nor are we ever told how.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/pertierra07132006.html

[Mika]

17. Oh yeah, subversion with doctors, eye surgeries, teachers, linguists..

.. Cuba is a REAL evildoer nation, teachin' poor people rithmatic & ritin and doctorin' 'n all.

Seriously whacked shit.


The US continued obstinate refusal to develop efficient and alternative energy infrastructure means that that Venezuela poses a threat to U.S. national security interests?

Blood for oil, that's what BushCrimeInc stands for. :puke:

[Judi Lynn]

18. It's so sick one can barely stand to read it. Really twisted stuff.

They try to compare sending doctors, teachers and others where they can do the most good with "subverting democratic governments." Apparently they don't realize everyone knows how they have been trying to destabilize countries all over the world through massive bribery, distributing money to opposition groups, even bringing them to Washington to confer privately with people like Otto Reich in the State Department, like this jackass, opposition clown Maria Corina Machado from opposition group Sumate in Venezuela:



They are matchless in the filthy vast reach of their colossal lies. I have NEVER seen people lie with such determination and intensity, not ever.

[Mother Jones]

19. This is OT, but as good a place as any to post;

Cuba has just sent their Embassador to Lebannon BACK to Beirut (from his summer vacation). I was scratching my head over this, but I'm now wondering what the heck Cuba has up their sleeve.


Apologies for no link, my sister's hubby is the cuban embassador's son.