Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BUSHES AND MIAMI CUBANS



after September 11 Cubans convicted of terrorist offences were being released from US jails with the consent of the Bush administration

Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, by Ann Louise Bardach, who has covered Cuban and Miami politics for the New York Times and Vanity Fair

to 1984 when Jeb Bush began a close association with Camilo Padreda, a former intelligence officer with the Batista dictatorship




Jeb Bush, chairman of the Dade county Republican party and Padreda its finance chairman. Padreda had earlier been indicted on a $500,000
embezzlement charge along with Hernandez Cartaya charges were dropped CIA stated that Cartaya had worked for them

Padreda later pleaded guilty to defrauding the housing and urban development department of millions of dollars during the 1980s.

The president's younger brother was also on the payroll in the 80s of the prominent Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who had earlier assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate President Castro.

Recarey, who ran International Medical Centres (IMC), employed Jeb Bush as a real estate consultant. Jeb Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC

In 1985, Jeb Bush acted as a conduit on behalf of supporters of the Nicaraguan contras with his father helped arrange for IMC to provide free medical treatment for the contras. Recarey was later charged with massive medicare fraud but fled the US before his trial and is now a fugitive.

Jeb Bush sealed his popularity with the Cuban exile community as campaign manager for another prominent Cuban-American, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen



at the request of Jeb, Mr Bush Sr intervened to release the convicted Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch from prison and then granted him US residency. Bosch had participated in more than 30 terrorist acts, 1976 blowing-up of a Cubana plane, Bosch's release result of pressure brought by hardline Cubans in Miami, with Jeb Bush serving as their point man

Jeb Bush nominated Raoul Cantero, the grandson of Batista, as a Florida supreme court judge. Mr Cantero had previously represented Bosch.

Other Cuban exiles, Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, who carried out the 1976 assassination of the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier have also been released by the current Bush administration.

many hardline Cuban-Americans have received plum jobs, Mel Martinez was made housing secretary, Otto Reich was awarded a one year recess appointment for the western hemisphere in the state department.

http://www.campaignwatch.org/more1.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3335.htm
http://motherjones.com/politics/1992/09/bush-family-value

CUBA AND DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVES, INC

The State Department said previously that he was working as a subcontractor for the Maryland-based economic development organization Development Alternatives Inc.

Jim Boomgard, the company's president and chief executive, said he was part of a new USAID program intended to "strengthen civil society in support of just and democratic governance in Cuba."

After two weeks of silence, Raul Castro first acknowledged the detention in an address to Parliament on Dec. 20, saying the American was arrested for distributing illegal satellite communications equipment.

Development Alternatives Inc.

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Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) is a development consulting company based in Bethesda, MD, USA.

DAI acted as a conduit for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (through the Office of Transition Initiatives) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED} funds to the Venezuelan opposition to president Hugo Chavez. Furthermore, it was instrumental along with NED affiliated organizations for financing black propaganda on Venezuelan private network TV during the general strike in 2002. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that DAI was required to keep certain personnel in Venezuela and had to consult with USAID about staff changes. Philip Agee, a former CIA officer, suggests that this is merely a cover for what passed for CIA operations in the past [Agee, op. cit. (transcript here)].

In 1990, Experience International Inc. was purchased by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) and operated as that company's Agriculture and Agribusiness Division. [1]

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

PHILIP AGEE

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_Diary_Agee.html

Warren Hinkle and William Turner, in The Fish is Red, easily the best book on the CIA's war against Cuba
The Deputy Chief of the CIA's main Batista secret police force had been captured
The Agency had set up the unit in 1956 and called it the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities or BRAC
The Deputy Chief of BRAC, one Jose Castano Quevedo
BRAC liaison man with the CIA Station in the U.S. Embassy
Agency Chief of Station sent a journalist collaborator named Andrew St. George to Che Guevara,
out 31st avenue on the way to the airport, just before turning left at the Marianao military hospital, I pass on the left a large, multi-storey white police station that occupies an entire city block. The style looks like 1920's fake castle
Next door, separated from the castle by 110th street, is a fairly large two-story green house
it was the dreaded BRAC Headquarters,
March 1960
blew up a French freighter, Le Coubre, as it was unloading a shipment of weapons from Belgium at a Havana wharf.
100 died

In April the following yea
a CIA sabotage operation burned down El Encanto, Havana's largest department store
U.S. aggression against Cuba since 1959
has cost nearly 3500 lives and left more than 2000 disabled.
Jane Franklin's classic historical chronology The Cuban Revolution and the United States.
Richard Helms, the former CIA Director, when testifying in 1975 before the Senate Committee
In admitting to "invasions of Cuba which we were constantly running under government aegis,"
We had task forces that that were striking at Cuba constantly. We were attempting to blow up power plants. We were attempting to ruin sugar mills.

Senator Christopher Dodd commented to Helms:

It is likely that at the very moment that President Kennedy was shot, a CIA officer was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris and giving him an assassination device to use against Castro.

Note: the officer worked for Desmond Fitzgerald, a friend of Robert Kennedy and at the time overall chief of the CIA's operations against Cuba, and the agent was Rolando Cubela, a Cuban army Comandante with regular access to Fidel Castro whose CIA codename was AMLASH.]
no U.S. administration since Eisenhower has renounced the use of state terrorism against Cuba, and terrorism against Cuba has never stopped.
April 2003 the Sun-Sentinel of Ft. Lauderdale reported, with accompanying photographs, exile guerrilla training outside Miami by the F-4 Commandos, one of several terrorist groups currently based there
including their connections with the paramilitary arm of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF).
arrest in Panama
November 2000
4 exile terrorists
Luis Posada Carriles, a man with impeccable CIA credentials
planning the assassination of Fidel Castro
Posada's resume includes planning the Cubana airliner bombing in 1976 that killed all 73 people aboard;
employment by the CIA in El Salvador in 1980's re-supply operations for the contra terrorists in Nicaragua
in 1997 10 bombings of hotels and other tourist sites in Havana

Another of the CIA's untouchable terrorists is Orlando Bosch,
the 1976 Cubana airliner bombing, Bosch was arrested with Carriles a week after the bombing and spent 11 years in a Venezuelan jail
lobbying on Bosch's behalf by Miami Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban American with close ties to CANF, and by Jeb Bush, Ros-Lehtinen's campaign manager prior to his election as governor,
the elder President Bush, who was CIA Director at the time of the Cubana airliner bombing
rescind the deportation order.
Cubans opted in the 1990's to send their own intelligence officers to Florida under cover as exiles to provide warnings on coming terrorist actions.
reporting back to Havana,
illegal over-flights of Cuba by Brothers to the Rescue.
in 1998 Cuba delivered to the FBI voluminous information
on U.S.-based terrorist activities
the FBI then arrested 10 members of a Cuban intelligence network
Later the 5 Cuban intelligence officers running the network were tried in Miami

given draconian sentences, one of them two life terms.
Demand for their freedom is the main political topic in Cuba today.
declaring an unending war against terrorism following the September 2001
rather than starting his anti-terrorist war in Miami
series of pre-emptive wars
Cuba, of course, is wrongfully on that list, but people here take this seriously as a preliminary pretext for U.S. military action against this country.
Civil Society and the Dissidents
Reagan administration
more than terrorist operations was needed to impose regime change in Cuba.
Terrorism
invasion
diplomatic isolation
economic embargo
Now
new world wide program to finance and develop non-governmental and voluntary organizations
what was to become known as civil society, within the context of U.S. global neo-liberal policies.
CIA
AID
christened in 1983
NED
the new program was not really new.
Since
1947
CIA
secretly funding
manipulating
non-governmental voluntary organizations.
circled the globe

targeted at political parties, trade unions and businessmen's associations, youth and student organizations, women's groups, civic organizations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and cultural societies, and the public information media.
Media operations,
in practically every country,
CIA would pay journalists to publish its materials
In the Directorate of Operations at the CIA's headquarters
these operations were coordinated with the regional operations divisions by the International Organizations Division (IOD), since many of the operations were regional or continental in nature,
to penetrate, divide, weaken and destroy corresponding enemy organizations on the left,
to impose regime change
Guyana where in 1964
Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes, terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA international trade union agents.
same time
in Ecuador,
our agents in civil society, through mass demonstrations and civil unrest,
provoked two military coups

in three years against elected, civilian governments. And in Brazil in the early 1960's, the same CIA trade union operations were brought together with other operations in civil society
these mass actions over time provoked the 1964 military coup against President Joao Goulart, ushering in 20 years of unspeakably brutal political repression.
But on February 26th, 1967, the sky crashed on IOD and its global civil society networks.
the Washington Post published an extensive report revealing a grand stable of foundations, some bogus, some real, that the CIA was using to fund its global non-governmental networks.
known as "funding conduits."
with the foundations scores of recipient organizations were identified, including well-known intellectual journals, trade unions, and political think tanks. Soon journalists around the world completed the picture with reports on the names and operations of organizations in their countries affiliated with the network

President Johnson
said such CIA operations would end, but in fact they never did.
he proof is in the CIA's successful operations in Chile to provoke the 1973
Here they combined the forces of opposition political parties, trade unions, businessmen's groups, civic organizations, housewife's associations and the information media to create chaos and disorder, knowing that sooner or later the Chilean military, faithful to traditional fascist military doctrine in Latin America, would use such unrest to justify usurping governmental power to restore order and to stamp out the left.
a carbon copy of the Brazilian destabilization
the civil society opposition to the Hugo Chavez
the CIA
AID
NED
coordinating the destabilization and were behind the failed coup in April 2002 as well as the failed "civic strike" of last December-January.
International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party
how these civil society operations are run
look at the bureaucratic side.
two words
discipline and control

discipline through tight control of the money and of the agents down the line who spend it.
obligations are to be clear and unambiguous
prevent personal embezzlement
by requiring receipts
activities to penetrate and manipulate civil society are known as Covert Action operations
governed by detailed regulations
a request for money in a document known as a Project Outline,
or a Request for Project Renewal
originates
in a field station or
Headquarters
it describes a current situation;
activities to be undertaken to improve or change the situation vis-a-vis U.S. interests;
a time-line for achieving intermediary and final goals;
risks and the flap potential
detailed budget with information on all participating organizations and individuals and the amounts of money to go to each.
summary of the status of all agent personnel
All people involved are included,
In additional
a certain amount of money without designated recipients
is included under the rubric D&TO
for Developmental and Targets of Opportunity.

to finance new activities that come up during the project approval period,
information
on all individuals
is always required
A statement is
required
intelligence information
Thus financial support for a political party is expected to produce intelligence information on the internal politics of the host country.
Project Outlines and Renewals go through an approval process by various offices such as the International Organizations Division, and depending on their sensitivity and cost, they may require approval outside the CIA at the Departments of State, Defense, or Labor, or by the National Security Council or the President himself. When finally approved the CIA's Finance Division allocates the money and the operation begins, or continues if being renewed. The period of approvals and renewals is usually one year.
Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy
processes similar to the CIA's
for project funding in the civil societies of other countries.

must receive prior approval through an investigative process,
clearly defined tasks
An inter-agency commission determines which of the three agencies, the CIA, AID or NED, or a combination of them, are to carry out specific tasks in the civil societies of specific countries
how much money each should give. All three have obviously been working to develop an opposition civil society in Cuba.
National Endowment for Democracy has its origins in the CIA's covert action operations and was first conceived in the wake of the disastrous revelations noted above that began on February 26th, 1967.
later in April
Dante Fascell, member of the House
from Miami and a close friend of the CIA and Miami Cubans
introduced legislation that would create an "open" foundation to carry on what had been secret CIA funding of the foreign civil society programs of U.S. organizations (e.g., the National Students Association) or of foreign organizations directly (e.g., the Congress for Cultural Freedom based in Paris).

dd

Saturday, February 23, 2008

CUBA'S ETHANOL


It wouldn't happen overnight, and it would take a huge investment in the country's rickety sugar industry, but Cuba has the potential to produce 3.2 billion gallons of ethanol annually, according to an analysis (.pdf) by Juan Tomas Sanchez of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy. Another Cuba expert, Jorge Hernandez Fonseca, puts the figure (.pdf) closer to 2 billion gallons but even that figure would place Cuba third -- behind Brazil and the United States -- in worldwide production.

Cuba doesn't have much need for ethanol, Sanchez writes, and could export as much as 3 billion gallons a year -- worth about $7 billion at today's prices. Don't look for any of that ethanol to flow in America though. The State Department says it won't lift the trade embargo on Cuba any time soon.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

CUBA IN TRANSITION

**5 Billion barrels of oil, 10 trillion c.f. of gas. Drilling by China, Canada, India, Brasil**


When Castro withdrew from the daily running of the country two years ago, he spread his duties among six close advisors. The first among equals was his brother Raul, but along with him six more figures were appointed to key positions in Cuban politics. Thus he hoped to prevent a political struggle from breaking out.

"THE OLD GUARD"

Raul Castro (Centrist)
Ricardo Alarcon (71)(Centrist), National Assembly President



Raul Castro - remains a committed communist and a fidelista, but has been always far more pragmatic and administratively competent than his older brother.

Raul Castro will remain the head of state, but it is not know whom he will pick for his cabinet and which of his brother's favorites he will hold off at a distance. The goal is to not to block the way for younger people, but to provide experience and ideas. Castro wanted to prepare his compatriots psychologically for his departure, so that it would not come as a shock. He hoped to prevent a political struggle from breaking

Economic reforms managed by the Cuban Armed Forces headed by Raul Castro as the best hope for the near future

The Cuban Armed Forces were the first to introduce capitalist business practices into Cuba and now control technology and computing firms, beach resort hotels, car rental firms, an airline, a fleet of buses and a large retail chain.

The Cuban sugar industry is run by a general, as is the ports administration and the lucrative cigar industry.

(?) Minister of Information Ramiro Valdes, who many believe is in a power sharing arrangement with Raul.

(?) Culture Minister Abel Prieto (Centrist).

They support martket mechanisms to improve the state-run economy and are behind modest reforms


"THE CHINESE"

Carlos Lage (Reformer) (57), Vice President


The technocrats. Old veterans who have a reputation as liberals. They are considered supporters of economic reform on the Chinese model. Carlos Laje, deputy chairman of the State Council and third-ranking figure in the Cuban state after the Castro brothers, is considered the leader of the Chinese. His main base of influence is that he is responsible for the country's electrical power and is a link between Cuban authorities and Cuba's main sponsor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The big winner in the shuffle appears to Lage: credited with implementing limited reforms that rescued Cuba's faltering economy in the 1990s. And last month, Lage - who holds the key position of secretary of the executive committee of the Council of Ministers, a top policymaking body - led a high-level delegation to Venezuela to sign a series of economic accords that farther cemented ties between the two leftist nations.

Lage is credited with engineering and implementing the limited reforms that restarted Cuba's economy after the Soviet collapse. The programs included legalizing the dollar, creating small private enterprises and agricultural cooperatives, and increasing foreign investment and tourism. Although Fidel Castro reversed many of the reforms in 2003, Lage is viewed favorably among foreign businessmen in Cuba as a pragmatist open to economic change.

the economic reins are specifically handed over to a “commission” made up of
  • Carlos Lage (Reformer), a vice-president and member of the Communist Party’s Political Bureau,
  • Francisco Soberon (Reformer), who heads the Central Bank, and
  • Felipe Perez (Fidel protege, hardliner), the Minister for Foreign Affairs, also known to Cubans as “Fax” because he always repeats everything Castro says or does.

Responsibility for the “energy revolution” – the most pressing of hundreds of infrastructure issues in Cuba at the moment – is handed over to Lage

They are more willing to tolerate dissidents and a loyal opposition. Recognize the efficacy of a market system and embrace a mixed economy.


"THE TROPICAL TALIBAN"

Felipe Perez Roque (42), Foreign Minister, Castro's former head of staff.


A group of young Cuban communists that Castro has promoted in the last ten years. Initially developed in response to the Elian Gonzales controversy. They were all active in the Communist Youth Union until recently and are considered more radical than their elders. This has earned them the nickname of the “tropical Taliban.” The charismatic leader of the Taliban is Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. It is thought that Castro was grooming him as his successor, but did not transfer power to him because of his youth. He is clearly the one whom Castro was talking about when he said that a good replacement for him who be a young person who has accomplished several international missions. They would join the ranks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Chavez in their anti-American rhetoric. Raul Castro does not have particularly good personal relations with Perez Roque.

  • Otto Rivero, vice president of the Council of Ministers for the Battle of Ideas,
  • Hassan Perez, vice president of the Union of Communists,
  • Miriam Yanet Martin, president of the Jose Marti pioneers youth group

The so-called "fourth-generation" revolutionaries were promoted to key positions by Fidel Castro but may not fit into Raul Castro's priorities, suggesting less focus on ideology and international affairs and more on governing efficiently.


"They have lost the kind of power that Fidel gave them to go everywhere giving orders and saying what should be done," said a Havana-based diplomat who asked not to be identified.


"The ministries have returned to their logical role. Raul wants an effective organization," the diplomat said.

Source



"THE DOCTORS"



Jose Ramon Machado Ventura (78) (Hardliner)
Jose Ramon Balaguer (75)

They are the “doctors,” headed by the former and current ministers of health, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura and Jose Ramon Balaguer. In the last two years, they were the closest to Castro, as he lied in the hospital. Also, the development of medicine has always been an important national project in Cuba, and it has become almost comparable to national security since Castro's hospitalization. The doctors are attempting to play the role of mediators.


Health, which is a huge export earner for the regime (doctors for sale in exchange for cheap oil from Venezuela) is given to Jose Balaguer, the minister of public health. And so on.


Miami Deck of Cards

The post-Fidel moment

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

WILL NOT RETURN TO LEAD


Cuban leader Fidel Castro poses in this file photo taken by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during their meeting in Havana January 15, 2008. Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on February 19, 2008 that he will not return to lead the country, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution. REUTERS/Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva/CubaVision TV/Handout (CUBA). EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.

Slideshow

Vice President Carlos Lage (57) or National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon (71) who are both capable and running the country as much as Raul. All three are reformers potentially in the direction of Gorbachev or Deng but Washington is locked down by Miami. Fidel has not left a power vacuum. The immediate post-Fidel moment has very nearly come and gone. Other options are available. Cuba is in the midst of an oil boom with US companies cut out of the deal. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the North Cuba Basin has potential reserves of between 4.6 and 9.3 billion barrels of crude. There is no “democratic” revolution in the works. The Cuban people are not interested in the Washington Consensus “all for us, nothing for you” model, but then, who is anymore? Now that Putin has been screwed on Kosovo, who knows of the possibilities.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

CUBA'S OIL


Petroleumworld
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 08 01 07

Venezuela's oil company PDVSA said Tuesday, it will begin with Cuba's CUPET a jointly exploring effort to discover oil in Cuban waters in the first such venture between the two nations.

PDVSA, added in a statement that the project between PDVSA CVP and CUPET covers 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) and is scheduled to begin Wednesday.

The companies expect to discover light crude after conducting a seismic study, PDVSA said.

"Ascertaining the presence of deposits of light crude oil in volumes able to keep a high production potential is expected," said PDVSA.

Petroleumworld 31 07 07

Copyright© 2007 Petroleumworld. All rights reserved.

Friday, July 27, 2007

from: MIKE FULLER STORIES


BY PEDRO DE LA HOZ—Granma daily staff writer—

five outstanding Mexican academics in Havana

  • Gilberto Lopez Ribas,
Anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas, one of the founders of the In Defense of Humanity Network of Networks
  • Gustavo Iruegas,
Former diplomat Gustavo Iruegas, with vast experience in the field
  • Carlos Fazio,
Uruguayan journalist Carlos Fazio, a columnist for the Mexican daily La Jornada
  • Martin Hernandez and
social activist Martín Hernández, a Christian who is a disciple of the doctrines of archbishops Oscar Arnulfo Romero and Sergio Méndez Arceo
  • Miguel Alvarez.
Miguel Alvarez from the Service and Consultancy for Peace (SERAPAZ)


At the event titled "Intellectuals for Sovereignty and against the Empire,"

Lopez Ribas and Irruegas are members of the Benito Juarez Tribunal, a group "tasked with judging, from an ethical and judicial standpoint, the activities of the United States of America in the international arena."

Carlos Fascio said the US won't really block out Mexicans because it needs their cheap labor, and compared the situation to the apartheid between Israel and Palestine.

Martin Hernandez, a warmhearted member of a solidarity group based on teachings of murdered Salvadorean Archbishop Arnulfo Romero said he brought Christian greetings against the "bullets of the Empire."

Miguel Alvarez, from an NGO linked to Chiapas, spoke of a new sense of resistance and construction of alternatives, with Zapatism as a reference. He said that movement has proven it is possible to "step out and build a new identity based on collectivity, and hope is now key in construction of actors from within and without."