Granma

A joint statement signed by the Cuban and Russian Foreign Affairs Ministers on March 24, at the end of a three-day visit to Moscow by Felipe Pérez Roque, highlights the many similarities in the foreign policy of both countries.

On signing the document, the Cuban minister and his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, reaffirmed the intention of both countries to work towards a strengthening of joint action in the international arena for a more just and democratic world order.

Likewise they stated that both sides had reviewed the political and socioeconomic processes taking place in Latin America and the Caribbean and discussed the need to support political efforts to achieve peace and national conciliation in Colombia. They also deliberated on the positive evolution of the political process in Venezuela in relation to its strict observance of the country’s constitution and their opposition to attempts to destabilize the internal situation.

Equally, they expressed concern for the increasing tendency towards unilateral actions in international affairs and stressed the central role of the United Nations in maintaining world peace and security.

With respect to the current military action against Iraq, they spoke in favor of resolving the problem through the relevant Security Council resolutions – including Resolution 1441 – and emphasized the serious consequences of the war, both for the majority of nation states and Iraq.

They also reaffirmed the decision of both governments to combat international terrorism in all its various guises, drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, and expressed their support for the formation of a broad international anti-terrorist coalition under the aegis of the UN.

Likewise, they stressed the importance of general and total disarmament under strict and efficient international controls.

The two ministers also expressed support for a political-diplomatic solution to the so-called nuclear crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on the basis of guaranteeing the safety of states in the region and maintaining the nuclear-free status of the Korean peninsula.

In the ministers’ opinion, the conflict in the Middle East, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the creation of their own state with secure and stable borders, as well as the right of the state of Israel to a secure existence, are fundamental conditions for future peace in the region.

Their statement goes on to condemn the practice of applying coercive unilateral economic measures, including those of an extraterritorial nature such as the U.S. Helms-Burton Act. In this context, they reiterated their condemnation of the unjust economic, commercial and financial U.S. blockade of Cuba.

In conclusion, the Cuban and Russian foreign affairs ministers expressed their satisfaction at the level of their political dialogue and its stable, open and trustworthy nature.

They stressed the importance of revitalizing economic and trade relations, including the utilization of the Intergovernmental Commission to increase economic and technical scientific cooperation.

During his stay in Moscow, Felipe Pérez Roque also met with the vice presidents of the Federation Council (Upper House) and of the Duma (Lower House), Valerio Goregliad and Liubov Sliska.

At the end of his visit, Pérez Roque left for Armenia, from where he will go on to Ukraine and Belarus.

Special for Granma International- BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD

THE charges against a number of Chilean henchmen for the 1974 murder of General Carlos Prats, former chief of the Armed Forces, and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires have another Cuban connection in Panama, where the government has the "privilege" of holding four terrorists in custody; the same individuals who were amongst the most active collaborators of the criminal secret service during the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

As well as being the authors of a sinister conspiracy to assassinate the Cuban president - by planting explosives in the middle of a packed meeting, knowing this would provoke a massacre of huge proportions - Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Pedro Remón carried out various operations during the 1970s as accomplices of the Chilean dictatorship’s political police.

The recent ruling by Chilean judge Alejandro Solís indicts retired former generals Manuel Contreras and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, former brigadier generals Pedro Espinoza and José Zara, who will be tried as co-authors of the double crime in Buenos Aires.

Several of these selfsame individuals collaborated and engaged in criminal activities with the professional terrorists who are currently imprisoned by the Panamanian authorities.

DINA COLLABORATES WITH CORU

Following the coup d’état against constitutionally-elected President Salvador Allende Goznes, the fascist Chilean junta ordered the National Intelligence Office (DINA) to support the criminal projects of Cuban-American terrorists, who were proposing to exchange their respective services in order to liquidate opponents of the dictatorship based abroad.

DINA’s objective was to physically eliminate opposition both inside and outside the country. This was how Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo – all of them founders of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), along with pediatrician and killer Orlando Bosch – actively participated in a significant number of support tasks for Pinochet’s junta, as advisors or providers of mercenaries, explosive materials and logistical support.

A declassified FBI report, dated April 29 1986, confirms a meeting between exiled Cubans and Pinochet on March 17, 1975. Pinochet offered them financial assistance on the condition that they unified the various counterrevolutionary groups. He also promised to mediate in their favor before heads of state in Paraguay and Uruguay, both countries living under cruel dictatorships.

Another FBI document, dated December 17, 1974, specifies that Chile offered paramilitary training to the Cubans, to the extent that the Chilean government provided terrorist Orlando Bosch with passports to enable him to undertake operations.

Likewise, another declassified report shows that the future founder of the Cuban-American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, personally took part in negotiations with fascist Chilean military personnel on December 12, 1974.

The plot formed a part of Plan Condor, an initiative conceived to eliminate adversaries of the fascist regimes in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia.

LETELIER’S ASSASSINATION

The most notorious example of the sinister collaboration between DINA and CORU is, without doubt, the assassination of former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronnie Moffit on September 21, 1976 in Washington. A car bomb was placed inside the vehicle in which they were traveling.

Letelier was living in exile in the United States and being pursued by agents of the dictatorship. After consultations with the CORU leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those elected to carry out the act were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio "Bloodbath" Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll. (Following Posada’s arrest in Venezuela, DISIP investigators found a map of Washington showing Letelier’s daily itinerary and detailing the route from his workplace to his home, in the office of his detective agency).

Another FBI report, dated September 23, 1976 states word for word DINA’s support for the Novo brothers; confirmation for the U.S. agency that Letelier’s assassination was a joint operation between them and Pinochet’s secret police.

In Chile, former head of DINA’s foreign department, General Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, is now blaming former agent Michael Townley for the murder of the former Chief Commander of the Armed Forces, Carlos Prats, and his wife.

Juan Carlos Manns (Contreras’ lawyer) explained that they wanted the extradition of Michael Townley (now resident in the United States) in order to "clarify his statements" on the crime. In 1999, Townley announced before Argentine judge María Servini de Cubría in Washington, that he had carried out the attack in Buenos Aires on the orders of Contreras.

On the other hand, an investigation ordered by Servini is still underway against Michael Townley, who is charged with having personally placed an explosive device beneath General Prats’ car.

However, a 21-page CIA report directed to Congress and published on September 18, 2000 confirmed that Contreras and brigadier general Espinoza were those who directly ordered the attack and that Michael Townley, his "chief terrorist" was responsible for contracting the Cuban-Americans. Townley, a U.S. citizen based in Chile, arrived in the United States illegally with a Paraguayan passport and contacted Captain Fernández Larios in order to meet with Guillermo Novo Sampoll and his brother, who according to what was agreed, lent Townley their henchmen to carry out the attack on Letelier.

U.S. investigators even discovered that Townley and Novo Sampoll had met with Senator James Buckley in New York on September 14, 1976, a week before the murder of Letelier and Moffit. The politician had personally financed several of Novo Sampoll’s trips to Chile. Once the sinister "mission" had been completed, Townley personally contacted Guillermo Novo to confirm that the crime had been carried out.

FROM BARBADOS TO ITALY

Throughout this period, CORU carried out 53 known actions: assassinations, disappearances, kidnappings, etc.

In that fateful year of 1976, Posada Carriles was identified as the principal author of the Cubana Aviation airliner explosion that left 73 people dead. On October 6, a bomb destroyed the plane in mid-flight off the coast of Barbados, on its flight from Caracas to Trinidad. Orlando Bosch, who was at the time interviewed by DINA director Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, is once again the accused today, this time under the orders of Chilean judge Alejandro Solís.

Prior to this, on October 16, 1975, a mercenary from the CORU-linked Cuban Nationalist Movement shot Chilean Christian Democrat leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife – both exiled in Italy – at point blank range.

Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, for his part, was linked to other DINA and Plan Cóndor-related crimes that were executed in Argentina. Head of a CORU commando group since June 1976, he conspired in the attack on Cuban ambassador to Argentina, Emilio Aragonés; and along with Luis Posada Carriles planned the disappearance, torture and execution of two officials from the same diplomatic headquarters: Crescencio Galañena Hernández and Jesús Cejas Arias, whose bodies were found thrown into the foundations of a building under construction.

During this very same period, Pedro Remón, the fourth detainee in Panama, acted as hired assassin for Omega-7 in a long string of acts of terrorism. The FBI itself attributes the murders of Eulalio José Negrin and diplomat Félix García Rodríguez to Remón.

Omega-7 operated out of Union City, New Jersey; a city dominated by the Novo Sampoll brothers’ Cuban Nationalist Movement (MNC).

The extensive criminal careers of Posada, Novo Sampoll, Jiménez and Remón clearly demonstrate that the Panamanian authorities have under their control four extremely dangerous repeat offenders whose liberation could have unforeseeable consequences.

Vivir para ver. Nunca pensamos que llegaría a esto. Lo vemos y no lo creemos. Déjenme echarla le la historia. La Revolución de la “justicia social” nacionalizó y destruyó el sector privado de la economía cubana. Se pensó haber acabado así con el supuesto responsable de la miseria colectiva. Nadie pensó que la verdadera miseria estaba empezando en ese momento en ese momento. El Estado cubano quebró en muy poco tiempo porque las revoluciones están siempre divorciadas de la capacidad. Entonces aprovechándose de la guerra fría-Estados Unidos vs.URSS-Fidel le lanzó le lanzó un SOS a los soviéticos para asegurarse de dos cosas: que los americanos no lo invadieran y que le dieran un muy generoso subsidio en dólares para poder subsistir. La nodriza aceptó. Cuba dejaba a un lado pregonaba la soberanía nacional y fue así como se instalaron cohetes rusos en la Isla. Cuba, país sátelite-en América. Vergonzoso, pero la combinación de la necesidad con la incapacidad lo obligaron. Su orgullo quedó sepultado. Años después la nodriza de este “héroe de papel” que nunca expuso su vida en la Sierra Maestra pero que sí aparecía retratado con uniforme de guerrillero y rifle al hombro-eterna alma de pantallero-desapareció del escenario internacional. Se le acabó la Unión Soviética y con ella “la teta” que le daba de comer a la revolución. Qué hacer ahora?. Donde agarrar aunque sea fallo?. Fue entonces cuando le dio la espalda a algo más que a la soberanía. Traicionó también a la doctrina marxista con la que había ideologizado a una revolución que le había vendido al pueblo como nacionalista. “Mas verde que las palmas verdes de Cuba”, como él repetía. Compañeros del 26 de Julio y comandantes que sí pelearon en la Sierra se le revelaron querían a la revolución pero eran contrarios al Comunismo. Todos fueron fusilados en el paredón. A esta traición y a estos crímenes les llamaban “justicia revolucionara”. De esto jamás la historia lo absolverá. Corrió entonces detrás de los hoteleros capitalistas españoles, canadienses y mejicanos para que fueran a hacer buenos negocios en Cuba, verdadero paraíso capitalista donde los sueldos los fija el Estado y no existe el derecho de huelga. Pero los negocios los hacía él y para beneficio de su Régimen. Los sueldos los recibe el gobierno en dólares USA y al obrero cubano le pagan. su trabajo con pesos devaluados. Siempre el colectivo sobre la persona humana y su dignidad. La divisa socialista. Justicia social revolucionaria, lo llaman allá. Este abandono del socialismo por el capitalismo salvaje, o este injerto cuasi-diabólico, en algo alivió la economía de la Isla que se la reconoce como la Isla de Corcho. Pero la economía seguía mal. Miseria con esclavitud es una mezcla explosiva para cualquier Dictador. Además, un mal ejemplo para las otras revoluciones del mundo. Su discípulo venezolano, ese muchachón al que tengo deslumbrado, le he cambiado mi experiencia y asistencia revolucionaria por petróleo barato. Aceptó feliz. Bueno, esto me ayudó algo. Pero poco….Aquello está en verdad muy mal.
Prepárese que ahora es que viene el tercer acto de esta tragicomedia de comediante mas grande que ha producido la Historia. En estos momentos está negociando, agárrense para no caerse, la incorporación de Cuba al Acuerdo Cotonú después que la Unión Europea ha abierto su representación oficial en la Habana. Esta Oficina depende de la Comisaría para el Desarrollo y Ayuda Humanitaria que dirige el danés Paul Nelson. El 23 de Enero Cuba presentó oficialmente su solicitud de admisión al Cotonú. Este fondo reparte 13.500 millones de euros entre casi ochenta de los países mas subdesarrollados y miserables del mundo. Saben ustedes que da a cambio este “pordiosero internacional” para que lo admitan?. Promete flexibilizar los permisos de aquellos cubanos que quieran abandonar la Isla, irse de ese paraíso (?) que prometió hace 44 años y que aún no se ve por ninguna parte. Negocia la limosna con el ejercicio de un derecho que tiene la persona humana. No indigna esto?. No da esto asco?. Y ahora una pregunta, donde queda aquí la soberanía y el orgullo nacional revolucionario?. Dónde queda la dignidad de ese país tan cacareada para enfrentar a ese pueblo noble contra E.U.A. y el capitalismo salvaje del cual vive desde que desapareció la Unión Soviética?. Dignidad Nacional. Soberanía nacional. Doctrina marxista. Todo forma parte del mismo paquete y de la misma estafa: La revolución cubana. Y todavía hay quien quiere copiar este modelo desmodelado. El pueblo venezolano tiene que abrir bien los ojos y verse en ese espejo. DE LÍDER REVOLUCIONARIO A LIMOSNERO INTERNACIONAL. El héroe de papel de la Sierra Maestra con las manos extendidas ahora pidiendo que lo incluyan en ese fondo de ayuda a los países mas misérrimos del mundo. El que tenga ojos que vea….. Nota: En estos días la Revista FORBES coloca a Fidel Castro con un modesto ahorro de $ 128 millones. No se puede comparar esta suma, por supuesto, con la del Bill-Gates, trabajó toda su vida) y éste lo que hizo siempre fue hablar. Como pudo entonces ahorrar esa suma en medio de una nación que está en la miseria?. Es esta una buena pregunta que necesita de una mejor respuesta. DR. VALENTIN ARENAS AMIGO PROFESOR DE INSTITUCIONES POLITICAS DE LA U.C.A.B.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Auxiliary Bishop of Los Teques, Monsignor Eduardo Boza Masvidal has died at the age of 87. The Cuban prelate was expelled from his country a few years after the 1957 Revolution, accused of anti-revolutionary activities and creating a disturbance during a procession of Cuban religious patroness, Our Lady of Copper.

Boza Masvidal spent a year in Spain and Colombia before settling in Venezuela in 1962.

In Los Teques, he was appointed Vicar General of the diocese in 1969. Although the bishop was careful not to express political views openly, it is known that he helped to found the Cuban Union in Exile. He was known as a humble and devout person, free of bitterness and hatred and was able to return to Cuba twice for short visits.

According to the Bishop of Los Teques, Monsignor Ovidio Perez Morales, the prelate was concerned about the political situation in Venezuela and hoped that it would not turn into another Cuba. Maintaining strong links with Cuban exiles in Miami, Boza Masvidal had written frequently about the role of the Church in Venezuela's political crisis.

reuters.com Sun March 9, 2003 04:23 PM ET By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba charged on Sunday that the United States was holding five Cubans convicted of spying incommunicado to thwart an April 7 appeal of their sentences, and demanded they be allowed to see lawyers.

Cuban lawmakers said the agents, who are being held in five different federal prisons, were all placed in solitary confinement Feb. 28, and had since been denied contact with lawyers, family and Cuban officials.

"This measure was adopted by Washington with the deliberate purpose of obstructing a just appeals process," the statement by Cuba's National Assembly said, pointing out the lawyers for the five prisoners had planned to consult and visit with them this week to prepare the appeal.

"We demand the five patriotic Cubans be immediately permitted to communicate and meet with their lawyers," the statement said.

The agents were convicted by a Miami court in June 2001 of conspiracy and espionage. Three were sentenced to life in prison, one received a 15-year term and the other 19 years.

The five spies were part of a ring that infiltrated U.S. military bases and Cuban exile groups and fed information to Havana. They said at the trial that they caused no harm to the United States and gathered information solely to defend their homeland from terrorist attacks by Cuban exiles.

Western diplomats said tensions between the two countries, bitter enemies for more than 40 years, had increased in recent weeks due to the Bush administration's more aggressive support for President Fidel Castro's domestic opponents, and perhaps due to the five agent's upcoming appeal.

Cuba and the United States have not had diplomatic relations for four decades and the American mission operates as the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss embassy in Havana.

Sunday's protest came just three days after Castro threatened to close the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana for supporting dissidents, whom Havana charges are paid by the United States to subvert the one party socialist state.

The five are seeking a new trial outside of Miami and insist that their conviction was influenced by the hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles who live there and are hostile to the Castro government.

The spies also claim new information obtained after their conviction will prove their innocence

Havana insists the five were sent to the United States only to spy on Cuban exile groups that have launched repeated attacks against the Communist-run Caribbean island.

Since their arrest in 1998, Cuba has heaped its highest honors on the agents and launched an international campaign to free them.