FONTOVA: Protecting A Sponsor of Terrorism Reply

State keeps Castro kin safer than U.S. diplomats overseas

By Humberto Fontova, Washington Times

Protecting U.S. diplomats from terrorists on foreign soil is one thing. Protecting terrorism-sponsoring diplomats on U.S. soil quite another. The U.S. State Department is under heavy fire for failing at the job abroad.

A diplomat from a nation that the United States officially classifies as a state sponsor of terrorism, however, has no complaints against the State Department’s security services. This diplomat and her entourage, under a heavy State Department security detail, safely sashayed through New York and Philadelphia for almost two weeks this month without being subjected to so much as a frown from a bystander. When she stopped for Sunday brunch in Philadelphia’s Old City, one thing that caught the eye of the local paper was “heavy security” surrounding Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela and her Cuban cohorts.

For the second time in about a year, Ms. Castro, an official of her father and uncle’s terrorism-sponsoring regime, was granted a U.S. visa. The purpose of her visit to the nation that her uncle and father craved to attack with nuclear weapons and helped the Black Panthers and the Weathermen get terrorism training, and that millions of her hapless compatriots crave as refuge from the horrors her family inflicts, was to lecture Americans on human rights while receiving honors for her own contributions to human rights.

The forum and her award were courtesy of the Philadelphia-based homosexual-rights group Equality Forum, which also honored former Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat. The faithful communist apparatchik of a regime that incarcerated political prisoners at a higher rate than Josef Stalin during the Great Terror, slaughtered more Cubans than Adolf Hitler killed Germans during the Night of Long Knives and in the process converted a nation with a higher per-capita income than half of Europe into one that repulses Haitians, is on record as favoring homosexual marriage. Hence the human-rights honors and awards for Ms. Castro.

To Mr. Frank’s credit, he seemed to find the award to the communist official from his partners in homosexual activism slightly disturbing. While sharing a panel with Ms. Castro and mildly praising her work, Mr. Frank forthrightly called her father and uncle “among the great betrayers of liberalism and human rights.”

In addition to her forum and honors in Philadelphia, Ms. Castro also was honored with ovations at an International Action Center forum in New York. Under the protection of a State Department security detail and on U.S. taxpayers’ dime, Ms. Castro denounced the justice system of the nation that was feting and protecting her. In particular, the crowd thanked the Cuban official for harboring U.S. cop-killer fugitive Assata Shakur, who was put on the FBI’s most-wanted list as a domestic terrorist two weeks earlier. Raul Castro’s daughter also denounced the U.S. convictions of the terrorists known as “the Cuban Five,” four of whom are serving sentences for conspiracy to murder, manslaughter and spying against America.

Obviously, no “stand-down” order came down when our State Department was tasked with protecting this terrorism-sponsoring official. The perceived threat to Ms. Castro’s security apparently came from right-wing Cuban-Americans. Many of them are Republicans, and some are even Tea Partyers. Were they really more of a danger than the vicious, cunning and bloodthirsty terrorists who attacked our consulate in Benghazi, Libya?

Ms. Castro did all her U.S. bashing in New York while standing under a huge poster of Che Guevara, who, during his lifetime, denounced the United States as “the great enemy of mankind” and Americans as “hyenas fit only for extermination.”

While in Philadelphia, Ms. Castro was given a tour of the Liberty Bell, which her father, uncle and godfather, Guevara, planned to blow up in partnership with the Black Liberation Front in 1965. The plot also called for blowing up the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument. The Black Liberation Front hatched the plan with the help of Guevara, whom they visited in Cuba in August 1964. The details were buttoned down during Guevara’s visit to New York in December 1964 while the Cuban official was feted like a rock star by Manhattan’s elite. Only in America.

Humberto Fontova is author of “Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant” (Regnery, 2005).

Venezuela TV Host Goes Off Air After Opposition Links Him to Supposed Cuban Intelligence Agent Reply

CARACAS, Venezuela — (Associated Press) A prominent Venezuelan talk show host has gone off the air after allegedly being caught on tape discussing politics inside Venezuela’s ruling party with a Cuban intelligence official. Mario Silva, whose show on state TV features verbal attacks against the socialist government’s opponents, said that he would go on sick leave for “several days.” The announcement on his program “La Hojilla” (The Razor Blade) late Monday came hours after opposition lawmaker Ismael Garcia released a recording in which Silva purportedly is heard discussing divisions in the government following the death of President Hugo Chavez.

Garcia said Silva was talking to a Cuban intelligence official he identified as Lt. Col. Aramis Palacios. Garcia didn’t say when the conversation was recorded or how he obtained it. Silva said the recording was “absolutely fake” and suggested it had been put together by editing clips from his show, which has been on the air for nine years. “I’m going to be off the air for a few days,” Silva said on the late-night show. “But let me tell you something: I insist I don’t owe anyone an apology, because I haven’t done anything that isn’t revolutionary.” He said that he had previously received medical treatment in Cuba, and that he was hospitalized over the weekend for “complications” related to his gallbladder.

The opposition has long accused Cuban leaders of wielding influence behind the scenes in guiding Venezuelan government decisions. The government, meanwhile, accuses opposition leader Henrique Capriles of being a puppet of the U.S.

During his 14-year reign as president, Chavez forged close ties with Cuba, where he was treated for the cancer that killed him March 5. Venezuela has shipped billions of dollars’ worth of oil to Cuba on preferential terms.

In the recording, a man identified as Silva says he worries that parliament leader Diosdado Cabello, a former army officer, is conspiring against President Nicolas Maduro, who narrowly defeated Capriles in an April 14 election. At one point, the voice says Maduro’s opponents in the party want to remove Defense Minister Diego Molero. “Why do they want to remove him, Palacios? To be able to take the armed forces and put pressure on Maduro or to behave as they please or to pull a coup d’etat,” the man says.

Silva dismissed the recording on Twitter as a “montage” and suggested U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies were behind it. Cabello also dismissed the recording, calling on the opposition to present real evidence, “not a show.” Cuban authorities did not respond to a request for reaction or information about Palacios.

The recording added to the political tension in Venezuela, where lawmakers met Tuesday for the first time since a brawl inside the National Assembly chamber three weeks ago that injured several members of the opposition. In a speech broadcast Monday on state TV, Maduro called for an end to “intrigues” against his administration and the armed forces but didn’t specifically mention the recording.

Chávez Ally Paints Picture of Power Struggles in Alleged Tape 2

By Jim Wyss, jwyss@miamiherald.com

BOGOTA — As a rabidly pro-government television host in Venezuela, Mario Silva often pillories the opposition by airing surreptitious recordings of their telephone conversations. On Monday, Silva became a victim of his own methods when critics released a tape they claim is the cantankerous broadcaster trash-talking the administration to a member of Cuba’s military intelligence.

In the recording, someone who sounds like Silva paints a picture of a chaotic and corrupt administration, where cabinet members are trying to steal as much as they can before the regime “crumbles,” and President Nicolás Maduro is being undermined by some of his closest allies amid rumors of internal coups.

On Twitter, Silva called the audio “rubbish put out by the Israeli Mossad and the CIA. We have proof!” He also said he would debunk the tape on his television show, La Hojilla, or The Razorblade, which is broadcast on state-run VTV television.

Even if the audio isn’t legitimate, it’s bound to fuel speculation that the ruling party is in the midst of a power struggle in the wake of the death of President Hugo Chávez. It also highlights concerns about the cozy relationship the administration has with Cuba.

In the tape, which was apparently recorded by Silva but released by opposition lawmakers, he complains that cronyism is sinking Chávez’s socialist revolution. At one point he tells the man he calls “Palacios,” and who the opposition says is a high-ranking Cuban military official named Aramis Palacios, that when a Venezuelan contractor was caught using the country’s rigid foreign currency control system to turn a profit, former Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel interceded on his behalf and shutdown the investigation.

“We’re in a sea of sh__, compadre, and we still haven’t realized it,” Silva says. “There are ministers here, compadre, who don’t even know what to do, and, most likely they are stealing, Palacios, because they think that this is going to crumble.”

“But all that sh__ they’re doing is playing against us, against what the Commander [Chávez] spent 14 years trying to build,” he complains.

Silva also says people in the administration wanted to kill him because he “knew too much.”

Foul-mouthed and a self-professed Marxist, Silva is something of an institution. His late-night show is full of salacious political gossip aimed at the opposition. Chávez was a fan, often calling into the program and giving Silva unprecedented access. On the tape, Silva talks about meeting with Chávez, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and a slew of cabinet officials.

At one point he recalls how Castro told him that “he didn’t understand why Comandante Chávez had not done away with bourgeois elections, because the people could be wrong.”

“The elections here, as we have them, could give us [grief] and destroy the revolution,” Silva says.

But most of the 50-minute tape is centered on National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, who Silva says is trying to undermine Maduro to win the presidency for himself.

Before undergoing his final round of cancer surgery, Chávez chose Maduro to be his successor and asked Cabello — also considered a presidential contender — to back him. Maduro won April’s vote by a thin margin against Miranda Gov. Henrique Capriles in a race the opposition says was stolen.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/20/3407543/chavez-ally-paints-picture-of.html#emlnl=The_Americas#storylink=cpy

Los hilos de la inteligencia venezolana en las manos de La Habana 2

Antonio Maria Delgado

adelgado@elnuevoherald.com

El general venezolano había trabajado minuciosamente en la elaboración del plan de seguridad a ser implementado durante la cumbre presidencial de la CELAC realizada en Caracas en diciembre del 2011. Para ello había esbozado diferentes anillos de protección que involucraban la participación de cientos de militares y policías que debían resguardar a los presidentes, jefes de Estado y ministros de los 33 países miembros.

Pero cuando fueron a entregar el plan en la Dirección General de Contra Inteligencia Militar (DGCIM), el representante cubano conocido como “Coronel Alcides” tenía otra cosa en mente.

“‘No, eso no va’. Fue todo lo que dijo antes de desmontar todo el plan”, dijo un oficial venezolano que habló bajo condición de anonimato. “Y cuando nos dimos cuenta, los tres primeros anillos de seguridad eran cubanos”.

Y es que Alcides junto a otro puñado de agentes cubanos de alto rango, son quienes dictan la pauta en materia de seguridad en el país petrolero, impartiendo órdenes a oficiales venezolanos como si fuesen sus superiores y controlando todas las palancas y botones de la represión.

Según los testimonios de oficiales venezolanos, agentes castristas hace ya algún tiempo que dejaron de ser simples asesores para jugar hoy un papel preponderante en el resguardo de la Revolución Bolivariana, encargándose de tareas que van desde el diseño de doctrinas y esquemas operacionales hasta la gestación de estrategias para espiar y desarticular a los adversarios.

Es una sumisión institucional en la práctica, que ha colocado al régimen de Cuba en control de muchas de las operaciones de represión ejecutadas actualmente en el país , dijeron los militares y agentes de inteligencia venezolanos que conversaron con El Nuevo Herald bajo condición de anonimato.

“Los cubanos toman decisiones dentro de la Dirección General de Contra Inteligencia Militar. Se le presta mucha atención a las sugerencias y comentarios que ellos hacen. Y ellos son los que gestionan los planes y diseñan la forma de acción que va a tomar la contrainteligencia con grupos opositores, estudiantes, en contra de todo”, dijo uno de los oficiales entrevistados.

“Son ellos los que dictan la forma de acción y ante todo, los métodos que se van a adoptar en cada caso”, agregó.

Según el oficial, el personal de inteligencia cubano juega un papel muy activo en el monitoreo de los distintos sectores del país y en particular de los dirigentes políticos considerados como adversos al proceso revolucionario en medio de la crisis de legitimidad que enfrenta el régimen de Nicolás Maduro.

Especial interés recae sobre el sector militar, donde decenas de oficiales han sido detenidos e interrogados en los últimos días bajo sospecha de que podrían ser desleales al nuevo líder de la Revolución Bolivariana.

Funcionarios de seguridad cubanos, con amplia experiencia en las operaciones de control social, llevan tiempo asesorando al gobierno bolivariano a pedidos del fallecido presidente Hugo Chávez, quien en sus últimos años de gobierno demostró tener más confianza en el personal cubano que en sus propios compatriotas.

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2013/05/20/1480131/los-hilos-de-la-inteligencia-en.html#storylink=cpy

Edmundo García y Arturo López Levy sobre Joe García y Cuba en la lista de terroristas 3

General Escalante was Wrong About “The Yankee Comandante” 2

By Miguel Fernandez

In his book The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba 1959-62 (Ocean Press, 1995), General Fabián Escalante, former chief and current historian of the Castro State Security, asserted that as early as in February 1959, the CIA representative Gerard Droller, a.k.a. Frank Bender, had agents in Cuba conspiring against Castro, “among them William Morgan.”

William Alexander Morgan (1928-61) was an American guerrilla fighter against Cuban dictator Batista in the Escambray Mountains, who was quickly promoted to major, baptized as “The Yanqui Comandante” by legendary New York Times´ reporter Herbert Matthews, praised as “the kind of American that Cuba needs” by Fidel Castro himself, and awarded with the Cuban citizenship like the Argentinean major Che Guevara.

Escalante’s assertion turns implausible due to a significant detail that has been neglected even in the most recent (2012) deep report on Morgan by David Grann for The New Yorker. Among the historical documents (1958–1960) on Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume VI treasures an editorial note (Document 348) about the Trujillo Conspiracy — a coup organized by Cuban exiles in the Dominican Republic during the summer of 1959—which refers to U.S. Ambassador Philip Bonsal giving to Cuban Foreign Secretary Raúl Roa “the gist of the [FBI] report” on Morgan as “the leader of a group planning to assassinate Fidel Castro.”

On August 2, 1959, the Department of State transmitted its telegram 150 to the American Embassy in Havana containing “the substance” of the FBI report. The next day, Ambassador Bonsal sent his telegram 294 to Washington reporting back he has given the news to Roa, “who expressed appreciation for the information and said it would be conveyed to President [Osvaldo] Dorticós and to Castro.”

Apart from furnishing some biographical information on Morgan and deeming him “thoroughly irresponsible and unprincipled,” Bonsal commented that “even an unsuccessful attempt on Castro’s life would be a serious threat to the safety of Americans in Cuba.”

On August 4, Roa told Bonsal by phone the FBI information had been conveyed to President Dorticós, who was “highly alarmed.” Bonsal stressed that the U.S. Government “had no opinion as to the report’s veracity” and it might be intended “to attempt to sow dissension and suspicion.” (Washington National Records Center, RG 84, Havana Embassy Files: FRC 68 A 1814).

This Bonsal-Roa exchange does not refute the spread version that Morgan had originally been part of the Trujillo Conspiracy and switched sides when he realized the plot was about to be discovered. But the fact that Bonsal gave Morgan away to Castro put General Escalante in a delicate spot as historian.

Cuban Prisoner Alan Gross Settles Lawsuit Against Md. Company 1

WASHINGTON – (Associated Press) An American imprisoned in Cuba settled a lawsuit Thursday against the company he was working for when arrested, a lawsuit that claimed he wasn’t properly warned about or prepared for the risks of working in the communist nation. Alan Gross and his wife filed the lawsuit in November against the U.S. government and Bethesda, Md.,-based Development Alternatives Inc., a contractor for the government’s U.S. Agency for International Development. The $60 million lawsuit claimed Gross should have been provided with better information and training for his work setting up internet access points in Cuba.

Lawyers for DAI and the U.S. government had previously asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit. One of the lawyers’ arguments was that federal law barred the lawsuit because it was based on an injury suffered in a foreign country. Gross, 64, was arrested in Cuba in December 2009 on his fifth trip to work with Cuba’s Jewish community set up internet access points.

Gross was working for DAI under a contract with USAID, which does work to promote peaceful democratic change on the island. Cuba considers USAID’s programs illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine the communist government, and court documents show Gross took steps to avoid detection and believed he was engaged in “very risky business.” A Cuban court subsequently convicted Gross of crimes against the state and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Lawyers filed a notice of the settlement Thursday in federal court in Washington. The settlement amount was not disclosed, and the agreement only covers Development Alternatives Inc., also known as DAI, not the government. DAI’s chief executive officer said in a statement that settling the lawsuit, in which neither party admits fault, allows the company to work together with Gross’ family to bring him home.

Gross’ wife Judy, who has traveled to Cuba on several occasions to see her husband, said in the same statement that the family is “very pleased that DAI has committed to help address the injuries sustained by our family.” “We want Alan back home, safe and sound,” she said.

Diplomatic efforts to win Gross’ release have so far failed, and the case has been a sticking point in improving ties between the two countries, which have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1961. The Cuban government has linked Gross’ case to that of five Cubans convicted of in 2001 of spying on U.S. military installations in South Florida as well as exile groups and politicians. Cuban officials have suggested they would be willing to free Gross in exchange for the men. Four of the men remain in prison in the United States. One man who completed his sentence but was serving probation in the U.S. was recently allowed to return to Cuba permanently.

By JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press

Havana Times: Obama Must Set the Cuban Five Free 2

Por Elio Delgado Legón

HAVANA TIMES — In the course of over 14 years, I have often asked myself why so much secrecy has surrounded the case of the five Cubans who were detained in Miami in 1998. These men endured 17 months of solitary confinement in “the hole”, in violation of U.S. law, as well as a 3-year trial replete with similar violations of the country’s laws, and no newspaper made any effort to bring to light what was taking place.

I am referring to Miami’s newspapers, radio and television, yes, for these, to my knowledge, did not go on vacation in the three years the trial lasted. A number of journalists did work, but only to create an atmosphere charged with anti-Cuban sentiments and feelings of antipathy towards those they referred to as spies. We later found out that those journalists had been paid by the US government, to create precisely that kind of atmosphere and steer public opinion and the juries entrusted with the verdict towards those feelings of antipathy.

The judge turned down the petition to hold the trial in a more impartial venue, as the laws of the country demand. The juries were intimidated by Miami’s terrorists, terrorists whose identity everyone knows. In my opinion, the judge was also intimidated and threatened, for the ridiculously harsh sentences she imposed on the Cuban Five cannot be explained any other way.

Rene Gonzalez’ sentence was the least severe: 15 years in prison, a term he has already served. The most severe and irrational sentence was imposed on Gerardo Hernandez: two life sentences plus 15 years.

Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez had their initial sentences overturned and a subsequent re-sentencing took place as a result of an appeal process. However their second sentences were also irrational and unjust, for they were again accused of crimes they did not commit.

They tried to blackmail Rene, using his wife’s detention to pressure him into pleading guilty of espionage, in order to be able to accuse Cuba of spying on the United States. But a true revolutionary like Rene does not yield to blackmail. He would have had to lie, to his country’s detriment, to save himself from a sure conviction. They had no evidence against him, but they sentenced him to 15 years in prison nonetheless.

Conspiracy to commit murder was one of the unfounded charges brought against Gerardo, in connection with the downing, over Cuban waters, of two small planes belonging to the terrorist organization Brothers to the Rescue (Hermanos al Rescate), an organization that had been systematically encroaching on Cuba’s airspace and dropping leaflets that called for an armed uprising against the government.

The organization had announced another fly-over for February 24 and the Cuban government had forewarned US air traffic authorities that, if they encroached on the country’s airspace again, they would be shot down in self-defense, because a terrorist organization could, at any moment, decide to drop bombs instead of leaflets.

Despite this, the planes took off from U.S. soil and penetrated Cuban airspace. The head of the organization didn’t take any chances; he stayed behind to watch his planes be shot down. If anyone is to be held responsible and pay for those deaths, it is Mr. Basulto, the person who sent them to a sure death, without even having had the courage to face the same fate. He used them as cannon fodder to later be able to accuse Cuba of murder.

The government of the United States has repeatedly refused to publish the satellite images which show the exact location where the planes were shot down, for these images show that the incident took place within Cuba’s airspace and, therefore, Gerardo cannot be held liable for the pilots’ deaths in any way.

Of all the charges brought against Gerardo and the other four anti-terrorist activists convicted, the only truthful one is that these men were acting as agents for the Cuban government without declaring this fact at the Attorney General’s Office. But acting as an agent does not mean conducting espionage. These men infiltrated terrorist organizations, not official institutions of the US government.

The Cuban Five have been the victims of innumerable irregularities and violations, violations I have enumerated in a previous post. This is the reason the US government doesn’t want the press to give the case any coverage, for, if the people of the United States knew what was happening, they would demand that this situation, which puts a stain on their country’s judicial system, be brought to an end. All of this ought to be considered by the Obama administration, which must set the Cuban Five free.

Editor’s Note: This article is an excellent example of disinformation, which is false or inaccurate information deliberately spread with the goal of making legitimate information useless. It is inherently different from misinformation, which is spreading information that is unintentionally false.

Cuba’s intelligence chieftains undoubtedly view the recent Justice Department decision allowing convicted spy Rene Gonzalez to remain in Cuba as a strategic victory. As a result, expect a sharp increase in the volume of disinformation and other propaganda emanating from Havana and its allies regarding its incarcerated spies.

FONTOVA: The Castro-coddled cop killer 1

The ‘most-wanted terrorist’ mocks U.S. justice from Cuba

By Humberto Fontova in the Washington Times

On May 2, the FBI announced a $1 million reward for “information leading to the apprehension” of Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, who they named a “most-wanted terrorist.” Chesimard is the first woman to make the FBI’s list. The New Jersey State Police then added another $1 million to the reward pot.

Convicted cop-killer (of a New Jersey state trooper) and “domestic terrorist” Chesimard has been living in Cuba since 1984 as a Castro-coddled celebrity of sorts. And it’s not like bounty hunters can operate freely in a Stalinist country. So the $2 million may be symbolic. As in the U.S. Justice Department putting on a game face and saying: “Look, Castro, we’re serious here.”
In the early 1970s, Chesimard belonged to a Black Panther offshoot known as the Black Liberation Army. “This case is just as important today as it was when it happened 40 years ago,” according to a recent press release from Mike Rinaldi, of the New Jersey State Police. “Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army, a radical left-wing terror group that felt justified killing law enforcement officers. … This group conducted assaults on police stations and murdered police officers.”

More than a mere member of these domestic terrorists, Chesimard was described by former FBI Assistant Director John Miller as “the soul of the Black Liberation Army.”

In 1973, while wanted for multiple crimes from bank robbery to murder, Chesimard and two accomplices were pulled over for a taillight violation on the New Jersey Turnpike. As the troopers were routinely questioning them, Chesimard (who was in the passenger seat) and her pals opened up on the lawmen with semi-automatic pistols (no word on whether these were properly registered.)

As Trooper Werner Foerster grappled with the driver, Chesimard shot him twice — then her gun apparently jammed. As Foerster lay on the ground wounded and helpless, Chesimard grabbed the trooper’s own gun and blasted two shots into his head, much in the manner of her Cuban idols Che Guevara and Raul Castro killing hundreds of their own (always defenseless at the time) “counterrevolutionary” enemies.

“This crime was always considered an act of domestic terrorism,” stresses Mr. Rinaldi. She escaped, but was captured in 1977, convicted of murder and sentenced to life plus 33 years. Then in 1979 she escaped from prison — and with some professional help, probably by Cuban or Cuban-trained terrorists. “Two men smuggled into the prison, took guards hostages and broke her out,” explained John Miller to CBS News.

Chesimard’s 1979 escape from prison was well-planned, Mr. Rinaldi explained. “Armed domestic terrorists gained entry into the facility, neutralized the guards, broke her free, and turned her over to a nearby getaway team.” “In 1984, they smuggled her to Mexico. Using a network of Cuban intelligence officers who worked with American radical groups, they got her into Cuba,” adds Mr. Miller. Since then, according to New Jersey State Police Col. Rick Fuentes, Chesimard “flaunts her freedom. … To this day, from her safe haven in Cuba, Chesimard has been given a pulpit (by Castro) to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary. She has been used by the Castro regime to greet foreign delegations visiting Cuba.” “Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist,” declared FBI agent Aaron T. Ford, during a recent news conference. “She absolutely is a threat to America.”

Along with coddling Chesimard, Castro’s fiefdom provides haven for more than 70 other fugitives from U.S. law, including several on the FBI’s most-wanted listed. Cuba harbors convicted cop-killers Michael Finney and Charlie Hill, along with Victor Gerena, responsible for a $7 million heist of a Wells Fargo truck in Connecticut in 1983, as a member of the Puerto Rican terrorist group, Los Macheteros. All requests by U.S. authorities for these criminals’ extradition have been rebuffed, often cheekily by Fidel Castro himself: “They want to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie!” is how he answered a U.S. request for Chesimard on May 3, 2005.

Humberto Fontova is author of “Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant” (Regnery, 2005).

Is Cuba’s Longtime Status as a Terrorist Safe Haven Becoming a Liability? Reply

Washington Times OP/ED: Assata Shakur, Terrorist — The FBI Accurately Labels a Cop-killer

Not a month has passed since the Patriots’ Day bombings in Boston, and the hand-wringers are already mumbling that the FBI made the wrong call when it designated 65-year-old fugitive Assata Shakur, formerly known as Joanne Chesimard, as a terrorist. If words have meanings, of course she is.

That 40 years have passed since her conviction does not dim or erase the impact of her crimes as a member of a radical group known as the Black Liberation Army, which was formed by disgruntled former Black Panther Party members. The Panthers were not radical enough. The liberation army aimed to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States.”

Assata Shakur and two others took up arms in a gunfight on the New Jersey Turnpike in May 1973. Prosecutors said she shot New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster twice in the head, using the officer’s own gun, taken from him when her accomplice tackled him. He left a wife and two children, one of whom, Eric, became a state trooper himself.

After a 1977 murder conviction, armed Black Liberation Army members broke her out of prison. She is thought to have spent four years in “safe houses” in the United States before making her way to Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum. She has remained in touch with family, friends and supporters, safe so far from extradition and justice.

Eric Foerster decries the life of comfort of his father’s killer. The passage of the years has not healed the wound inflicted on his family. “It is a loss that will stay with us forever,” he tells Fox News.

The killer is unrepentant; she revels in her crimes. In an open letter to Pope John Paul II, who was visiting in Havana in 1998, she confessed her “guilt” for supporting revolution: “I advocate self-determination for my people and for all oppressed inside the United States. I advocate an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism, and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty.”

That’s hardly the only crime of which she is “totally guilty.” She was a member of an organization that employed violence to advance a political cause, which is precisely what terrorists do. Her cause has died — interest in the Black Liberation Army has since dissolved — but Assata Shakur has yet to pay for her crimes. Putting a little pressure on the Cuban government for her extradition, while not likely to succeed, is nevertheless the right thing to do.

To compromise, Castro’s government wouldn’t have to send her out of Cuba. There’s already a cell waiting at Guantanamo Bay.