Take Cuba Off the State Sponsors of Terrorism List? 7

FARC and government negotiators at a news conference in Havana on 16 May, 2014

By George Phillips, InterAmerican Security Watch

Let us not give Castro the resources he needs to continue his regime’s 56-year reign of terror on his own people, and his continued support for terrorists and terrorist states.

To enrich and solidify that dictatorship at this time only prevents the Cuban people from being able to forge a better life through elections in a few years, now that they are finally “on the one-yard line,” when the Castro brothers, now in their eighties, could simply be left to their natural, un-bankrolled, ends. In a dictatorship such as this, only the dictators benefit.

As Sonia Alvarez Campillo was leaving Catholic Mass on July 14, 2013 with fellow members of Ladies in White, her pro-democracy organization, she was assaulted by Raul Castro’s agents.

These “security” agents broke Alvarez Campillo’s wrist as well as her husband’s ribs in their attack on her and other members of her group.

Sunday after Sunday in Cuba, the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) — members of a movement started in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents in Cuba — have peacefully demonstrated for freedom and human rights in cities across Cuba. They have continually been harassed, beaten, and imprisoned in Raul Castro’s Cuba.

In an attack just two months ago, Lady in White member Digna Rodriquez Ibañez was pelted with tar by agents of the regime.

The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation – an organization of Cuban dissidents that the Castro regime claims is illegal — reported that in 2014 alone, 1,810 members of the Ladies in White were detained. The detentions of these extraordinary women are among the total of 8,899 detentions evidently designed to crush political dissent. That figure represents a 27% rise from the previous year.

Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero were leaders of the Christian Liberation Movement, a political party opposed to Castro’s Communist Party.

In July of 2012, Cuban state security agents allegedly murdered Paya and Cepero by ramming into their car and running them off the road, where they crashed and died.

The Cuban government officially claims the crash was an accident. But, as documented in the U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report for 2013, when David Gonzalez Peres, another leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, was arrested, Cuban officials at the jail warned him about what happened to Paya.

Paya and Cepero were most likely murdered for trying to change a system in which all 612 candidates in a recent Cuban election were members of the Communist Party and ran unopposed, and in which all other candidates had been rejected by the regime.

Article continues here:  Terror List

 

 

 

 

Eslovaquia concede refugio a mayor del MININT 8

El mayor Ortelio Abrahantes dice tener pruebas del “accidente” donde falleció Osvaldo Payá y pide contactar con su viuda, Ofelia Acevedo

CubaNet

Desde Bratislava, capital de Eslovaquia, el mayor del Ministerio del Interior Ortelio Abrahantes concedió a MartíNoticias su primera entrevista a un medio de prensa desde que el pasado 17 de marzo abandonó el centro de detención Carmichael Rd, en Nassau, Bahamas, donde permaneció preso casi un año.” La República de Eslovaquia me ha acogido como refugiado a propuesta de la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas, ANCUR”, confirmó el militar.

Abrahantes asegura que tanto ACNUR como el gobierno eslovaco tomaron en cuenta la “información que poseo en torno a la muerte de los opositores cubanos Oswaldo Paya y Harold Cepero”.” Por esta vía quiero reiterar el llamado a la familia Payá para que me contacte, tengo mucho que aportar a este caso, pruebas convincentes que debo compartir con Ofelia Acevedo, viuda de Payá”.

Abrahantes de 43 años alcanzó el grado de mayor en el MININT y al momento de abandonar Cuba en una embarcación en marzo 2014 por el norte de Camagüey, desempeñaba como jefe provincial de transporte terrestre y marítimo del organismo de orden interior enCiego de Ávila. Allí dejo a su esposa e hijos. Ha sido sometido a rigurosos interrogatorios por parte de las autoridades eslovacas, según dijo, “están muy interesadas en lo que sé del aparato militar cubano, lo que conozco acerca de la participación del gobierno de Cuba en el tráfico de drogas”.

“Amigos confiables en el extranjero han mantenido a buen resguardo la evidencia que sustentará lo que la familia Payá ha denunciado, que la seguridad del estado ocasionó el supuesto aparatoso accidente en el que murieron Payá y Cepero y que por lo menos Payá, llegó con vida al hospital de Bayamo”. Abrahantes prefirió no hacer comentarios sobre qué pruebas específicamente tiene en su poder e indicó que las hará pública en su momento.

Preguntado sobre si tiene planes de viajar a Estados Unidos, dijo que “de inmediato no, pero puede haber sorpresas, todo es possible” Por ahora, ya inició una nueva vida en Eslovaquia, que fue parte de la Checoslovaquia comunista, “y que conoce la represión, la censura de libertades civiles, y los desmanes de la policía política que tuvo nexos estrechos con el régimen cubano”.El frío, la barrera del idioma, en fin, “son muchos los obstáculos a sortear, pero soy un hombre libre, y ojo, sin perder de vista los movimientos de la embajada de Cuba, la mano de los Castro es larga”.

 

Kudos to CFR and NY Daily News For Covering Governor Cuomo’s Meeting With Expelled Cuban Spies 7

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, right, talks with Cuba’s Josefina Vidal, director general of the U.S. division at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, left, and Gustavo Machin, Cuba’s deputy chief of North American affairs, center, before a meeting with Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade Rodrigo Malmierca at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba, Monday, April 20, 2015. (Ramon Espinosa/Courtesy: Reuters)

Congratulations to NY Daily News journalist Glenn Blain and Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Elliott Abrams for having the courage to highlight Cuomo’s recent meetings with senior Directorate of Intelligence (DI) officers Gustavo Machin Gomez and Josefina Vidal. Well done!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Film Tells Story of Argentine Who Spied for Cuba, U.S. Reply

Latin American Herald Tribune

BUENOS AIRES – Just like his hero, revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Guillermo Gaede wanted to travel to Cuba in his teen years, but he could not obtain a visa. Years later, as a Silicon Valley engineer, he found another way to collaborate with Fidel Castro: he became a spy.

In the documentary “El Crazy Che,” Pablo Chehebar and Nicolas Iacouzzi follow Gaede’s unlikely path from a Buenos Aires suburb to service as a secret agent, first for Cuba and then for the United States, and to his time in prison for industrial espionage.

The filmmakers say they stumbled onto Gaede’s story by chance.

“We wanted to film a documentary about Argentine scientists working abroad,” Chehebar told Efe. The search led them to Gaede in Germany, where he has been teaching physics for more than a decade.

After investigating Gaede’s story, the filmmakers abandoned the original project and focused on recounting the story of “this ‘self-made’ man who wanted, in his half-crazy fashion, to be a spy, doing things nobody would imagine,” Chehebar said.

Gaede’s unorthodox approach is reflected in his initial attempts to offer his services to Havana, which involved showing up unannounced at the Cuban Embassy in Buenos Aires and, later, at the Czechoslovakia’s mission in Washington.

On both occasions, he offered to deliver – free of charge – the secret technology for the manufacture of integrated circuits produced by Advanced Micro Devices, his then-employer.

Gaede finally established a link with Cuban intelligence and the data he passed on eventually earned an invitation for him and his wife to visit Cuba for a two-week vacation that would include a meeting with Fidel Castro.

“Bill,” as he is known, tells in the documentary that the visit dealt him “a great disappointment” and demolished his idealistic vision of socialism, prompting him to approach U.S. intelligence services with an offer of assistance to topple Castro.

Article continues here:  Crazy Bill Gaede

 

Expelled Spies Welcome Governor Andrew Cuomo & Business Executives to Cuba 3

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo toasts with a mojito during a meeting at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba, Monday, April 20, 2015. Cuomo is the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba since the Dec. 17 declaration of detente. At right is Gustavo Machin, Cuba’s deputy chief of North American affairs.(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa,Pool) The Associated Press

By Chris Simmons

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and executives from Jetblue, Chobani Greek Yogurt, Pfizer and other New York-based companies spent today meeting with Directorate of Intelligence (DI) officers Josefina de la C. Vidal Ferreiro and Gustavo Machin Gomez. Both officers serve under the shallowest of covers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX), since they were thrown out of the US for espionage in 2003 and 2002, respectively

Unknown to the governor and executives, they fall into a category of politically-important visitors known as “useful idiots.”

More narrowly, for Vidal, Machin, and the rest of their DI brethren, the New Yorkers are simply known as “targets.”  Ever the opportunists, the DI seized upon Cuomo’s outreach to conduct an Influence Operation. This type of intelligence mission subtly and skillfully uses agents, collaborators, sympathizers, and the media to promote a nation’s objectives in ways either un-attributable or marginally attributable to that power.

Thus, Vidal and Machin get to cultivate a relationship with Cuomo, the governor of the state that hosts the largest Cuban spy base in the United States:  the Cuban Mission to the United Nations. Concurrently, the executives will also be the focus of traditional espionage targeting as – according to US government records – Havana is second only to Beijing in the conduct of economic espionage against the United States.

It’s truly frightening how easy we make it for the Cubans to spy against us.

PHOTO:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, right, walks with Cuba’s Josefina Vidal, director general of the U.S. division at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, as he arrives to the Jose Marti airport in Havana, Cuba, Monday, April 20, 2015. Cuomo is the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba since the Dec. 17 declaration of detente. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)The Associated Press

Editor’s Note:  According to knowledgeable defectors and émigrés, the Hotel Nacional – where important foreign visitors stay —  is wired for video and audio surveillance on the 7^th floor and above.

As U.S. And Cuba Explore a Renewal Of Diplomacy, What Becomes Of Victor Gerena, Other Notorious Fugitives? 2

(Courtesy: Hartford Courant)

By Edmund H. Mahony, Hartford Courant

There is probably no one with a greater interest than Victor M. Gerena in the talks underway between the U.S. and Cuba about re-establishing diplomatic relations.

In 1983, he and other members of a group of Puerto Rican nationalists — a group armed, advised and financed by the Cuban government — stole $7 million from a West Hartford armored car depot in what was then the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history.

The Cubans sneaked Gerena into Mexico City. They stashed him in a safe house, lightened the color of his hair and gave him a phony diplomatic identity. Eventually, they put him and much of the money on a plane to Havana, where Gerena disappeared into the shadowy community of murderers, bombers, robbers and hijackers Cuba has sheltered from prosecution in the U.S and other countries since the 1960s.

For decades, the U.S. fugitives hiding in Cuba have been of little interest to anyone beyond a handful of journalists, law enforcement agencies and the families of their victims. But as President Obama presses an effort to reopen embassies and lift credit and trade restrictions, the fugitives have been discovered by critics and are emerging as a potential impediment to normalization.

Last week, Obama said he intends to remove Cuba from the government’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, effectively opening Havana to commercial lenders. Cuba has been on the list for 30 years, with Iran, Syria and Sudan. The last time the state department reviewed the list, in 2013, it decided against Cuba’s removal because of its continued willingness to provide safe haven to fugitives wanted on terror charges.

Congress has 45 days to challenge the decision to remove Cuba from the list and opponents were lining up last week within Congress and among law enforcement agencies, Cuban exiles and families of victims killed by fugitives who have lived comfortably in Cuba for decades

“In the midst of our global war on terrorism, simply put, how can Obama and this administration remove a state that sponsors terrorists from the State Sponsor of Terror list?” said Joseph Connor, whose father died in a 1975 bomb attack at Fraunces Tavern in New York by a Puerto Rican nationalist group supported by Cuba. “This action shows Obama’s utter disregard for Americans like my father, who was murdered by Castro’s clients and it tells the world we condone terrorism.”

Others want return of the fugitives to be a condition of normalization or, at a minimum, that the fugitives be used to leverage other concessions.

Article continues here:  Terrorist Victor Gerena

The Laughable Duplicity of “Former” Cuban Spy Arturo Lopez-Levy 13

“Former” Spy Arturo López-Levy

By Chris Simmons

The Huffington Post disgraced itself again yesterday with another propaganda piece by admitted “former” Directorate of Intelligence (DI) officer, Arturo Lopez-Levy. His feature, “Why Senator Rubio’s Lies Matter,” condemned the Senator for a lack of ethics. Lopez-Levy attacked Rubio for having lied when he claimed his family fled the left-wing dictatorship of Fidel Castro when in reality they fled the right-wing dictatorship of General Fulgencio Batista. The “former” spy said this deception “shined a spotlight on the senator’s moral character.” Lopez-Levy then proceeded to make the outrageous claim that conservative Cuban-Americans (including Rubio) are former Batista supporters.

As ludicrous as Lopez-Levy’s statements are, the real hypocrisy is the layers of lies in which he has encased his own persona. The real name of this perpetual doctoral candidate (now believed to be in his 8^th year of studies) is Arturo Lopez-Callejas. After all, this is the name he lived by for over 30 years in Cuba. The faux scholar also now denies his spy career, although he acknowledged his patriotic service to Fidel in his book, Raul Castro and the New Cuba: A Close-Up View of Change.

He also – innocently I’m sure – forgot to tell readers he is Raul Castro’s nephew-in-law. More specifically, he is the first cousin of Castro’s son-in-law, Brigadier General Luis Alberto Rodriguez Primo Lopez-Callejas. Rodriguez leads the Enterprise Administration Group (GAESA), placing him in command of Cuba’s entire tourism industry. According to the Miami Herald, “Rodriguez, married to Castro’s oldest daughter, Deborah Castro Espín, is widely viewed as one of the most powerful and ambitious men in Cuba — smart, arrogant, frugal and a highly effective administrator of GAESA.”  Herald reporter Juan Tamayo also noted that Deborah Castro’s brother is Alejandro Castro Espín, Castro’s chief intelligence advisor.

So to recap, the man who lies about his true name, his career, his family ties, and the privileged life he led in Cuba now has the cojones to question the integrity of another person?  Seriously????

Updated High-Frequency (HF) Broadcast Schedule for Cuban Spies Worldwide 1

Cuban “Numbers Station” HM01 with new start/end of transmissions: 

By Bulgarian DX Blog    

xx54-xx18 broadcasts 24 minutes; xx18-xx28 open carrier/dead air;

xx28-xx48 broadcasts 20 minutes; xx48-xx54 change of frequencies.

0454-0548 on  5855 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri0

454-0548 on 12120 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri, not active

0454-0548 on 11462 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

0454-0548 on 14375 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat, not active

0554-0648 on 10345 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

0554-0648 on ????? secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat, ex 9330

0654-0748 on  9330 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

0654-0748 on 13435 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

0754-0848 on  9065 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

0754-0848 on 11635 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

0854-0948 on  9240 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

0854-0948 on 11462 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

0854-0948 on 12120 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat, not active

0954-1048 on  5855 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

0954-1048 on  9155 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

0954-1048 on 11635 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

0954-1048 on 12180 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat, not active

1554-1648 on 11435 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Daily

1654-1748 on 11530 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Daily

1754-1848 on 11635 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Daily

2054-2148 on 11635 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

2054-2148 on 16180 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

2154-2248 on 10715 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

2154-2248 on 17480 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

2254-2348 on 11530 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri

2254-2348 on 17540 secret/hidden tx Bauta?-Cuba Spanish Tue/Thu/Sat

Editor’s Note:  According to reliable defectors and émigrés, most Cuban spies have moved from HF to internet-based communications. Those still on HF (or morse code in some cases) are technology dinosaurs whom Havana is unwilling or unable to move into the 21^st Century.

Cuba Welcomes Removal From U.S. List of States Sponsoring Terrorism 2

DI Officer Josefina Vidal

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

Cuba welcomed President Obama’s decision to remove the island nation from the list of states that sponsor terrorism — a list on which “Cuba never should have been included,” a senior Cuban official said.

Josefina Vidal, head of the North American section of the Cuban Foreign Ministry and Havana’s leader of negotiations to renew diplomatic ties with the United States, praised Obama’s “just decision” and said Cuba condemns rather than supports terrorism.

“Cuba rejects and condemns all acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, as well as any action that has as its objective the encouraging, supporting, financing or covering up terrorist acts,” Vidal said in a statement released late Tuesday.

She said her nation had been the victim of terrorism rather than its promoter. She was alluding to efforts by U.S. and Cuban opponents of the Castro governments to overthrow or destabilize the regime, including the U.S.-backed attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, which she said claimed the lives of hundreds of Cubans.

“The government of Cuba recognizes the just decision taken by the president of the United States to eliminate Cuba from a list on which it never should have been included,” Vidal said.

Cuba’s position on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, with Iran, North Korea and others, had been a major obstacle in the improving of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana, announced by Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in December.

The Castro governments consistently demanded their nation be removed from the list — along with insisting that the U.S. embargo on Cuba be lifted, something that only Congress can do.

Editor’s Note:  Directorate of Intelligence (DI) officer Josefina Vidal left the US in May 2003 as part of the expulsion of 16 Cuban diplomat spies. However, she and another DI spouse were not “officially” declared Persona Non Grata since the expulsion of their husbands made their departure a fait accompli.

Additionally, Cuba’s decades-long support to terrorist groups is irrefutable and well documented. In fact — from 1959 until September 11, 2001 — Cuban supported groups conducted more attacks and killed more Americans than any other terrorist groups in the United States.

Amid Concerns, US Poised To Strike Cuba From Terrorism List 4

The State Department recommended Cuba be removed from a U.S. terrorism list, another step in restoring diplomatic ties between the countries.