Intelligence-Affiliated Pro-Castro Group Plans Protest in Miami Next Saturday 1

Solidarity Caravan to Tour Miami for Cuban Five

Washington, Mar 6 (Prensa Latina) Several organizations of Cuban immigrants will stage a motorcade through Miami streets on Saturday, March 9, to demand the immediate, unconditional release of the five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters unfairly held in US prisons since 1998. Cuban American activist Andres Gomez said in a release that those groups are members of Alianza Martiana (Jose Marti Alliance) and will tour main avenues in solidarity with Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, internationally known as The Cuban Five.

Four of them are serving harsh sentences for monitoring Miami-based violent groups that planned actions like those which have left over 3,400 victims in Cuba in the past 53 years. Meanwhile, Rene Gonzalez left prison on Oct.7, 2011 after serving a 13-year sentence, and was given an additional three-year supervised release punishment in Miami.

According to Gomez, the motorcade will protest impunity granted by the US Government to extreme right Cuban-American terrorists and also defend full normalization of relations between Washington and Havana. Alianza Martiana coalition groups the Antonio Maceo Brigade, Alianza Martiana as an individual group, the Jose Marti Association, the ATC, the Bolivarian Club of Miami and the Association of Christian Women in Defense of Family, among other groups in solidarity with Cuba. In the past few years, its members have carried out similar activities for the same purposes.

Editor’s Note: PRELA failed to note that Andrés Gómez is also the coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade and editor of the magazine Areito digital. Both entities have long and distinguished histories of collaboration with Cuban Intelligence. Additional background on these groups can be found in previous “Cuba Confidential” postings. Please use the “search” feature to find the related posts.

Havana Gives Literary Award to One of its Master Spies 2

Writer Jesus Arboleya Wins Casa de las Americas Award

Havana, (PL).- Cuban writer Jesus Arboleya said that winning the Casa de las Americas Award is a special honor because this is one of the most prestigious awards worldwide, and also because it is a revolutionary award. Arboleya earned the highest distinction in the social-historical literature category, for his book “Cuba y los cubanoamericanos. Un analisis de la emigracion cubana” (Cuba and Cuban Americans. An Analysis of Cuban Migration). The jury that unanimously granted the award, announced at the Casa de las Americas in Havana, was comprised of the French Salim Lamrani, Colombian Renan Vega Cantor, and Cuban Sergio Guerra Vilaboy. According to the decision, the jury took into account that Arboleya´s work reconstructs in detail, with solid supporting documentation, the issue of relationships between the United States and the Cuban Revolution from the perspective of migration policies between both countries. The clarity and expository text fluently allows the work to be accessible to all readers, without diminished rigor and analytical depth, and demystifies one current issue that has been subject to many interpretations, the jury added. For his part, Arboleya stated that this award, in its 54th edition, is “deeply connected to the history of our struggles, the defense of our identity, and the dignity of our people.”

Jesus Arboleya Cervera (1947), is a PhD in Historical Sciences, and has collaborated with the Center for Policy Alternatives, the Center About the United States at the University of Havana, the Center for American Studies, and the Center for European Studies, as well as having worked with the Chilean newspaper La Nacion. Among his books are “Las corrientes políticas en la comunidad de origen cubano en Estados Unidos” (The political currents in the Cuban community in the United States (1994), Havana-Miami: The US-Cuba Migration Conflict (1995), and “La contrarrevolución cubana” (The Cuban counterrevolution) (1997).

Editor’s Note: Colonel Jesus Arboleya Cervera was identified by DGI Captain Jesus Perez Mendez after his defection in 1983. Arboleya, who served as a Second Secretary at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York City before transferring to the Washington-based Cuban Interests Section, was also identified by convicted spy Carlos Alvarez. During his tour, Arboleya was the architect of the 1970’s US-Cuba normalization drive, which almost succeeded in 1977 following the formation of a group of prominent Cuban-Americans who called themselves the Committee of 75. Although headed by respectable Cuban-Americans, including two clerics and several businessmen, the Committee was DGI-inspired. According to Senate testimony of March 12, 1982, at the time, Arboleya may have been the longest serving DGI officer in the United States.

On a related note, Arboleya’s co-author, Rafael Betancourt Abio, along with his brother, were founders of the pro-Castro magazine Areito in April 1974. He was also a founder of the Antonio Maceo Brigade in December 1977. On April 28, 1978, he met in D.C. with Arboleya and Ricardo Escartin Fernandez, another DGI member. Rafael Betancourt Abio was born in Havana April 23, 1952.