Cuban Revolution, The Cuban Five

René González is in Cuba

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Reprinted from Prensa Latina

René González, one of the five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters unfairly given harsh prison sentences in the United States, arrived to Cuba on Friday on a family, private visit in the wake of authorization by a US judge to visit his gravely ill brother.

According to information released by the TV news program, René arrived minutes alter midday.

On February 24, René had filed through his lawyer an emergency motion before the South Florida District Court, requesting an authorization to visit his brother, seriously ill in Cuba.

Nearly a month later, on March 19, Judge Joan Lenard, who have been handling the case of The Cuban Five since the start of their proceedings, authorized the trip for 15 days under certain conditions, including obtaining all US government travel permits needed.

She also set as a prerequisite failing a detailed travel schedule, his location in Cuba and information of contact in the country, as well as a systematic phone contact with his probation officer.

The judge also made clear that all conditions of Rene’s supervised release remain unchanged and he has to go back to the United States as soon as the two weeks pass from the date of his trip.

After having suffered 13 years of unfair prison, René is under a supervised release regime for another three years during which he has to remain in the United States, which constitutes an additional sanction.

The decision of authorizing his trip is fully in line with conditions established for his supervised release, which allow him to travel to Cuba after an approval by the probation officer or the judge.

Even the US Government, which has opposed all motions filed by René to be allowed a permanent return to Cuba and his temporary visit to his brother, admitted that conditions of his supervised release do not prevent him from visiting our country.

In this regard, as of March 7, 2011, the Attorney General’s Office argued that the terms of Rene’s supervised release do not prevent him from traveling to Cuba during that period. “Nothing will prevent him from requesting his probation officer (or the court, if he was denied that by the former) a permit to travel to Cuba to visit his wife, his old parents or other relatives.”

In the motion filed by his lawyer, Rene said he would comply with the terms established for the visit and return to the United States.

Despite the terms imposed, our people, with deep respect, welcomes home our beloved René, and do not stop fighting for his final, permanent return home along with his four close brothers, says the press release.

René González, along with his comrades Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, was detained in 1998 in the United States for monitoring Miami-based violent groups operating against Cuba.

The Cuban Five

CONFESSION IN MIAMI

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Pesquera had to “persuade”Janet Reno to arrest the Five

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD —

Miami Herald – CONFESSION IN MIAMI

HECTOR Pesquera, Florida’s FBI chief, had to “persuade” Attorney General Janet Reno to arrest the five Cuban patriots who had infiltrated terrorist groups and were subsequently converted into “spies,” because other people in the Justice Department didn’t want to touch the case. The man who devoted his time to pursuing these patriots whilst Al-Qaeda was staging the September 11 attacks in his own backyard, made this confession to a Miami journalist on announcing that he was retiring from the federal police.

Héctor Pesquera devoted his time to pursuing the five Cuban patriots whilst Al Qaeda were planning the September 11 attacks in his own backyard.

No one in Miami’s “free press” took the initiative to ask Janet Reno how she allowed herself to be “persuaded” to make such an evidently bad decision.

“Everything was on the line,” recalled Pesquera in an interview with Larry Lebowitz from The Miami Herald, a daily strongly linked to the right-wing Cuban-American groups dominant in the Florida metropolis. The meeting took place days before the official announcement of the retirement of this sulfurous special agent who has maintained ambiguous relations with extremist leaders in Miami.

“But you do it because you’re right. Or at least you think you’re right at the time,” added the police officer enigmatically.

Pesquera’s Miami appointment came in September 1998. That same month, he carried out a spectacular raid, accompanied by overtly political statements to the press, systematically awarding the detained Cubans with the title of “spies” prior to their appearance in court. A description that was taken up, completely unethically, by the Miami and national press.

A RAPID RISE

When a U.S. coastguard vessel intercepted La Esperanza yacht in Puerto Rican waters on October 27, 1997, it was suspected that the vessel was transporting drugs. Instead of narcotics, the agents who went on board found an arsenal of weapons and several suspects, all of whom were linked, in one way or another, to the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) in Miami.

Amongst the objects found in a secret compartment were seven crates of ammunition, military uniforms, six radios, a satellite telephone, night vision glasses, and two 50-caliber assault rifles capable of reaching targets more than one mile away, according to a description given by Lieutenant Brendan Pearson of the U.S. Coast Guard Service.

Immediately recovering the file, the astute Pesquera – who sensed there was profitable business involved – directed it in such a way, with the complicity of the defendants’ lawyer (a relative of his), that the individuals on board were acquitted on all the charges. The criminal expedition to assassinate the Cuban head of state on the Venezuelan island of Margarita was transformed, little by little, into an innocent “fishing” excursion, despite an initial confession by one of the suspects.

Meanwhile, Pesquera had already, and swiftly, been paid his reward. FBI chief Louis Freeh did not hesitate to offer him the much sought-after post of Special Agent in Charge in Florida, bestowing upon him almost total control of FBI operations in a heated zone of terrorists, drug-traffickers, fugitive torturers and corrupt policemen.

He arrived at his new offices on Second Avenue and 163rd St. in Miami with the evident mission of offering frustrated CANF leaders spectacular “compensation” for the humiliation suffered in Puerto Rico.

LIGHTNING COMPENSATION

Héctor Pesquera was appointed on September 2, 1998.

At 5:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 12, his men, armed with rifles and handguns and wearing bullet-proof vests, burst into the apartments of several Cuban patriots in a spectacular operation worthy of a Hollywood movie, smashing doors and furniture and tying up “suspects” like animals, right in front of their respective families, including several children.

On September 14, the Florida media circulated the spectacular news. For the first time since the start of the Cuban Revolution – that is to say, 39 years! – a “network” of “Castro spies” had been dismantled with the arrest of several of its members.

In a press conference at FBI “headquarters”, chief Pesquera basked in his glory. On the day of that media show, he became a political spokesperson. Credit for the operation was attributed to him and he boldly proclaimed: “we have been investigating the group since 1995 – check the date – that the arrest was “a significant blow to the Cuban government” and that “Castro’s espionage efforts have been defeated.”

And then the police spokesperson unleashed a witch-hunt: “We have done this to bring the public’s attention to the situation,” he affirmed, requesting people to call in with the names of “suspects”.

In an analysis published some months ago, Cuban journalist Lázaro Barredo commented on how the Miami press acknowledged at the time that “many experts could not understand why the FBI had arrested individuals monitoring counter-revolutionary groups on that weekend, when it was precisely that agency which was benefiting from the information they were gathering concerning the violent actions of those groups.”

A few days later during a press conference, Héctor Pesquera – recently appointed FBI chief in Miami – publicly acknowledged for the first time that the arrests had generated contradictory opinions amongst certain officials.

He then added that this case “would never have appeared before the courts” if he had not urged “Louis Freeh directly”. He refrained from referring to Attorney General Janet Reno at that time.

EVERYTHING ENDS UP CONFIRMED

Pesquera’s latest confession to Larry Lebowitz at The Miami Herald confirms the conspiracy inspired by the high-ranking federal police representative’s terrorist friendships.

No one from the Miami “free press” took the initiative to ask Janet Reno for her version of events.

How was it that she was “persuaded” in less than 10 days to take a decision so obviously wrong that no one was “interested in touching the case”?

Speaking on behalf of U.S. President George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, U.S. under-secretary for National Security, recently revealed how the order to arrest the Cuban patriots infiltrated amongst Cuban-American terrorist groups in Miami was given by the White House in the framework of a series of measures taken to please leaders of the Miami mafia community. Rice mentioned how they had uncovered a Cuban espionage network in the United States. In a characteristic manner, she used the same deliberately disparaging descriptions used by the Miami press…at Pesquera’s “suggestion”.

Shortly afterwards, top official Roger Noriega took up the matter once again and offered fresh confirmation of the essentially political nature of the arrests and the rigged trial that followed…with a script edited by Pesquera and the other conspirators.

A LONG AND SUSPICIOUS CAREER

At that time, Special Agent Pesquera had clocked up 27 years service with the FBI and had had a long and rather unusual career behind him.

He worked successively in Tampa, Montevideo (Uruguay) and as supervisor of counterintelligence at the central offices in Washington.

But he had also touched on the subject of drugs many times.

In July 1996, The Washington Times (property of the Moon sect) revealed how an FBI team “led by agent Héctor Pesquera” had arrested an “well-known drug trafficker” holding 323 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of $4.2 million.

He arrived in Puerto Rico in 1992 and in 1995 occupied the leading post on the island, “specializing” in the drug trafficking gangs active in the region.

Pesquera’s expert narcotics investigations and his friendships with Miami mafia leaders are, of course, not at all suspicious. Just as it is pure chance that the majority of Miami terrorists of Cuban origin have a history of links with drug trafficking.

Having recently celebrated his 57th birthday and 27 years of service, Pesquera announced his retirement. News of the decision was followed by a farewell dinner attended by more than 200 people, according to the Miami press. They did not, however, publish a list of those particular friends.

To the journalists who revealed his suspicious relationship with controversial businessman and convicted drug trafficker Camilo Padreda, Pesquera flatly denied that he had committed any errors during his time with the FBI.

He didn’t want to touch on the subject of the gold watch that Padreda had helped him purchase or discuss the criminal’s ineffective attempts to pull strings and secure him the Miami police chief’s job.

He also declined to comment on how his bureau tried to cover up the accident that occurred in 1999 in Broward Country in which one of his investigators, David Farrell, caused the deaths of two people through drinking and reckless driving.

THE DISASTROUS FAILURE OF THE AL-QAEDA CASE

Whilst he was devoting his time to pursuing Cuban patriots infiltrating the terrorist groups tolerated by his office in Miami – an office staffed by 150 experienced detectives – he had absolutely no idea of the fact that at least 15-19 terrorists, who would subsequently go on to fly planes into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, were training in the area in which he had overall responsibility for counterintelligence.

Mohammed Amanullah Atta, leader of the Al Qaeda cell, was a student at the Fuman Aviation school in Venice and began piloting Boeing 727 aircraft on simulators at the SimCenter in Opa-Locka.

Waleed Al-Shehri and his brother Wali lived in Daytona Beach. Wali then moved to Boston Beach as did Satam Al-Suqami. Abdulrahman Al-Omari lived in Vero Beach in the vicinity of the two other suspects, Adnan Bukhari and Amer M. Kamfar, where they studied at the Flight Safety International Academy.

Marwan Youssef Al-Shehhi, lived in Venice with Atta; Fayez Ahmed, in Delray Beach as well as Ahmed Al-Nami, Nawaf Al-Hazmi, Sabed Al-Ghamdi, Molad Al-Sheri, Hamza Al-Ghamdi and his brother Ahmed.

Ahmed Al-Haznawi was a resident of Lauderdale-by-sea with Ziad Jarrah.

Al Qaeda terrorists were all over the place!

With false passports, suspicious backgrounds and frequently strange behavior, none of them were detected by Héctor Pesquera’s 150 detectives.

Nevertheless, within a matter of hours, a contingent of detectives was mobilized for the operation that took the Cuban patriots to the worst cells that he could find and initiated the continuous pressure to crush these real anti-terrorist fighters…who were indeed fulfilling their duty to counteract extremist groups.

The Cuban Five

Freedom Ride for the Cuban Five – Spanish

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Descarga aquí

Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, y René González, cinco cubanos, fueron arrestados por el F.B.I. por “conspiración” y otros cargos fabricados. El verdadero motivo de su encarcelación fue que infiltraron y recopilararon información sobre los grupos de extrema derecha cubanoamericana en Miami con el fin de evitar sus ataques terroristas contra Cuba.  Los 5 llevan más de 13 años presos por defender la soberanía de su patria.  Unete a la campaña internacional por su libertad. Exijámosle al Presidente Obama su liberación inmediata. ¡Sí Se Puede!

¡UNETE! ¡PARTICIPA!

INICIA Y AUSPICIA: El Puente, National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights-NYC Chapter, DC 37/AFSCME-Local 372, Casa de las Américas, July 26 Coalition,  Cuba Solidarity New York, Wives Without Rights Campaign, Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, Latin America Democracy  Committee, 1119/SEIU, and Occupy Harlem, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, Venceremos Brigade, NYC Jericho Movement, Peoples’ Attorney Michael Tariff Warren, NYC Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LPDOC), Fuerza de la Revolución Dominicana (FR/NY),The U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange,. National Network on Cuba (NNOC), La Mesa de Izquierda Dominicana, New Black Panther Party, Peoples Organization for Progress, Mesa Redonda Dominicana, Hartford Committee for Cuba, Bolivarian Circle – NY, Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Cuba In Focus/WBAI Radio, Fundación Andres Figueroa Cordero, Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, International Action Center (I.A.C.) and Workers’ World Party (WWP).

 “¡Pa’Washington Con Los 5!” se une a la campaña “5 Días por los 5 Cubanos” en
Washington, D.C. del 17-21 de abril, 2012, iniciada por El Comité Internacional
por la Libertad de los 5 Cubanos.

Sitio autobús para ir a Washington D.C.

El Barrio – East Harlem
106 St. and Lexington

The Bronx
Hostos Community College
149 St. and Grand Concourse

Washington Heights – Upper Manhattan
Port Authority Bus Terminal
179 St. and Broadway

Lower Manhattan (this bus is full)
DC 37
125 Barclay St.

Tel: 917 – 412 – 4451 Nancy C.

917 – 945 – 9877 Franklin F.

718 – 601 – 4751 Frank V.

SEPTIEMBRE 2012:
CONFERENCIA NACIONAL POR LA LIBERTAD DE LOS 5 CUBANOS

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Cuba - Social, Cuban Revolution

The Cuban man who outwitted CIA tells his story

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CubaSI
Written by Aday del Sol Reyes

Cuban Man Outwitted CIA

Raul Antonio Capote was filtered in the United States of America’s CIA. He was known as agent Pablo and had —among other tasks—, to convert university students into enemies of the Revolution.

For years, Raul Antonio Capote, agent Daniel in Cuban security force, was filtered in the United States of America’s CIA. He was known as agent Pablo and had —among other tasks—, to convert university students into enemies of the Revolution.

The CIA developed a complex plan of subversion to penetrate a key sector for them, university students.

His experiences in facing these plans and the circumstances surrounding agent Daniel to carry out the mission are addressed in Enemigo (Enemy), a book launched at the 21st Havana’s International Book Fair on February 18th.

It was the perfect pretext for JR (Juventud Rebelde newspaper) to talk with university professor and Master in Contemporary History and International Relations, agent of Cuban State Security and writer Raúl Antonio Fernández Capote (Havana, 1961).

-First El Adversario (Plaza Mayor Publishing House, Puerto Rico, 2005), and now Enemigo. Is there any other relation between these two books besides the similarities in the title?

-In El Adversario, Havana natives face the evil forces that have selected Havana as the final battle scenario in which they will try to defeat Gemini (equality), and the good will prevail. The history of battles between Cuban people and the special services of their mortal enemy, specially the CIA, is narrated in Enemigo. Both texts are a tribute to heroism of a people.

The difference? Well, the first is fiction and the other book is a testimony. Both have high human value. At least I tried to achieve it as a writer and protagonist of the time we are living. El Adversario is the struggle of the best human values against animal instincts, against lust. In Enemigo I tried to portray the human side of an agent of the Cuban State Security, of a revolutionary intellectual, a communist writer, against the enemies of his country, a battle that is carried out from the absolute silence, not expecting any reward other than satisfaction of the mission accomplished. In this unusual case, the identity of the agent is revealed and the recognition of his people is seen.

-Both books outwitted the CIA. Is Capote engaged with this sort of confrontation?

-That is my own war to the same extent this is the war of a whole people. As long as the enemy exists, this fight will never stop. It is not rhetoric, it is conviction of life.

-Much of the book Enemigo is dedicated to report how the U.S.’s CIA has committed million of dollars in the execution of subversive political and ideological plans aimed at young Cubans. What is the role of new technologies in this project?

-The enemy has elaborated a subversive plan, where new technologies play an important role, e.g. Libya, Syria, etc… Clearly, men are the ones who work, organize, and generate ideas, start revolution or counter revolutions. But the Internet and new equipment designed to communicate within seconds allow a great level of mobilization. Building on these strengths, the government of the United States provides the internal counterrevolution with sophisticated and expensive equipment like Bgan to increase their ability to articulate and summoning.

We cannot forget we are referring to the same government that forbids Cuba’s access to the Internet, by blocking and pursuing any attempt of Cuban government and companies to do business with American companies and their subsidiary companies all over the world. This government controls more than 80% of the Internet service and the necessary technology for its use.

Blocking the accessibility of Cuba to new technologies of communications and information, and simultaneously, facilitating the access to internet to Cuban counterrevolutionaries for internal subversion, training them in its usage, flooding the country with the necessary tools to bring the Cubans manipulated information, distorted and elaborated in the U.S., without any control required by the relevant international standards, would allow them to monopolize the information in the country and eventually, encourage people to carry out actions against the Revolution to justify an armed attack. We can never forget that, because the plan against Cuba was and still is to occupy the country to return the properties to Americans, as stated in U.S. laws such as the Helms Burton Act. The plan in Cuba is that of Iraq, not that of Poland or Czechoslovakia. It means to occupy the country to try to overcome the resistance they will find. Then, they will remove even the memory of the Revolution. Hose people still in doubts, I invite them to read the Bush Plan. I invite them to read Enemigo.

Young people who belong to a new digital era and were born in the midst of this technological revolution become ideal target for these plans. The American empire and its special services mastermind such projects. Organizations like the United States Agency for International Development ‘(USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and many others, regarded as facade of the CIA, spend millions dollars to work with subversion aimed at Cuban youth and highly qualified specialists.

– Did the CIA recruit you for being a university professor? Why does the U.S. government consider Cuba’s youth as the most vulnerable sector?

I do not think that young people in Cuba are the most vulnerable sector. I don’t even believe they are vulnerable. These days I have discussed many topics with many young people across the country and such meetings have given me elements to confirm that we have a mostly firm and revolutionary youth. I heard that some U.S. officials believe they lost their particular war against the historical leadership of the Revolution. Therefore, they bet on who they have named the grandchildren of the Revolution. We should not forget that we live in a world ruled by capitalist culture and our young people know about capitalism by the things we tell them, and we did not know it either. Our enemy knows it well. This is a war of axiology, a war that takes place in the minds of men. If they succeed in changing our thinking, if they succeed in conveying the values ​​of capitalist culture in the new generations of Cuban, then they will have won the battle. This Cuban struggle against demons is the greatest challenge of youth nowadays.

-You venture into testimony in Enemigo. Is it something temporary or an abandonment of narrative fiction?

-No, I have not abandoned the fiction. I’m writing a novel, but I have the intention to keep on writing testimonies. I have many things to say and this literary genre allows me to achieve the communication I need with the Cuban people.

– How would you define yourself, university professor, writer, or agent of the Cuban State Security?

-The great strength of the Cuban State Security, the strength that has allowed it to defeat the CIA, with its well-trained officers, agents and technicians, with its unlimited budget, with its latest technological resources, is that the Cuban State Security is composed of all Cuban revolutionaries, most of the people. I define myself as an intellectual revolutionary. That’s me.

-Do you think Enemigo can help young people to understand that the enemy is actually everywhere and it is not a fable like that of the Wolf.

-The book is dedicated to young people. I was also a young man not too long ago. I remember we referred to the enemy to justify our own mistakes. Moreover, the enemy and its lackeys try to convince us that the danger is not real, trying to demobilize us, with the resource thousand times repeated, that there is no threat and it is only an exaggeration of the revolutionary government.

My experience within the enemy allowed me to fully appreciate the danger is real and constant. I wondered sometimes: why were we worried with the enemy? The mission I accomplished let me know that such concern was actually small. The enemy will never stop trying to destroy the Revolution. Why? Because Cuba is an example too powerful and Cuban revolutionaries are by far the most active dissidents within this world of global capitalist power, because we are managers and promoters of a culture that is deadly opponent of capitalist culture; because they fear us, because they hate us more than anyone else, because we ended half a century of absolute dominion of the empire over the land and sow hope in the land of a possible better world.

If the book helps to clarify the truth, if the book serves as a tool for the revolutionary, if it serves as argument for the fighters in this battle of ideas, and helps to encourage the timorous, instruct the ignorant, convince unbelievers and denounce the traitors, then it will have well its purpose, right?.