Cuba: US passed dissidents private funds

[Mika]

Cuba: US passed dissidents private funds
http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/538191.html

HAVANA -- Cuba has documented proof that U.S. officials on the island are delivering private funds to political dissidents in order to undermine the communist government, Cuban officials said Sunday.
Although Cuba has accused U.S. officials of funneling federal funds to dissidents before - a charge Washington has repeatedly denied - Sunday's accusation is the first to suggest American diplomats are acting as couriers to deliver privately donated cash, outside Washington's auditing oversight.

Cuban Foreign Ministry and State Security officials made the accusation in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of a detailed accusation they plan to outline at a news conference on Monday. They gave no further details.

An official from the U.S. State Department's U.S. Interests Section in Havana declined to comment on Sunday and said authorities at the American mission were unlikely to respond until they had seen a detailed denunciation. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have authorization from Washington to speak with the media.

The Cuban officials - Josefina Vidal Ferreira, director of the Foreign Ministry's North American Department, and Manuel Hevia Frasquieri, director of Cuban State Security's Historic Investigations Center - declined to name the American officials they accuse of acting as couriers.

They also withheld the name of a "noted terrorist of Cuban origin living in U.S. territory," whom they claim provided the funds. They declined to say how much money was allegedly involved or who received it.

"It's a scandalous deed that shows just how far the United States is willing to go to subvert the internal order," Vidal said. Giving dissidents private cash marks a "qualitative difference" in the way financial support is being channeled to the political opposition on the island, she said.

Cuba's government has documented proof that officials at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana were involved, Hevia said, suggesting that some of that evidence would be presented, along with other details, at Monday's late morning news conference.

Cuba has accused officials at the American mission of providing U.S. government funds and material support to the island's tiny opposition for years. U.S. officials have acknowledged sending books, radios, tape recorders and other items purchased through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which receives government funding, but they have always adamantly denied giving dissidents cash.

During a 2003 crackdown, Cuba charged 75 opposition members with being "mercenaries" working with U.S. officials to overthrow the communist system and sentenced them to long prison terms. Twenty of the original 75 have been released - 16 on medical parole and four into forced exile in Spain.

U.S. officials and dissidents denied those charges.

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[Judi Lynn]

1. Funny seeing the Herald carrying a piece like this, isn't it?

I hope they know it's far too late to get back any pretense of credibility. Far, FAR too late. It's just not going to happen until they make a formal acknowledgement of their previous obscene mockery of decent journalism, and their failure to serve as an honorable news outlet.

Hope we'll be hearing more on this soon. Thanks for the information, Mika.

[magbana]

2. For years now, I have been hearing about cash money going . . .

to Cuba via diplomatic pouch. Makes sense since it cannot be inspected by Cuban customs/immigration people.

[magbana]

3. Bulletin from ICAP in Cuba PLUS VIDEO!

Cubans are doing a full court press on this!!

Cuba Denounces Ties Between Terrorists Based in the US, Washington and Mercenaries on the island.

Havana, May 19 -Cuba denounced on Monday the connections between terrorists in Miami, mercenaries inside Cuba and the US administration with the objective of carrying out subversive activities against the island.

The Director of the North American Department of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Josefina Vidal referred to some of the evidence of the ties between the US Interests Section in Havana and the mercenaries in Cuba.

A selection of videos, photos, statements, telephone conversations, emails as well as investigations carried out by Cuban State Security were revealed to the foreign and national press in Havana. The rest of the evidence will be shown in a two part series during Monday´s and Tuesday´s Round Table discussions on Cuban television.

She said that the involvement of officials from the US Interests Section as facilitators of the money sent from terrorists in Miami to mercenaries on the island is scandalous and very serious.

Previously, Cuba had denounced the US Interests Section´s financial aid to internal counter revolutionary elements, but now there is evidence of the actions of the US officials in mediating in the money distribution from terrorist Santiago Alvarez to mercenaries on the island.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry official said that it would be good to ponder whether the US government is conscious of what the head of the US Interests Section is doing in Havana and if these actions are part of the so called secret annexation of the Bush Plan for Cuba.

Dr. Manuel Hevia, Director of the Historic Research Department of State Security offered details on the support and finance received by the counter revolutionary elements in Cuba from US territory.

Hevia gave the background of terrorist Santiago Alvarez and his ties with Luis Posada Carriles and explained the modus operandi of Alvarez in his illegal operations.

(RHC)

videos:http://www.granma.co.cu/

http://videos.co.cu/videos/declaracionmercenariamarthabeatriz.wmv

http://videos.co.cu/videos/relaciongobiernoeeuumercenarios.wmv





Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos © 2008 | Dirección de Información y Análisis

[Judi Lynn]

4. Top US diplomat in Cuba funnels funds to dissidents: Havana

Top US diplomat in Cuba funnels funds to dissidents: Havana
4 hours ago

HAVANA (AFP) — The top US diplomat in Cuba personally has served as a conduit of funds delivered to dissidents aiming to oust Cuba's communist government, Havana charged Monday.

Cuba for years has accused the United States regularly of supporting dissidents in the only communist one-party regime in the Americas.

But it has never backed up its charges with detailed public accusations and purported evidence, a tense twist under the new government of President Raul Castro, 76.

Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top diplomat for issues related to the United States, told a news conference that Michael Parmly -- chief of the US Interests Section, a quasi-embassy as the countries do not have full diplomatic ties -- personally supported an alleged dissident funding network, as a "common courier."

Vidal charged the United States with working with an anti-Castro Cuban activist in Miami, Santiago Alvarez, whom she said was in jail in the United States for illegal arms possession but nonetheless was able to organize the operation providing funding and material support to dissidents in Cuba.

Alvarez "manages to get things together to send money and material support to mercenaries in Cuba with the support of the chief of the US Interests Section in Havana, Mr. Michael Parmly," Vidal charged.

"It is all the more outrageous and scandalous' that US diplomats "work as emissaries or links between a terrorist and mercenaries," Vidal said.

"One has to wonder if the government of the United States, which has made fighting terrorism the center of its foreign policy, is aware that its top diplomat in Havana is collaborating with a notorious terrorist," she said.

Vidal ruled out the idea of US diplomatic reprisals, and said Washington should "take measures to correct the behavior of its diplomats in Havana."

More:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jEnLfvO1br8ihE6bb_a5cSgyvNQA



Marta Beatriz Roque making a statement
with former U.S. Interests section head,
James Cason looking on from the doorway.



Marta Beatriz Roque



Santiago Álvarez

[Judi Lynn]

5. Top U.S. diplomat ferried cash to dissident: Cuba

Top U.S. diplomat ferried cash to dissident: Cuba
Mon May 19, 2008 2:56pm EDT
By Jeff Franks

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba on Monday accused the United States' top diplomat in Havana of ferrying money from a private anti-Castro exile group in Miami to a dissident in the Cuban capital.

Officials disclosed e-mails they said showed Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, acting as a go-between for at least one payment from a group headed by Santiago Alvarez, a Cuban American jailed in the United States on weapons charges, to Cuban dissident Martha Beatriz Roque.

Parmly was "a facilitator of payments, of contacts and remittances from a terrorist based in Miami to counter-revolutionaries in Cuba," Josefina Vidal of the Cuban Foreign Ministry said at a news conference.

She described his behavior as "scandalous" and called for the U.S. government to investigate illegal activities at the Interests Section. The U.S. does not have an embassy in Cuba because the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.

A diplomat at the Interests Section said, "It is long-standing U.S. policy to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, specifically to provide assistance to families of political prisoners who are treated poorly by their own government.

"This assistance has no political purpose, but is intended to address the day-to-day needs of families who are struggling to survive in the current system," the diplomat said.

The U.S. government openly provides federally-funded support for dissident activities, which Cuba considers an illegal act.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1955383420080519

[Mika]

6. Private terrorist funds. (Funds came from Santiago Alvarez, Posada, and other terrorists)

Cuba: U.S. funneled money to dissidents
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/538918.html

The head of the U.S. mission in Cuba served as an emissary between a top dissident on the island and an exile militant from Miami serving time for weapons possession, the Cuban government announced Monday at a news conference aired live on Cuban radio.

Top Cuban officials released a series of e-mails, which they allege show that dissident Martha Beatriz Roque gets regular financing from Santiago Alvarez, the benefactor and friend of alleged terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Alvarez's group, Fundación Rescate Juridica, also allegedly sent $200 a month to dissident Jorge Luis ''Antúnez'' García and another $2,400 to the Ladies in White dissident group.

The Cuban government says the U.S. government's top diplomat in Havana, Michael Parmly, was the person who helped carry the money to Cuba.

''We have obtained irrefutable proof about a qualitatively new event, different from the well-known and already denounced flow of financial and material support to the domestic counter-revolution from the U.S. government and its diplomats in Havana,'' said Josefina Vidal Ferreira, head of the North American desk of the Foreign Ministry. ``It is the unusual and scandalous fact involving the participation of diplomatic officials in the U.S. Interests Section in Havana as emissaries in the transfer of money from terrorists living in U.S. territory and counter-revolutionaries in Cuba.''

Alvarez is a real estate magnate who is serving a 30-month prison sentence for stockpiling weapons in South Florida. He was also sentenced in 2006 to 10 months in prison for refusing to testify against Posada, a longtime anti-Castro activist accused of planting bombs in Havana and plotting to kill Castro.

Posada currently faces no criminal charges and is free in South Florida.

The Cuban government claims Roque got $1,500 a month from Alvarez, and that e-mails show U.S. Interests Section chief Parmly served as an emissary between the two.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke could not immediately be reached for comment.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana issued a statement defending its support to dissidents.

''It is longstanding U.S. policy to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, specifically to provide assistance to families of political prisoners who are treated poorly by their own government. We permit U.S. private organizations to do so as well,'' the statement said.

``This assistance has no political purpose, but is intended to address the day-to-day needs of families who are struggling to survive in the current system. American diplomats are expected to abide by regulations implementing the Cuban embargo and other applicable laws relating to foreign assistance and U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba.''

Parmly is leaving the post after three years, the State Department confirmed last week.

One e-mail, the government said, shows Roque and her nephew in Miami referring to Parmly by the code name ``the little crib.''

'It's an e-mail from her nephew ... who confirms that he delivered `the letters' to 'La Cunita,' identified earlier as the chief of the U.S. Interests Section. Notice the manipulation of names,'' said Manuel Hevia Frasquieri, the director of Cuban State Security's Historic Investigations Center. ``It is not open language: `I gave him your letters, without any problem, at 11 a.m. La Cunita greeted me very effusively, with a hug and everything.'

'It is important to make clear that when these people refer to 'the letters' they're talking about money. This is part of the verbal code these counter-revolutionaries use to conceal this handling of dirty money.''

Roque allegedly wrote a secret letter of support to U.S. District Judge James Cohn, the federal judge presiding over Alvarez's case, and was upset when the original copy of the letter was lost at the U.S. Interests Section office in Havana, according to the e-mails.

''You can see where she understands the gravity of this relationship between the well-known terrorist,'' Hevia said.

Cohn reduced Alvarez's sentence from 46 months to 30 months when others tied to his case turned over 14 pounds of plastic explosives, 200 pounds of dynamite, 4,000 feet of detonator cord, 30 semiautomatic and automatic weapons, one grenade launcher and two handmade grenades, among other items.

Alvarez pleaded guilty in September 2006 to conspiring to possess illegal weapons in a 2005 criminal case unrelated to the firearms surrender. At his sentencing, he maintained that the weapons were meant to help battle Fidel Castro's totalitarian government -- not to harm the United States.

Can you image the backlash if the anti US detention/anti Guantanimo protests by Americans were contaminated by groups funded by terrorists like Bin Laden or governments that harbored and supported them like the Taliban?

This exactly the situation with Martha Beatriz Roque, and the "Ladies" In White, and their spouses - the '75' so called "dissidents" - who were convicted of conspiring and receiving payments from US based/harbored terrorists and the government that has declared itself the enemy of Cuba (the US gov.).



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