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The
Untold Story of the Cuban Five (Part VI)
By Ricardo Alarcón, president of the
National Assembly of People's Power
More
than seven months after the Cuban Five were arrested
and indicted a new charge was presented by the US
Government. Again, the charge was one of “conspiracy”,
but this time to commit murder in the first degree
and was brought specifically against one of the Five,
Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.
The new indictment
came after a public campaign in Miami actively
promoted by “journalists” on the US Government
payroll, including reports about meetings in public
places attended by well-known Cuban exile leaders,
US prosecutors and FBI officials, in which the
accusation against Gerardo was openly discussed. It
became a clear demand by the most violent groups in
town and was a central focus of the local media.
The Government
acquiesced to the demand and introduced the Second
Superseding indictment whose essential new feature
was adding this “crime” to Gerardo's list of
charges.
This was a political
concession to anti-Cuban terrorists, who were
seeking revenge for the downing by Cuba’s Air Force,
in February 24, 1996 of two airplanes (Model O2 used
by the US Air Force first in Vietnam and later in El
Salvador wars, as was concretely the case with these
two planes) piloted by members of a violent
anti-Cuban group, an event that had taken place two
years before the Cuban Five were detained, when
those airplanes were within Cuban airspace.
The timing was very
suspicious, indeed. According to information
provided by the Government at trial, the FBI had
found the real nature of Gerardo’s revolutionary
mission in Miami and was monitoring him and
controlling his communications with Havana at least
a couple of years before the downing of the planes.
If that incident was a result of a “conspiracy,” in
which Gerardo was a key participant, why wasn’t he
arrested in 1996? Why wa this issue not even
mentioned in September 1998 when he was first
detained and indicted?
The planes belonged
to a group led by José Basulto, a veteran CIA agent
involved in many paramilitary actions since 1959,
included the Bay of Pigs invasion and a number of
assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. In the 20
months preceding the incident, this group had
penetrated Cuban airspace 25 times, each one
denounced by the Cuban government.
After so many
diplomatic démarches the US Government wanted to
appear responsive. It initiated an investigation
about those flights, asked for Cuba’s help in
providing details of previous provocations,
acknowledged their receipt and thanked for them. On
February 24, 1996 such administrative proceedings
had not been completed, but later Mr. Basulto was
deprived by the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) of his pilot license and he doesn’t fly
anymore (at least legally).
The provocateurs had
blatantly announced that they will continue making
illegal flights into Cuba’s airspace and even
proclaimed that the island, which was at the time
suffering its worst crisis ever – worse in economic
terms, that the Big Depression, according to a UN
report – was not able to respond to their illegal
incursions. In January, Mr. Basulto brought with him
an NBC TV crew from Miami who filmed and broadcasted
how they overflew downtown Havana throwing out
propaganda and other materials. Cuba made it public
that such provocations will not be tolerated
anymore, made the proper notifications to all that
may be concerned, including the US Government, the
State Department and the FAA, which in turn warned
Basulto and his group that they should refrain from
such flights.
The alleged
“conspiracy” was in itself a monumental stupidity,
incomprehensible to any rational mind. It supposed
that the Cuban government had decided provoke an all-out
war with the United States, a military confrontation
that obviously would have resulted in a terrible
blow not only for the Cuban government, but for the
entire nation and its people. In any crime
motivation is always a key factor, a decisive cue.
What could have been Cuba’s motivation to provoke
such an event precisely at that moment, the most
risky for the survival of our country without allies
or friends in a world and a hemisphere under the
full control of the United States in 1996?
Cuba did exactly the
opposite. It denounced one by one, each provocation
to the FAA and to the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO, the UN family institution
dealing with these matters) and sent dozens of
diplomatic notes to the State Department. But Cuba
went farther. It did his best to reach out to the
highest level of the US Administration, the White
House, trying to prevent more incidents.
The New Yorker issue
of January 1998 dedicated to Cuba on the occasion of
the Pope’s visit included a serious article in which
a fairly objective account of those efforts by Cuba
can be found. (Carl Naguin, Annals of Diplomacy
Backfire, The New Yorker, January 26, 1998,
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998 )
Yes, there was a
conspiracy to provoke the tragedy of February 24,
1996. But it was the entire and exclusive work of
the same Miami groups that have launched a half-century
terrorist campaign against Cuba, the same gang that
will afterwards kidnap Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old
boy. Events from which they always came out with
impunity.
Taken from
Counterpunch |
