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The
Untold Story of the Cuban Five (Part XIV)
By Ricardo Alarcón, president of the
National Assembly of People's Power
FBI officials received a
huge amount of concrete, detailed information about
anti-Cuban terrorist groups, including their exact
locations, with addresses and phone numbers,
photographs and tape recordings describing sinister
plans in their own voices and many other data. At
no time did they protest or express concern
regarding Cuba’s ability or methods used to obtain
such precise evidence.
They just thanked us and asked for some time,
arguing that they got more evidence, far much more,
than what they could have expected.
When Gabriel García Márquez met President Clinton’s
closest advisors at the White House on May 6, 1998,
nobody asked how Cuba had unveiled those terrible
plots. One of the American gentlemen just said, “We
have common enemies.”
It was exactly the same on every other occasion when
we met in Havana, Washington or elsewhere to discuss
with American officials the information we had on
terrorist attempts. They never complained in any
manner, directly or indirectly--not even in a
whisper.
US officials never objected to our investigative
efforts for some very obvious reasons. The history
of violence and terror against Cuba is quite long –
has lasted so far half a century – and is very well
documented in an extensive bibliography partially
registered in the US Congressional Record and also
available in declassified, or not yet so, official
papers with which our American counterparts, we
should assume, are well familiar.
With such a background Cuba has the right (even the
inexcusable obligation) to protect itself and its
people and to discover what may be in the making
among those who try to cause material damage and
human suffering. This is the universally recognized
principle of self defense.
The Americans were very well aware of that. As they
surely remembered, when we learned about an
assassination attempt against President Reagan we
promptly shared the information with them, the Great
Communicator’s antipathy towards Cuba
notwithstanding. Washington did not complain then,
but expressed thankfulness.
They also knew that Cuba is just a small island in
the Caribbean, with a population a little above 11
million people. Cuba does not have satellites
getting data from outer space, neither has it any of
the extremely sophisticated devices that are in
common use by the American and other Big Powers
intelligence services.
Cuba only has human intelligence. Something that is
admitted now as indispensable in the United States,
something that would have saved many American lives
if it had been aptly used by the US before the
terrible events that shook America in 2001.
And ours is not paid human intelligence. We have
never spent money, as others do by many billions, to
buy information or contract with expensive agents
around the world. We depend on the generous heroic
sacrifice of youngsters like Gerardo, Ramón,
Antonio, Fernando and René.
Long before the heinous attacks of 9/11, Gerardo
Hernandez Nordelo said these simple truths to an
American Court that regrettably was unwilling to
listen:
“Cuba has the right to defend itself from the
terrorist acts that are prepared in Florida with
total impunity, despite the fact that they have been
consistently denounced by the Cuban authorities.
This is the same right that the United States has to
try to neutralize the plans of terrorist Osama Bin
Laden’s organization, which has caused so much
damage to this country and threatens to continue
doing so. I am certain that the sons and daughters
of this country who are carrying out this mission
are considered patriots, and their objective is not
that of threatening the national security of any of
the countries where these people are being
sheltered.”
When Gerardo wrote those words many of the
individuals, who would later use civilian aircrafts
as lethal weapons against Americans, were finalizing
their training right there in Miami. But the local
FBI did nothing to frustrate their horrendous
project. They didn’t have time for that. Their time
was devoted exclusively to protecting their own
terrorists by persecuting and punishing Gerardo and
his comrades.
The FBI, at least in Miami, was not fighting
terrorism. Neither was it preventing criminal
attacks against Americans or Cuba. It was on the
other side of the fence.
Taken from
Counterpunch |
