No War On Cuba!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                

MAY 17, 2003

 

For More Information Contact:
Olivia Burlingame – contact@nowaroncuba.org
www.NoWarOnCuba.org

TERRORIST OPERATIONS AGAINST CUBA

Thanks to the U.S. Government’s anti-Castro obsession, and an obedient, self-censoring press, which focuses intensely on the Cuban leader instead of inquiring into the U.S. government’s continual campaign against Cuba, most Americans are unaware of the shocking extent of U.S. support for terrorist actions undertaken against Cuba over the past 44 years.  However, it is by now a well established fact that after the U.S. Government’s overt attempt at invasion in the Bay of Pigs, the CIA moved underground and began to work with terrorist groups headquartered in Miami, for its covert war.

Unfortunately, the list of terrorist actions are too numerous and longstanding to list on a brief fact sheet.  NWC recommends the unimpeachable chronology assembled by Jane Franklin “Cuba and the United States” for a complete listing, through 1995 at least.  But in that long chronology, there are several noteworthy examples, shocking not only for their viciousness but for the extent to which the American public remains unaware of them.

One notorious case, possibly the most horrifying for Americans to learn about in the wake of September 11, is the in-flight bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner with 73 people aboard, in 1976.  The plane carried 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and 5 North Koreans.  It exploded after takeoff from Barbados.  The expat Cuban, Orlando Bosch, who directed the bombing, walks free in S. Florida today, over the objections of the State Department, thanks to a presidential pardon from George H.W. Bush.

http://perso.club-internet.fr/vdedaj/cuba/npa_no_innocents.html

Most Americans are also quite unaware of more recent bombings, also financed and directed by expat Cubans, organizing from Miami.  These bombings have occurred in Cuban hotels, with the aim of disrupting Cuba’s tourist trade.  In 1997 an Italian tourist was killed and eleven people were injured, seven of them foreigners.  Luis Posada Carriles who worked with Orlando Bosch on the bombing of the Cubana airliner in 1976, directed this operation, which he admitted was funded by the Cuban American National Foundation ($4,500 per bombing), which today openly lobbies the White House and State Department for its “pressure cooker” approach to Cuba.

http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/032499/new_cuban.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/050903dnintuscuba.141f0.html

Although these are only two examples, they are representative of hundreds more.  This unceasing violent action toward Cuba finally convinced Cuba that its only hope of preventing further casualties was to send Cubans to the United States to infiltrate the terrorist groups in Miami and uncover the bombing plots before they could injure innocent people.  (See Cuban Five Fact Sheet.)[will be added, ed.]

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No War On Cuba!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                

MAY 17, 2003

 

For More Information Contact:
Olivia Burlingame – contact@nowaroncuba.org
www.NoWarOnCuba.org

NWC FACT SHEET

PROPAGANDA OPERATIONS AGAINST CUBA

U.S. Government operations against Cuba are also supported by a robust propaganda machine.  At a time when most Americans are quite unaware of the contents of the Farm Bill, and were carefully shielded from White House cost estimates for its military adventure in Iraq until the battle was well underway, it is not surprising that most Americans are also oblivious to the fact that government funded propaganda and support for the overthrow of Cuba’s government has steadily increased.  For a country that Colin Powell recently characterized on “Meet the Press” as an “anachronism” that “sooner or later” would simply pass, the U.S. Government is certainly spending an inordinate amount of funds trying to manipulate the outcome.

Most of these expenditures are characterized in the most innocuous language; the language of “human rights”, “democracy”, “open markets” and finally, again pointing to an overwhelming obsession with Fidel Castro, the word “transition”, as though the system of government that Cubans themselves have supported for nearly half a century, must inevitably follow the model dictated by the United States.

These grants include money to pay Cubans with scant or non-existent journalism training to file negative reports about Cuba with the U.S. sponsored CubaNet.  These individuals are always characterized by the U.S. Government as well as the U.S. press, as “independent journalists” despite the fact that the “journalism” on display is an embarrassment to the trade.  Subversive activities of Cubans paid through NGOs are likewise glowingly mislabeled as “human rights” work, or simple “dissent”.

According to the State Department “…the total amount in U.S. taxpayer grants earmarked for Cuban non-governmental organizations has doubled, from about $6 million during the last four years of the Clinton administration to more than $14 million in the first years of the Bush administration, with an additional $7 million sought for next year.

This press release from USAID in May 2002 (http://usinfo.state.gov/), provides a glimpse of the money spent openly.  Obviously covert figures are not revealed.  Topping the list of grantees are Frank Calzon’s Washington DC based “Freedom House”, and “Center for a Free Cuba,” both of which function as propaganda mills for anti-Cuban rhetoric, by producing white papers, opinion pieces, and acting as press contacts ready with an anti-Cuban quip for whatever Cuban topic arises.

USAID/Cuba Program - May 2002

GOAL: Promote Rapid, Peaceful Transition to Democracy in Cuba,

Helping Develop Civil Society

OBJECTIVE: Increase Flow of Information on Democracy, Human Rights and

Free Enterprise, To, From, and Within Cuba

NWC Fact Sheet

PROPAGANDA OPS AGAINST CUBA
PAGE 2

USAID/Cuba Program - May 2002 (contd.)

A. BUILDING SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA'S HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

1. Freedom House: Transitions ($500,000 -- completed)

2. Center for a Free Cuba ($2,249,709)

3. The Institute for Democracy in Cuba ($1,000,000 -- completed)

4. Cuban Dissidence Task Group ($250,000 -- completed)

5. International Republican Institute ($1,674,462)

6. Freedom House: Cuban Democracy Project ($825,000)

7. Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia ($1,200,000)

8. Accion Democratica Cubana ($400,000)

B. GIVING VOICE TO CUBA'S INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS

1. Cuba Free Press ($280,000 -- completed)

2. Florida International University: Journalism Training ($622,000)

3. CubaNet ($833,000)

4. Carta de Cuba ($293,000)

C. HELPING DEVELOP INDEPENDENT CUBAN NGOs

1. Partners of the Americas ($172,000 -- completed)

2. Pan American Development Foundation ($553,500)

3. ACDI-VOCA: Independent Agricultural Cooperatives ($265,000 --completed)

4. University of Miami: Developing Civil Society ($320,000)

5. Florida International University: NGO Development ($291,749)

D. DEFENDING THE RIGHTS OF CUBAN WORKERS

1. American Center for Int'l Labor Solidarity ($168,575 -- completed)

2. National Policy Association ($424,000)

E. PROVIDING DIRECT OUTREACH TO THE CUBAN PEOPLE

1. Cuba On-Line ($800,000)

2. Sabre Foundation ($85,000 -- completed)

F. PLANNING FOR TRANSITION

1. Rutgers University: Planning for Change ($99,000 -- completed)

2. Int'l Foundation for Election Systems ($136,000 -- completed)

3. U.S. - Cuba Business Council ($852,000 -- completed)

4. University of Miami: Cuba Transition Planning ($1,045,000)

G. EVALUATING PROGRAM IMPACT

1. Univ of Florida: Measuring Public Opinion ($110,000 -- completed)

2. PriceWaterhouseCoopers: Program Evaluation ($225,000 -- completed)

Further information on the scope of the funded activities may be found at USAID:

http://www.usaid.gov/regions/lac/cu

Updated: 09/25/2004