Round table on the topic of “Who are the real terrorists?” held in Cuban Television Studios on May 26, 2002, “Year of the heroes imprisoned by the empire”

(Translation of Council of State transcripts)

Randy Alonso. - Good evening, dear viewers and listeners.

The hundreds of attempts on the life of our Commander in Chief and on other of the Revolution’s leaders, the countless deaths caused by the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act and the cruel kidnapping of a little boy are part of the long and horrendous history of terrorist actions against our people. Citizens and property in the United States have also been victims of that kind of terrorism by the mob, which was created and bankrolled by the U.S. government.

Whereas, after a rigged trial, five young Cuban anti- terrorism fighters have been given long sentences, criminals and torturers from Batista’s dictatorship and self-confessed terrorists live peacefully on U.S. soil. Several of these men accompanied President Bush on his tour and were with him when he gave his speeches in Washington and Miami.

Tonight we continue with our Round Table, “Who are the real terrorists? I have with me on the panel: Dr. Pedro Alvarez-Tabío, director of the Council of State’s Office of Historical Affairs; Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, editor of Tricontinental magazine, Lazaro Barredo, a journalist with Trabajadores, Manuel Hevia, director of the State Security’s Historical Research Center, José Pérez Fernández, a Ministry of the Interior researcher and one of the expert witnesses in the Cuban people’s lawsuit against the U.S. government; Renato Recio, who also writes for Trabajadores, Rogelio Polanco, editor of the newspaper, Juventud Rebelde and José Luis Méndez, also a researcher at the State Security’s Historical Research Center.

With us in the studio this evening are members of the Coastguard troops, of the National Special Brigade and of the National Revolutionary Police.

(Short clips pertinent to the subject matter to be discussed are screened)

Randy Alonso. – In their desperate attempts to destroy the Cuban Revolution, successive U.S. administrations have, over the last 43 years, tried to kill the top leaders of our Revolution and particularly our Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro, using every method imaginable.

There have been hundreds attempts on the life of Comrade Fidel in which members of the American Mafia and also the Cuban-American terrorist mob, both “run” by the U.S. government, have participated. I suggest we listen to what José Pérez Fernández has to tell us about this. He was one of the expert witnesses who testified at the Cuban people’s lawsuit against the U.S. government on this important topic of the aggressions and terrorist actions of U.S. administrations against our people.

José Pérez . - There are prior incidents which lead us to believe that the history of the U.S. government’s plans to kill the Commander in Chief dates from the period before the triumph of the Revolution.

We know that in that period, the U.S. government made quite a few efforts to prevent the victory of the Rebel Army over the forces of Batista’s tyranny. When they realized that this wasn’t possible they tried to rob them of their victory with that counterrevolutionary coup d’état concocted in the offices of the Yankee embassy in Havana.

History records that some of those efforts involved infiltrating agents into the ranks of the Rebel Army, witness to which is the case of CIA agent Frank Sturgis, also known as Frank Fiorini. Some months before the triumph of the Revolution, he pretended to be a revolutionary and penetrated into the heart of the Sierra Maestra accompanied by Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz, with a shipment of arms for the Rebel Army.

After the triumph, serving under Díaz Lanz, who had been named head of the Rebel Air Force, he became a traitor and in 1959 and 1960 planned several attempts on the life of the Commander in Chief. He revealed these years later in 1977 to Ron Rosenbaum, a journalist for the U.S. magazine High Times. Sturgis/Fiorini had a long career of subversive and terrorist actions against Cuba. And its only logical to think there’s a possibility that, when he infiltrated the ranks of the Rebel Army, he had already been assigned the mission to which he confessed years later.

We also know about the case of the mercenary FBI agent, Alan Robert Nye, who was sent to Cuba in December 1958. Hired and paid by the top brass in Batista’s army, he went up into the Sierra Maestra with plans to kill Fidel. His plans were foiled when he was captured by rebel troops and relieved of a powerful rifle he was carrying, a Remington 30.06, with telescopic sight. Because of the Revolution’s benevolence he was not punished, but thrown out of the country.

History has made it clear that whereas the U.S. government made efforts to kill the leader of the Rebel Army when he was fighting against the army of a dictatorship put in power and backed by that same government, after the triumph their efforts were to eliminate the leader of a victorious revolution who became the Cuban head of state. Something similar happened with Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba, whom they basely murdered.

History also records how, almost as soon as the revolution triumphed, the U.S. government, which had given refuge to the thugs, murderers and thieves from the overthrown regime, allowed and encouraged infamous henchmen, like Rolando Masferrer to make plans to assassinate the Commander in Chief from its territory. This is proved by the fact that in March 1959, a group of terrorists controlled and paid by that thug were captured in Havana trying to carry out the assassination.

The examples I have just given you are enough to corroborate that the death of the leader of the Revolution had become a priority of the U.S. government, first to prevent the Revolution and then to try and destroy it, a goal they have still not given up. Proof of this is the fact that as early as April 24, 1959, on his return from a visit to Havana, the special assistant to the undersecretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, John Hill, wrote a memorandum for the Secretary of State which was declassified years later. In it he said that “the received opinion on what would happen if Castro were assassinated or otherwise incapacitated is that things (in Cuba) would fall apart, probably dangerously…since there is no force capable of stopping the massive hysteria which might ensue.” I call your attention to the fact that this very early assessment was not from the CIA, it was a State Department assessment. However, proof is also given by another memorandum, dated December 11, 1959, ¾ it was also declassified years later. In it J.C. King, then head of the State Department’s Western Hemisphere Division, when setting out the United States’ goals for overthrowing Castro before the year was out, for CIA chief Alan Dulles said the following: “We must consider killing Castro”. He added. “Many well-informed people think that Fidel Castro’s disappearance would accelerate the fall of the current government.”

The report that Senator Frank Church gave to the United States Senate also reveals how the U.S. government early on and directly entrusted the CIA with the task of trying to eliminate the Commander in Chief. Church was the head of the select committee that the U.S. Senate set up to investigate government intelligence activities, including plans to assassinate [foreign] political leaders. This report, now declassified, in its turn quotes a secret report of the then CIA Inspector General, J.S. Earman, in which the latter admits to, among others, the following plans for attempts on the life of our Commander in Chief:

The plan to send a present of a box of poisoned cigars

Two plans to kill Fidel using members of the Mafia. There is also testimony about these two from Richard Bissel, former chief of operations for the CIA, one of the main people directing the Bay of Pigs invasion and from William Colby who became Director of the CIA from 1973-1976 during the Administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Another plan was to put an explosive device in a shell in the place where Fidel often went underwater fishing and then blow it up.

Another plan involved giving Fidel a present of a special suit for underwater fishing impregnated with the bacteria of a fatal disease. This is a preview of the biological warfare that they would employ later.

In the Church Commission report itself there is evidence which incriminates the CIA’s Department of Science and Technology with being ordered to do research into and discover highly sophisticated toxins and bacteriological agents to assassinate the Commander in Chief.

Another plan the report makes reference to is that designed to be carried out by the traitor Rolando Cubela Secades whom they had recruited and christened with the code name Am Lash. He was given the mission of killing Fidel, to be accomplished either by poisoning or shooting him. They provided the means to carry out either alternative.

After these documents were declassified, the U.S. government has remained mum and has not revealed a single one of the 638 conspiracies of which their state security has records.

I would like to clarify something. When I gave this expert witness’s report in the Cuban People’s lawsuit, the count was 637; now, however, it is 638 because we have added the plan that was foiled in Panama at the time of the 10^th Summit of Ibero-American Heads of State. That was after this report was delivered.

These conspiracies included both those directly managed by U.S. special services and executed by their agents and those planned and executed by members of counterrevolutionary organizations set up and bankrolled by those services. They also include those thought up by other counterrevolutionary elements influenced by the systematic propaganda campaigns which incited and encouraged people to commit this crime. We might wonder. Why are they remaining silent?

One explanation might be that concealment, lies and deceit have always been an integral part of the empire’s political philosophy.

This was demonstrated more than 40 years ago by President Eisenhower when he approved the Program of Covert Action against the Castro regime and said among other things, that “everybody has to be prepared to swear that he ¾ Eisenhower ¾ knows nothing about this… our hand must not appear in anything that is done.” That attitude has also been shown in countless other examples analyzed here in these Round Tables.

President Eisenhower’s words I just quoted fit in with the concept they adopted of the plausible denial. According to this, the covert intelligence and subversion operations of the special services must be organized in such a way that, if they are discovered, the government cannot be held responsible for directing, instigating, planning or executing the terrorist and subversive actions which it encourages and controls.

Another explanation ¾ and in my opinion it is the most powerful one ¾ is because declassified documents revealed to the U.S. and international public opinion that assassinating revolutionary or progressive leaders and politicians, was and continues to be, an integral part of the philosophy and policy of State terrorism practiced by the U.S. government. Also, as more an more documents are declassified referring to this extremely sensitive area, more irrefutable proof is coming to light that the United States has not given up this policy and that the world in general and Cuba in particular have a great deal of evidence,

But this doesn’t only happen in the intelligence and subversion affairs implemented, hidden and lied about by them but also in other areas that affect them. A revealing example is the current scandal in that society over reports and evidence that have come to light showing how President Bush and other high ranking authorities hid the fact that they were warned, prior to September 11’s barbarous acts of terrorism that this tragedy was in the works and yet did nothing to prevent it.

Until now no one knew about this, it seems the were extremely careful to hide what, if it were proven, would reveal this government’s truly serious lack of responsibility and sensitivity and the obvious contempt that it shows towards its own people. There is no doubt, Randy, that Bush has been a outstanding student of the good teachers of falsehood who taught him.

Another plan is one in which the local CIA station in the U.S. Embassy in Havana was involved. It was cooked up by Major Robert Van Horn and Colonel Jack Nichols who used their posts as military attachés as cover for their subversive and terrorist activities.

These two also used agent Geraldine Shamma who had been recruited by Frank Sturgis, whom we mentioned earlier, to organize a plan to assassinate the Commander in Chief when he made one of his visits to the home of one of the Revolution’s leaders.

This plan was to be implemented by terrorists from the counterrevolutionary Anti-Communist Workers’ Militias organization. Shamma acted as liaison with them. The plan was approved by the head of the CIA station, James Noel and supervised by Louis Hebert, the CIA section head for Central America and the Caribbean. He came to Havana especially for this purpose.

The 60s were replete with highly dangerous plans. Because of their importance, the following can be added to those we have already mentioned, just to give some examples.

In 1961, the U.S. government ordered the CIA to draw up a plan to assassinate the Commander in Chief to support the mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs. To execute this plan the Agency availed themselves of the services of terrorists who were members of the counterrevolutionary organization MRP, which had been set up by the traitor Manuel Ray Rivero. After the latter left for the United States, he was replaced as leader of the Cuban branch by Reynold González who had come out of the Catholic Workers Youth Section and was a founder of the Catholic Workers Union. The CIA entrusted him with the mission. To accomplish their plan he, Antonio Veciana Blanch, a renowned CIA agent and the plan’s chief organizer, Bernardo Paradela Ibarrichi and others intended to attack at a mass rally which took place in front of the former presidential palace. The Commander in Chief was expected to be standing on the north terrace with other of the Revolution’s top leaders.

The idea was to shoot at the leaders with automatic weapons and a bazooka and at the same time hurl grenades at the people attending the rally. Terrorist Reynold González himself testified about this plan in front of the television cameras.

Also in March 1961, the U.S. government ordered the CIA to assassinate Fidel. To do this, the Agency used Rafael Díaz Hanscom, who had been appointed civilian coordinator of the counterrevolutionary organization Inside Front. This organization had been set up to oversee counterrevolutionary actions in support of the mercenary invasion. Díaz planned to assassinate the Commander in Chief when he made one of his frequent visits to buildings sites operated by the National Institute of Savings and Housing.

The plan was to set off a powerful explosive device. To provide back up for the plan, a CIA commando headed by the traitor Humberto Sorí Marín and others were infiltrated into Cuba. They brought the explosives and a large quantity of weapons to be used in other counterrevolutionary actions.

Also in 1961, on the eve of the mercenary invasion, the U.S. government once again ordered the CIA to come up with another huge subversive plan whose goal was to incite a huge armed insurrection in the country. The plan envisaged assassinating the Commander in Chief during the rally to commemorate July 26 in the Plaza de la Revolución and simultaneously assassinating Comandante Raúl Castro, while he was speaking at another mass rally in the Guillermón Moncada stadium in Santiago de Cuba.

There were also preparations, in conjunction with the Military Intelligence Service at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo, to launch a self-attack there to make it look like an attack by revolutionary forces. The aim was to provoke a U.S. military intervention.

One has to argue that the size of and danger involved in this plan reveal, as few others do, the direct participation of the U.S. government in directing plans to assassinate the head of the Revolution and other leaders. It also reveals the lack of scruples which characterizes them, because a self-attack on the naval base would, one supposes, entail the death of U.S. citizens.

There was another plot in July 1961 involving the counterrevolutionaries Mario Chanes de Armas, a traitor, his brother, Francisco, José Acosta Quintalla, Orlando Ulacio Valdés and some others, all members of the organizations MRP, 30 de Noviembre and the FRD. They planned to assassinate the Commander in Chief by shooting at him from a place close to the home of another leader of the Revolution that he visited often.

Also in 1961, the counterrevolutionaries Noel Goderich Rodríguez, José René Martínez Carratalá, Abelardo González Fernández, known as “El Manquito” ¾ all of whom had police records for gangsterism during previous governments ¾ and Roberto Manuel Pérez Dulzaides and others made plans to assassinate the Commander in Chief when he welcomed Ahmed Ben Bella, the Algerian head of state on his arrival in Cuba for a visit. The plan was to set off an explosive device somewhere along the route the two heads of state were expected to follow.

In April 1962, Juan Manuel Guillot Castellanos, a member of the Agrupación Católica Unversitaria, known to be a CIA agent and the national military coordinator of MRR, a counterrevolutionary group, planed to assassinate Comrade Juan Marinello who was then the rector of the University of Havana. The murder of Marinello was a ploy to assassinate the Commander in Chief and other leaders of the Revolution when they went to the former’s funeral.

A member of the same organization, Juan José Martori Silva made an attempt on the life of Comrade Carlos Rafael Rodríguez when he was returning to Havana from Mantanzas.

A similar plot was hatched against Comrade Raúl Roa, that is, using Roa as a decoy in the same way as they had done with Comrade Marinello.

In 1962 terrorists Luis David Rodríguez, Ricardo Olmedo Moreno and some others from the RCA organization plotted to make an attempt on the life of the Commander in Chief at the July 26 rally which it was assumed would be held in the same place that year. The plot was foiled when the commemorative ceremony was held in Santiago de Cuba. Nevertheless they were not deflected from their goal which they planned to pursue the following year at the ceremony held March 13 on the University steps. The idea was to shoot Fidel with a rifle with telescopic sights from some place nearby. During the operation to capture the terrorists their leader, Luis David Rodríguez, died, but so did the State Security soldier, Orlando López González who became another name on the long list of Ministry of the Interior martyrs.

Another of the highly dangerous plots that the U.S. government entrusted to the CIA was that concocted in March 1963. The idea was to poison the Commander in Chief on one of the occasions when he went to the cafeteria in the Havana Libre hotel. The plan entailed putting a capsule of poison the CIA had sent into the Commander in Chief’s food. Those executing this plan were terrorists from the Rescate organization. One of its top people was Leopoldina Grau Alsina who came from one of the pseudorepublic’s politicking families and was a bastion of Catholic Women. The terrorist whose mission it was to put the poison in the food was Santos de la Caridad Pérez Nuñez, a cafeteria employee. This same plan was tried in other eating establishments the Commander in Chief frequented.

The aforementioned Leopoldina, better known as Polita Grau, was also an active participant in, and to a large extent, responsible for the organization and implementation of the shadowy Operation Peter Pan.

There was another plot in 1963 when terrorists from the RCA organization, Julian Omar Cruz Cicilia and others planned to assassinate the Commander in Chief when he went to the Latin American stadium. The plan was foiled but they tried to carry it out the next year.

Another plan was organized by terrorists Pierre Quand Diez, Francisco Blanco and others from the organizations, FIUR and Triple A. They planned to carry their plan out at the celebrations to mark the anniversary of the CDRs and they intended to place explosive devices which they would then set off.

The plots continued in the 70s. An example is the one the CIA organized in 1972 when the Commander in Chief visited Chile. Comrade Taladrid spoke lengthily about this earlier and I don’t want to repeat what he said.

In 1973, counterrevolutionaries Orlando Benítez Hernández Valdés and Augustin Benítez Planas, faithful listeners to the counterrevolutionary radio stations and encouraged by their call to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief, plotted to kill him on one of the routes he drove along when he welcomed Chilean President Slavador Allende that year. They intended to use a rifle with telescopic sights and two 9mm caliber pistols.

They continued with these plans in the 80s although less frequently. For example, Cuban-born terrorist Manolo Reyes and Rigoberto Milián Martínez, helped by a Nicaraguan terrorist, planned to assassinate the Commander in Chief on his visit to Nicaragua when Daniel Ortega took power. The plan was to cause the plane carrying the Commander in Chief to crash.

In 1988, terrorists Pedro Corzo Eves, Pedro Martín Orozco and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, members of the Cuban-American National Foundation planned to assassinate the Commander in Chief when he went to Venezuela for President Carlos Andrés Pérez’ assumption of power. They planned to set off several very powerful explosive devices by remote control.

In the 90s, there was an increase in the number of plots because of the Commander in Chief’s frequent trips abroad. Here are a few examples. In 1994, the Commander in Chief went to the 4^th Summit of Ibero-American Heads of State in Caratagena de las Indias, Colombia. Some of the leaders of the Cuban-American National Foundation, Alberto Hernández, Francisco José (Pepe) Hernández and Roberto Martín Pérez, with the help of such infamous terrorists as Luis Posada Carriles, Ramón Orozco Crespo, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía and Raúl Villaverde organized a plot to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief at the summit. The top brass of the Foundation assigned several thousand dollars to finance the plot, giving the money to Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo who handed it on to Luis Posada Carriles. On this occasion they also bought a 50-caliber Barret rifle and explosives which they shipped from Miami to Colombia by air.

Francisco José (Pepe) Hernández is the man who recruited State Security agent Percy Alvarado offering him $10,000 to place an explosive device in the Tropicana in 1994.

Roberto Martín Pérez, is the son of the infamous Batista thug, Lutgardo Martín Pérez, and was one of the members of the Trujillo inspired expedition captured in Cuba in 1959.

Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, known as Gasparito, was one of those involved in assassinating Comrade Artagnán Díaz, fishing technician in Mérida, Yucatán; he was in jail in Mexico but managed to get out with the help of drug-traffickers.

Another plot organized by the Foundation was to be carried out while the Commander-in-Chief was attending the 5^th Ibero-American Summit in 1995; once again Roberto Martín Pérez, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, and Eugenio Llameras were involved.

Later in that same year, at the Non-Aligned Countries Summit, also in Cartagena de las Indias, Colombia the earlier plan was reactivated by the terrorists I mentioned before.

In 1997, terrorist Luis Posada Carriles with the direct support of Arnoldo Monzón Plasencia and other of the Cuban-American National Foundation’s honchos, such as (Pepe) Hernández, Alberto Hernández, Roberto Martín Pérez, Antonio (Tony) Llama, Feliciano Foyo and Roberto Well Pineta organized a plot to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief at the 7^th Summit of Ibero-American Heads of State and Government on Margarita Island in Venezuela.

The world learned about an event connected with this plot, the capture of the yacht La Esperanza in Puerto Rican waters. She belonged to terrorist José Antonio Llama and terrorists Angel Alfonso Alemán, Francisco Córdova Torna, Juan Batista Márquez and Angel Hernández Rojo were on board; they were carrying two high caliber Barret rifles; one belonged to Foundation honcho Francisco (Pepe) Hernández, and the other to terrorist Juan Evelio Pou; both were confiscated. They yacht was on its way to Margarita Island to take part in the aforementioned assassination plot.

As you know, all were acquitted by a corrupt court subservient to the Foundation’s interests acting in complicity with the notorious Héctor Pesquera, then FBI chief in Puerto Rico.

After the trial the terrorists, the prosecution, the judges and Pesquera, demonstrating their glaring lack of scruples and ethics, went wild with euphoria. It reminds us of the recent orgy of euphoria that burst forth again among the terrorists, prosecutors and that notorious Pesquera after the federal jury found our five heroes guilty.

In August 1998, before the Commander’s previously announced visit to the Dominican Republic, terrorists Luis Posada Carriles, Ramón Font, Enrique Bassa and others plotted to kill him, with backing in the Dominican Republic from terrorists Ramón Orosco Crespo and Frank Eulalio Castro Paz. Their conspiracy was revealed to the public by the press.

Cuban-born brothers Manuel and Jesús Guerra, avowed counterrevolutionaries, made preparations to kill the Commander-in-Chief while he was taking part in the 8^th Ibero-American summit in Portugal.

To add the finishing touch to this account, we mustn’t forget the plan foiled in Panama in November 2000 when the Commander in Chief was attending the 10^th Ibero-American Summit there. Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and his accomplices, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Pedro Ramón Rodríguez and Guillermo Novo Sampoli were captured in flagrante delicto and the powerful explosives they had with them were confiscated.

The Cuban-American National Foundation’s efforts to liberate those terrorists with the assistance of the U.S. government are well known.

I would like to share the following thoughts with you and with our people:

What would have happen to a large number of our fellow Cubans gathered at those thousands-strong rallies if any of these plots in which they planned to use powerful weapons and explosives had come to fruition?

What would have happened to our Panamanian brothers and sisters if the explosive charges that the terrorists intended to place had gone off in the university where hundreds of students and professors were meeting with the Commander-in-Chief?

So, who are the terrorists?

Randy Alonso. - That was certainly a tightly packed account of the more than 600 acts of terrorism which are the assassinations attempts against our Commander-in-Chief over the last 43 years, an Olympic record as our Commander himself has said and which, furthermore includes attempts against other leaders of the Revolution.

I thank Pérez Fernández for that, let’s say, quick but intense account of all of those awful plots against leaders of the Revolution.

From the Revolution’s earliest days, immigration issues and the Cuban Adjustment Act have been used as aggressive tools of U.S. policy against our country. This reached a climax in the 90s given their desire to stir up unrest inside Cuba, to cause demonstrations that are supposed to overthrow the revolution and the desire to employ every possible way to create a counterrevolutionary climate in the country.

The use of immigration affairs in the 90s is yet one more on the long list of terrorist actions against our people. Renato Recio is going to comment on that subject.

Renato Recio. – First of all, Randy, I would like to remind everybody, of the concept behind the Cuban Adjustment Act, which is the very heart of the policy of provocation and aggression in this area that has been used by terrorist enemies of Cuba and U.S. governments for many years now.

The Cuba Adjustment Act was signed by President Johnson on November 2, 1966 and established special exclusive status for Cuban citizens who reached the United States by any method. It included any Cuban who had entered the States after January 1, 1959. This, as we have been reminded in the last few days sprang from a desire to favor those who went there as soon as the revolution triumphed, fleeing from revolutionary justice, the embezzlers, murderers and criminals who worked for the Batista’s tyrannical government.

The Cuban Adjustment Act, as you reminded us, Randy, had a destabilizing desire, it wanted to destroy the Cuban Revolution; it was part of that mechanism, that system of actions which are all interrelated; what they want to do is nothing less than to smother the Cuban people to make it submit, against its will to the designs of the empire. Of course, it was part of a mixture. In other words, the Cuban Adjustment Act, with the privileges it gave, plus the terrorist attacks which were carried out continously during that period, plus the rigid blockade intended to damage the county’s economy, plus propaganda, plus the malevolent policy of preventing Cuban citizens who wanted to travel to the United States legally from doing so, (Cubans who wanted to live there, who wanted to visit relatives, etcetera) ¾ let me point out here that it has been an unchanging policy of the Revolution not to impede anyone who wants to reunite with their relatives in the United States ¾ well, all that plus that malicious policy, you know, I create a law for you which encourages illegal emigration and at the same time I prevent you from emigrating legally, all that erupted more than once in emigration crises. I mean, people whose desire to go to the United States built up, but they couldn’t go because they were constantly refused a visa to travel legally. More than once, as I said earlier, this erupted in what are called immigration crises.

Since I am going to be taking about recent years, I am going to remind you of an important precedent, the 1980 immigration crisis, which resulted from the mass exodus in small boats from Mariel. It followed the violent take over of the Peruvian Embassy by a large group of criminal and anti-social elements who murdered the embassy guard. That crisis ¾ which I am not going to go into in detail, tens and tens of thousands of people left for the United States in small boats that came from over there to fetch them ¾ was instrumental in another immigration agreement being signed a few years later on December 14, 1984 when Ronald Reagan was President. In this agreement the U.S. government committed itself to increasing the number preferential migrant visas issued to Cuban citizens to up to 20,000 a year. Well, there is no doubt that 20,000 visas a year is a significant number. And in addition to that, it was specified that these 20,000 could be increased if they included relatives of people who were already U.S. citizens and if they also included some 3000 visas a year for those who had served sentences for activities considered to be crimes against Cuban state security.

What actually happened? Of the total number of visas that should have been granted under the provision of these agreements, which by 1994 should have added up to 160,000, only 11,222 visas have been granted.

So, obviously, that fact, the fact that there was a buildup of people who wanted to move to the United States and they were not given the opportunity to go legally, the fact that in 1994 we were going through a difficult time in Special Period ¾ you know what happened in Cuba, the socialist camp had fallen, the main countries who traded with Cuba; the U.S. blockade was tightened as much as possible ¾ divided families and the impossibility of them reuniting, all that created a need. There was an increase in propaganda and incitement to emigrate illegally. All of the above plus the temptation of living in the richest country in the world with incomes and salaries bound to be much higher than in an underdeveloped, poor, blockaded country like Cuba, and the denial of visas resulted in another emigration crisis.

I think that it is a good idea, ¾ even though it is a recent event, because that was in 1994 ¾ to remind you of the facts, even if it is only a brief reminder. There were murders, boats were hi-jacked, and there was violence. The Cuban people will never forget those images of the murderers arriving in Florida, arriving on the Miami coastline and being given a hero’s welcome. It was something truly disgusting to see that they murdered someone here and a few hours later they arrive there scot-free. Look here, you can see the images perfectly, (video of the events are shown).

Randy Alonso. - That is a picture of Leonel Macías, the murderer of Roberto Aguilar Reyes, the young Cuban sailor murdered in Mariel, his mother spoke with a lot of emotion yesterday in the Public Forum in Sancti Spíritus. It was a deeply human and revolutionary forum which touched each and every one of us who either participated or who saw it on the TV. The testimony by Roberto Aguilar’s mother was one that deeply touched each and every one of us.

Roberto Aguilar Reyes’ murderer was acquitted in the United States and is living over there in the United States peacefully.

Renato Recio. – At that time ¾ of course I am back in August 1994 ¾ Cuba realized that our country had to give up the responsibility that it had taken on to too large a degree of stopping illegal emigration, illegal exoduses. The United States was not doing anything, on the contrary, it was using all means to encourage this. So our authorities limited themselves to persuading people not to travel when weather conditions were uncertain, to patrol for this, to eliminate as far as possible the risks in crossing inside Cuban territorial waters. But it came about that people who had the need or the desire or for some reason took their boats, those rudimentary boats and left. The US coastguards were waiting for them and some 30,000 people left in that way. That was called another emigration crisis.

This resulted in intense negotiations between U.S. and Cuban delegations to reach a new immigration agreement. This time measures to grant no less than 20,000 visas every year to emigrate in a legal and safe manner were included, seemingly seriously. The United States also promised to intercept those who were trying to travel illegally to the United States at sea, outside Cuban territorial waters and, of course, to return them to Cuba. Cuba, in turn, promised not to impose any penalties for trying to leave the country illegally.

The immigration agreements and compliance with them been evaluated more than once. On the whole, it is estimated that the U.S. authorities do send back around 80% of illegal emigrants ¾ however, they continue to single out a group of people whom they do not return, seemingly to please the mob and the right wing U.S. politicians ¾ and have indeed issued not less that 20,000 visas annually. This is something that can been seen as positive, the essence of that agreement has not been violated. But the unceasing attempts of the Cuban-American terrorist mob, of right wing politicians to block, to sabotage, to conspire against those immigration agreements have not gone away, we have seen, we can still see that desire. That is happening all the time.

And to that, Randy, we have to add the fact that in the last few year, ¾ from 1994 to date, probably ¾ the illegal traffic in, the traffic in emigrants, people smuggling has increased enormously. What happens is they use high speed launches which charge, $8000, $10,000, $11,000 to take people over there. The U.S. authorities themselves say that 80 or 85% of all illegal trips are made in this type of speedboat

Randy Alonso.- In fact, last year there was even talk of the figure reaching more than 90%.

Renato Recio. - That, of course is a way of violating the spirit of the agreements since it is not the same thing to intercept rudimentary vessels, vessels that can’t go very fast, as it is to intercept those extremely sophisticated, very fast ones, used as we have said more than once at these round tables, for drug smuggling, for terrorism, for all kinds of crimes. And of course it follows that sometimes the U.S. coastguard can neither detect not intercept these speed boats on the high seas, even though they would like to.

Now, these smugglers, who are not only in it for the money they earn but also to serve the interests of the mob and right wing Americans who want to sabotage the immigration agreements, also enjoy complete impunity.

Here at this very round table we have named the park where they meet, where they make their deals in Miami. We have given names, addresses, and telephone numbers, of the owners of the boats. However, as far as we know, or at least as far as I know, the U.S. authorities have not yet taken any really serious action to prevent this crime, ¾ universally recognized as a criminal offence ¾ an atrocious offence. These speedboats continue to be unsafe in spite of their speed and sophistication; there have, in fact, been many accidents, there have been many deaths with those speedboats. Then there is the fact that the speedboat captains are violent people, capable of almost any cruelty. Really, those speedboat captains act as if they were attending a school for future terrorists, that is, if they are not already terrorists and for future drug traffickers, if they are not already drug traffickers.

Anyway, the encouragement of illegal emigration goes on. But in recent years something happened in the illegal emigration and Cuban Adjustment Act sphere which we should not forget because of its importance: the kidnapping of little Elián González.

Elián González was being taken off in one of those cases of illegal emigration, without his father’s permission, when the vessel in which he was travelling had an accident and sank. Elián was one of the few survivors; he was rescued out at sea, near the Florida coast by some fishers. The mob and right wing U.S. politicians ¾ not just the mob, right wing U.S. politicians too, thought they had found a wonderful opportunity to create the precedent they had always been looking for, a case which would cast doubt on the coastguards’ duty to detain and return to Cuba anyone intercepted at sea ¾ the agreement to do this is something that has always bothered the mob and they want to get rid of it ¾ and so they kidnapped him. The Cuban people remembers many of those tragic events and there is no need to go into them in too much detail.

But Elián’s case, he was basely kidnapped and then rescued by the actions of the Cuban people and the solidarity of Americans ¾ 80% of the U.S. people understood that it was not possible, it was not humane to take a little boy away from his country and his land and keep him away from his father ¾ reminds us of all the deaths that have occurred because of this law, deaths of Cuban citizens who have died, Cuban children who have died, Cuban women who have died. However, when all is said and done, we don’t know the exact number. It was an example that laid bare the true nature of this brutal mechanism called the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Elián was kidnapped and was ¾ as we all remember ¾ visited constantly in the kidnappers’ house by notorious terrorists, by people who have killed, by people who have placed bombs, by extremely despicable people; the house where Elián was held was protected by a counterrevolutionary organization. All those dreadful memories remind us that when Bush was in Miami on May 20 surrounded by that hysterical audience which applauded him wildly, those terrorists, those kidnappers, both the direct and indirect were in that audience. Which is why it has been said with complete justification that Bush met with terrorists, with kidnappers of children. He met in fact with all those behind this inhuman policy which stems from the Cuban Adjustment Act and illegal emigration.

After that infamous meeting, one continues to wonder, how long are the U.S. authorities going to allow those speedboat captains and those boat owners who set sail from Miami to act with impunity?

Randy Alonso. - Obviously, Renato, we will not have an answer as long as the United States continues to employ the subject of immigration as a political weapon against our country. As you were saying, Delfín, Lázaro, Marysleisis, Ileana and several other members of that menagerie were there at that meeting with Bush.

Renato Recio. – I want to add something that seems to me to be the most abhorrent thing in the mentality of that mob. All the sabotage, the conspiracies against the current immigration agreement stems from the desire, the explicit intent to cause a new emigration crisis that could lead to tragedy. They long for that; they work towards that to justify a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba ¾ probably followed by a Cuban a response, because Cuba will never allow itself to be humiliated. Their idea is to create the conditions for the United States to take warlike measures, just as it has done in other countries, with other peoples countries. This is that mob’s, that right wing’s real desire and everything they do around the issue of the immigration agreements is aimed, when it comes right down to it, at that goal.

Randy Alonso. - Those kidnappers of children are part of that policy that the United States has put into practice against our country, that of using immigration problems as a tool of aggression. It is a policy which, moreover, has been taken advantage of by the anti-Cuban mob to cause a situation which leads to direct military aggression against our country. It continues to be a tool of death against Cuban citizens, women and children, men, old people who perish in the Strait of Florida, often without anyone knowing their names nor how many left. Now we have a testimony that our round table showed once before but there is no doubt that today we should remember one of the innocent victims of the murderous and terrorist Cuban Adjustment Act.

Belkis Pérez. – This is the 26 of July School, in Puerto Esperenza in the municipality of Viñales, Pinar del Río province. This is the Grade 4A classroom where there is one empty desk. Claudia Montané Castro, aged 9 is no longer here with her friends and her teacher, the same ones she has known since she was four years old.

Teacher. – She never showed anything, either here or outside or anywhere, She was a very concerned child, she liked school, her group very much, she got on with everyone.

Belkis Pérez. – I believe she left behind some work you had supervised.

Teacher. – Some course work on Camilo, she gave it to a little girl to hand in to me.

Little boy. – She liked studying with us, I told the teacher that we need Claudia because Claudia helps us a lot.

Little girl. - It made me sad because she was always with us; she was always with her friends and I was really sad when I heard the news.

Another little girl. - She was a very pretty little girl, she had very long hair and participated in all school activities, she came every day. She shared with us, she wasn’t naughty, she was always with us, we played, we did lots of things, And she was always very happy with us, playing, talking and playing all sort of games.

Belkis Pérez. - She never told you that she wanted to go to the place where her father lived?

Little girl. – She never said that to us.

Little boy. – I feel sad, because she was good, she helped us, took part in all our activities, she came every day to shooting class, to the films, the values class. Well, she shared with us everything she had and she helped us a lot.

Belkis Pérez. – Claudia has been absent from school since Thursday afternoon. She was taken by her mother, Jackelín Castro Sentí, aged 29, into what turned out to be an irresponsible adventure.

Everyone in this village of fishers is saddened by what happened. This is Claudia’s grandmother’s house, Aleida Sentí, a home where sorrow resides.

Claudia’s grandmother. – I never thought this would happen, that one day she would leave legally, yes, but that she would go like this, never. She didn’t even tell me that she was going, if she had told me I would have made her change her mind, but she never told me, honestly, I am her mother and she never told me.

Belkis Pérez. – Because you are aware of the danger one runs.

Claudia’s grandmother. – Yes, why would I risk the life of my granddaughter. I put a lot of effort into raising her, why would I let her risk that danger. She said nothing to me, because if she did tell me I would have made her change her mind. If she wanted to go, then let her go by herself, but not my granddaughter. She did it because she wanted to. What she always said to me was that she was going to Havana to fetch a parcel, she didn’t tell me the truth. That she was going to Havana to fetch a parcel, and she let me believe that and she let me believe that, and that was what I believed, because as a daughter she was not open with me, she didn’t tell me the truth. She left on Thursday and I never heard from her again.

Belkis Pérez .- There is naturally a tremendous amount of grief in this family.

Claudia’s grandmother. – Of course there is, she has left a lot of grief for this family, because I don’t know where she is, I don’t know. The only thing I can tell you is that there is a big pain in my heart

Claudia’s aunt. – She always said that she was going to go, but that she was going to go legally. She never said that she was going to go like that with her little girl, and right up to the end, she never said that she was going. She hid that up to the last minute, and she went because she wanted to be with her husband, that was what she wanted and for her daughter to be with her father. But she never said that she was going that way, never ever.

Belkis Pérez.- Would you have made her change her mind?

Claudia’s aunt. – We would have made her change her mind, but if she wanted to go perhaps she would have gone, because she is an adult, But we would have taken her little girl away from her, we wouldn’t have let her take her.

Belkis Pérez. – How sorry you must be that Claudia is not here.

Claudia’s aunt. – You can imagine! What can I say, they were always in my house and I came her, I was always going around with them. Claudia was very close to us too; an innocent who should not have been put through that either.

Belkis Pérez. - Claudia’s father is over there.

Claudia’s aunt. – Yes, he is in the United States.

Belkis Pérez. – Did he have any idea Jackelín wanted to go?

Claudia’s aunt. – Of course he knew, think about it, she wouldn’t have taken that step alone. I am sure that she wouldn’t have taken that step alone.

Claudia’s uncle. This change came about after Carlos called her and she was kind of desperate ¾ Carlos, her husband, the little girl’s father¾ because he talked to her about a parcel, After he had been here in Cuba, she talked many times, they were alone all that time and he told her he was going to send her a parcel, that she had to go to Havana that she wasn’t to budge from here, that she was to wait for him.

Belkis Pérez. – You would have made her change her mind if you had known?

Claudia’s uncle. Of course, certainly. You can imagine the terrible sorrow there is in our family now, we don’t know anything about them, we haven’t had any news, just think, especially about Claudia.

One of Claudia’s neighbors. – She never showed any desire to go in a boat and that, no. She loved her daughter very much. She always said that taking her by sea like that, no, she loved her daughter very much, she put a lot of effort into her daughter’s well-being, Her daughter was very clean, she went to school, she was very active with the other kids, she loved them very much. She had a bike and she gave rides to the other little kids, on the crossbar like, in front of her, to give them a ride.

Belkis Pérez. – If she had said that she would never take her daughter by sea, why do you think she decided to do it?

One of Claudia’s neighbors. – Well I think that it must have been because of the girl’s father.

Belkis Pérez.- Once again grief engulfs a Cuban family. There is an empty desk in the 26 of July school in Puerto Esperenza, in Viñales. It is one more demonstration of the absurdity of a law that we Cubans will continue to fight against until the end of our days.

Randy Alonso. - They are victims of a murderous, terrorist law. When the United States tries to decide which are the terrorist states or which nations allegedly sponsor terrorism, at this round table we must remind you of how many of Batista’s torturers and murderers were taken in by the U.S. government after the triumph of the Revolution.

We have asked historian Pedro Alvarez-Tabío to give us a short version of the long list he could give us.

Pedro Alvarez-Tabío. – Thank you Randy.

How can they accuse Cuba of giving shelter to terrorists and do it without shame, with such a straight face, when it has been the United States itself that has been a safe comfortable refuge for hundreds, no thousands, of Cuban-born terrorists, proven terrorists, often self-confessed terrorists? One can be a liar, and that is bad enough, it’s reprehensible and unacceptable. However, those State Department gentlemen’s hypocrisy, deliberate lack of historical memory, lack of shame reaches such unheard heights that it is really difficult to find another case like it anywhere in the world.

To kick off my remarks on this subject of the United States as a terrorist refuge, I am going to refer this time to a facet that has already been mentioned at these round tables; however, in my opinion, it’s worth mentioning again because it’s a tangible demonstration of this lack of shame, of this hypocrisy. I am referring to what was in fact the first concrete demonstration of the U.S. government’s hostility to the Revolution which triumphed in Cuba on January 1, 1959. This was the shelter given to dozens of war criminals, murderers, torturers, barefaced robbers of the public treasury who managed to escape from revolutionary justice and found hospitality and asylum in the United States. That was right at the very beginning, since they left Cuba and went straight to the United States, or after a relatively short transit through a third country.

I have brought with me a list of notorious dictatorship thugs who managed to escape abroad when the Revolution triumphed and went to live in the United States. There are 41 names on the list and it is not a complete list.

Randy Alonso. - We are talking of the most notorious.

Pedro Alvarez-Tabío. – The most notorious. Now, this list can help to demonstrate the U.S. government’s manipulative complicit attitude towards terrorism which it revealed from very early on with regard to those criminals, those murderers, those thieves, who filled the Cuban people with terror, mourning and grief,

I am going to mention some of the names on the list and as I mention them we will see that it is a real rogues gallery.

Conrado Carratalá Ugalde: His name alone, and that of Esteban Ventura, was enough to inspire terror in Cuba; he was one of the most bloodthirsty thugs in the Havana police force, perpetrator of countless killings.

Martín Díaz Tamayo: One of Batista’s buddies, one of the conspirators in the March 10, 1953 coup d’etat. He rose from retired captain to general, in one fell swoop, on the same day as the coup. He was ¾ don’t ever forget ¾, the one who carried Batista’s order to assassinate the prisoners taken at the attack on the Moncada barracks. He was then deputy head of the Office for the Repression of Communist Activities, the sinister BRAC ( from its Spanish name, Buró de Represion de Actividades Communistas)of bloody memory, head of Regiment Number 1, the Maceo regiment, in Santiago de Cuba.

Alberto del Río Chaviano: Another of those involved in the March 10 coup. The Moncada assassin, he carried out the murders of more than 50 Moncada prisoners, and was responsible for the horrible tortures used on those heroic fighters, including Abel Santmaría, Boris Luis Santa Coloma and many others.

Mariano Faget Díaz: Chief of the aforementioned BRAC, the FBI’s man in Cuba. Accused of being the murderer of the Orthodox party leader Pelayo Cuervo Navarro, following the March 13 attack on the Presidential palace. Cuervo’s body was found ¾ as our people will remember ¾ thrown in the lake of the exclusive County Club neighborhood.

Armentino Feria Pérez: Member of the organization which called itself the Masferrer Tigers, ¾ which I shall be talking about later ¾ sadly famous because of the countless crimes it committed in Manzanillo, Sagua de Tánamo and Santiago de Cuba.

Pilar García García: A women’s name but the soul of a murderer. Murdered those who attacked the Goicuría barracks. Head of the National Police, famous for his crimes and for the García method. What was the García method? Shooting prisoners in the back.

Irenaldo García Báez: Pilar García’s son. In this case, I am going to read what Bohemia magazine had to say about this murderer in 1959. It says: He added another word to the rank of lieutenant that he held and promoted himself to lieutenant colonel. There were two reasons for that: he was Pilar’s son and he had a criminal’s soul. He was named second in command of the SIM and there are many Cubans who can tell stories in which he figures as the chief executioner. While young Cubans were sacrificing themselves to overthrow the government, this young man gave himself over body and soul to the deadly task of drowning any attempt to gain freedom in blood. Using the slogan borrowed from a cigarette company he could quite well claim: I learned from my father.

Leopoldo Pérez Cougil: He rose from captain to colonel on March 10, head of Regiment 4, the Placido Regiment of the Mantanzas Rural Guard, deputy chief of BRAC. In the last few months of the dictatorship he was head of the Military Intelligence Service, the dreaded SIM.

Now come two men who need no introduction to Cubans ¾ at least those of my generation ¾ because they were only too well known.

Julio Laurent Rodríguez: Officer in Batista’s navy of whom perhaps the only thing we need to say is that he was the actual murderer of the revolutionary fighter Jorge Agostini and of at least eight of the Granma expeditionaries taken prisoners, including none others than Ñico López, Cándido González and José Smith. Under his command, the Navy post in the Castillo de la Chorrera, at the mouth of the Almendares river became a den of death, torture and crime.

Rolando Masferrer Rojas: Another person with a long job history. He gained notoriety in the 40s as the smalltime boss of a gangster organization, the man behind or the perpetrator of a series of attempts on the lives of his political enemies. He was the epitome of an opportunist, changed his political affiliations every time it suited his interests, such as when he changed, all of a sudden, from the Autentico Party to a Batista supporter on March 10. He ended up organizing and personally leading the paramilitary group known as the Masferrer tigers which was responsible for countless murders and abuses in the south of Oriente province.

Let’s go on with our gallery of murderers who found refuge in the United States.

Agustín Lavastida Alvarez: Nicknamed “massacre” no comment necessary. Head of the Regimental Intelligence Service in Holguín and also in Santiago.

Lutgardo Martín Pérez: He rose from sergeant to lieutenant colonel, certainly not for his professional merits. Chief of Police in Havana, notorious murderer, torturer and father, as has been said here ¾ of one of the most important petty chieftains of the terrorist branch of the Cuban-American National Foundation. Another one who learned from his father.

José Eleuterio Pedraza Cabrera: Another long record of services to crime from the March 1935 strike that he drowned in blood.

Orlando Piedra Negueruela: head of the Batista police’s shady Bureau of Investigation, another den of terror, torture and crime.

José María Salas Cañizares: Spread terror in Santiago de Cuba. All I will say about him is that he was the actual perpetrator of the murder of Frank País, that man whom Fidel called “ the bravest, the most useful, the most outstanding of our fighters”.

Angel Sánchez Mosquera; what can we say about Sánchez Mosquera? The epitome of military assassin, responsible for the murder of dozens of peasants in the area round Minas de Bueycito during the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, of the death of the peasant collaborator Lucas Castillo and of other members of his family and neighbors in the Santo Domingo area.

Merob Sos García: Tried to emulate Sánchez Mosquera in terms of crimes against the innocent civilian population in the Sierra. He was stationed to the tyranny’s command post, known as La Presa de Bayamo, a hellish torture chamber where abominable crimes were committed.

And I could go on reading out names, like those of Francisco Tabernilla, his sons Carlos and Silito, Manuel Uglade Carrillo and many more, but there would not be enough time to do that.

Now, I don’t want to finish this list without mentioning the name of the man who in my opinion is the archetypal assassin in the history of the revolutionary struggle in Cuba: Esteban Ventura Novo, who died peacefully last year in Miami. I think that it will suffice to mention just one of Ventura’s countless crimes, the murder of the Humboldt-7 fighters: Fructuoso Rodríguez, Joe Westbrook, Juan Pablo Carbó Serviá and José Machado, the most important leaders of the Revolutionary Directorate after the death of José Antonio Echeverría; or the massacre at Goicuría and O’Farrill, where Machaco Ameijeiras, Rogito Perea, Pedro Gutiérrez were murdered. Those are two of the most despicable blood-soaked acts in our history.

These, Randy, are some of the “pearls” who enjoyed the generous kind welcome of the U.S. government. All of them ¾ and the rest of the people on the list whom I have not mentioned because of time constraints, a total of 41 in all ¾ are plain and simply terrorists because their explicit occupation during the insurrectional struggle and often even after that struggle ¾ as we’ll see in a minute¾ was to sow terror among the Cuban civilian population.

These are some of the people who found refuge in the United States because they managed to escape revolutionary justice.

There are times in historical research when it is useful for the historian to ask him or herself hypothetical questions. I think this is one of those times. And I would like to ask: What would have happened if let’s say, Joaquín Casillas Lumpuig, Jesús Menéndez’ murderer or Jesús Sosa Blanco responsible for the terrible massacre at Oro de Guisa where a dozen inhabitants, including nine members of the Argote family, of that remote hamlet in the Sierra Maestra were murdered in cold blood, had been among those who managed to escape from revolutionary justice? What would have happened if Fermín Cowley Gallegos, the brutal man behind Bloody Christmas in northern Oriente province, the murderer of the Corynthia expeditionaries had not been executed by a revolutionary commando in Holguín and had escaped on January 1, 1959? Or if Caridad Fernández, the murderer of Juan Manuel Márquez and many other revolutionaries in the Manzanillo area, had not been captured?

What would have happened? I have absolutely no doubt that they too would have been welcomed as respectable political refugees who deserved to enjoy a comfortable peaceful and luxurious exile, thanks to the millions they had stolen from the Cuban people in between murders; and their consciences would not have been even the tiniest bit bothered by the shadow of their horrendous crimes.

This cordial welcome in itself ¾ which allowed all of them, without exception, to enjoy complete impunity and calm tranquility until they day they died, or to continue to enjoy them, those who haven’t died yet ¾ turned the United States into a country which shelters and sponsors terrorism, thus making it a prime candidate to appear at the top of the famous State Department list.

It has to be said that the Cuban Revolutionary government’s authorities exhausted all established diplomatic channels to have these criminals returned to Cuba. There was a completely valid extradition treaty between Cuba and the United States in existence. It contained provisions for such cases and the procedures to be followed. What did not exist, quite simply, was the U.S. government’s political will to meet its obligations; quite the contrary in fact. What existed was the U.S.’ express political will to use this channel to demonstrate the U.S. ‘s displeasure at the revolutionary triumph in Cuba, to display its hostility and opposition to the new government in Cuba, the fruit of the Revolution.

But I think there was something else. From very early on, these Cuban criminals were seen by the U.S. government as potential allies and concrete tools in any policy of aggression against Cuba which many U.S. policy makers were already thinking of.

There isn’t time to give an account of the countless steps the Revolutionary government took to have these criminals returned. The case is ¾ and this is what I really want to stress ¾ that although there was an extradition treaty in force between the two countries and although the Revolutionary government made many overtures, not a single one of the dictatorship’s criminal murderers, torturers and thieves ¾ men proven to have used terrorism against their own people ¾ was ever sent back to Cuba. Quite the opposite happened; they were protected by the U.S. government and used as a tool of its policy of aggression against our country. The same thing was to happen later with traitors, boat hi-jackers and other terrorists who over these many years have found refuge in that country.

Several of these criminals, as was said at an earlier Round Table, were called to testify in July 1959 before U.S. Congressional committees as if, instead of being common murderers they were honorable citizens who could be asked for their opinions about a real Revolution. It goes without saying that the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have often been the scene for unseemly displays, yet I would venture to suggest that few have been so embarrassing, so petty, so tawdry.

Many of these Batista criminals ¾ I have already said this ¾ were later involved in some of the counterrevolutionary organizations which were sponsored by the U.S. government itself and dedicated to carrying out armed aggression and terrorist actions against Cuba. This was the other reason, ¾ I said this too ¾ why the U.S. has never ceased to shelter them: it wanted to use them in its plans for aggression against our country.

Conrado Carratalá joined the band of war criminals involved in the so-called “Trujillo conspiracy” of 1959; one of the first large-scale actions aimed at overthrowing the Revolution. It was foiled by very efficient infiltration and intelligence operations and by an operation led by the Commander-in-Chief personally. Carratalá continued to be linked to several counterrevolutionary terrorist plots.

In 1960, Alberto Del Río Chaviano lead training session in the Dominican Republic and Haiti for anti-Cuban terrorist groups which would later be used in acts of aggression against Cuba.

Martín Díaz Tamayo, a favorite of the Yankees even before the triumph of the Revolution when his name used to appear on all the lists of those nominated for the civilian –military juntas which, with the United States’ approval, were to replace Batista. He was an FBI agent; in 1960 he was part of what they called the Counterrevolutionary Junta in Exile, advised the Pentagon on plans for aggression and recruited former members of the tyranny’s army to carry out terrorist actions.

Mariano Faget was linked in June 1959 to a group which, under Orlando Piedra’s command ¾another name on our list of thugs and assassins¾ planned to invade Cuba. In the Opalocka base in Florida, he interrogated, on the CIA’s behalf, possible candidates for terrorist groups to act against Cuba. He was part of the so-called Operation 40, a group trained as part of the Bay of Pigs invasion plans, to murder revolutionary leaders and for other shady subversive tasks.

Armentino Feria sneaked into Cuba in October 1960 through Navas Bay, in Baracoa. His mission was to form a group of bandits and to open an insurrectionary front in that region, but he was captured and neutralized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Julio Laurent was responsible for logistics and operations in counterrevolutionary groups whose mission was to carry out assassination attempts and other terrorist actions.

Lutgardo Martín Pérez was implicated in the aforementioned Trujillo conspiracy with his son Roberto, who is now a petty chieftain in the Foundation The former served time in Cuba for his part in the conspiracy.

Rolando Masferrer organized plans to invade Cuba in 1959, plans to infiltrate in 1962, plans to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief, plans to cause provocation to justify military aggressions against Cuba and many other terrorist actions until he was assassinated in Miami in a mob settling of accounts.

Jose Eleuterio Pedraza was involved in the Trujillo conspiracy and also carried out countless terrorist actions against Cuba in the 60s when he was the leader of the Anticommunist Army of Cuba and the Unified Group, both of whose raison d’être was to undertake special terrorist missions in Cuba.

Angel Sánchez Mosquera was part of the command structure of a Cuban International Anticommunist Legion set up in 1961 to carry out paramilitary actions against Cuba and then for many years after continued to be linked to terrorist plots against our country.

Merob Sosa was one of the leaders of the counterrevolutionary organization La Rosa Blanca, (the White Rose) which was responsible for countless terrorist acts. He was one of those who testified against Cuba in the U.S. Senate in July 1959.

Neither have the Tabernillas, father and son been remiss in their terrorism activities against Cuba. Carlos Tabernilla is an active member of the Brother to the Rescue Organization. And both old Pancho and his son Silito have been notorious members of the AFIO, the former CIA officers association.

And lastly, Esteban Ventura was linked to dozens of counterrevolutionary terrorist organizations including the Abdala group and the Cuban-American National Foundation.

That, I think Randy, is enough.

I would simply like to leave you with the following questions by way of ending.

Given all of this, is it or is it not true that the U.S. government gave shelter to proven assassins and thieves, granted them total impunity, gave them the opportunity and provided the conditions for them, to continue with their criminal terrorist career against the Cuban people? Is it or is it not true, therefore, that the U.S. government deliberately gave shelter to men known to be guilty of terrorist actions against the Cuban people? Which country, therefore, should appear on the State Department List as a sponsor of terrorism? Does this honor not belong to the United States itself?

Randy Alonso. - Clearly, Pedro, the account you have given us, which has been a rapid summary, because there really are a lot more people who could be on that list, demonstrates the falacy, the immorality, the hypocrisy in Mr. Bush’s two speeches, particularly his speech in Miami. He is a representative of those U.S. Administrations which have given shelter, refuge to those known assassins of many young Cubans ¾and have used them against Cuba ¾ men who were also torturers and then turned terrorists against our country after the Revolution.

I think this is an irrefutable demonstration of who are the real terrorists and of who is the supreme representative of terrorism in the world. On this lie… I think that those who today continue to use terrorism against our country are simply the result of and the children of those Batista followers who murdered thousands of our people’s children.

Thank you, Pedro.

(Short clips of relevant images are screened)

Randy Alonso. - The dozens of counterrevolutionary organizations and the dozens of terrorists created, financed or trained in the United States to carry out actions against our country throughout all these years are the descendants of those Batista followers who organized the first counterrevolutionary organizations against our country in U.S. territory. There are many Cuban-born terrorists who are at loose in Miami or other U.S. cities. I suggest that Lázaro Barredo give a brief selection from this long list.

Lázaro Barredo. - Well, if we consider the protection given to these assassins and the decision taken by President Eisenhower’s National Security Council on a date as early as March 10, 1959, in a secret meeting in the White House when they decided to destroy the Revolution, to put another government in power, we’ll have an idea of how, from the inception of the Revolution, the U.S. government has been directly responsible for abetting the terrorist organizations working against our country.

Today nobody can say exactly how many Cuban-born terrorists there are in the United States. However [you can make an estimate] if you remember that in the 60s alone the CIA station JM/Wave was the biggest station the CIA has had next to its central in Langley, Virginia. JM/Wave made a commitment to implement the policy the U.S. government delegated to it; the number of its staff rose to 400 officers and more than 3,000 agents resident in the United States, mostly in Miami. These formed the nucleus of all the counterrevolutionary organizations, of all the terrorist organizations which were created and which acted from within U.S. territory with complete impunity.

I have here a list of some of those people. It will give us an approximation of the number of people who act with total impunity from inside the United States; some of them, as we have said, have apparently become politicians although they have gone on with their terrorist activities, protected by the U.S. government’s complicity. I repeat this idea because I think it’s important.

Here for example is Francisco José Hernández Calvo, Pepe Hernández, the current president of the Cuban-American National Foundation and a member of its military arm. He, as was said, is one of the owners of one of the 50 caliber Barret rifles which were involved in the assassination plot against Comrade Fidel on Margarita Island in 1997.

Francisco Pepe Hernández has been a sabotage and assassination plot specialist since 1960. He has been linked to the principal counterrevolutionary organizations. He has worked with Mas Canosa since the time of the RECE organization up until the present; he has been linked to almost all the attempts in the 90s on the life of our Commander-in-Chief, organized round the summits of the Ibero-American presidents. He has been involved in all these assassination plots. There is a long list of terrorist actions implemented by Pepe Hernández. I just want to recount the anecdote that he and Mas Canosa bought a B-26 bomber ¾ Pepe Hernández himself told the Miami Herald this ¾ equipped with bombs and rockets, to attack an oil refinery in Cuba. This plane, as he himself says, was never used because he could not find a country to use as a base for take-off in order to carry out this highly criminal action.

In that same decade, they bought a boat equipped with missiles to fire on Havana. They were trying to see how to fire rockets from small boats. They even asked a friend of theirs to consult a retired airforce general. The general said that it was an insane idea and that was when they decided against such actions. In other words, the man has a long record of actions.

This man was in Washington, at President Bush’s May 20^th Speech.

Randy Alonso. - And from there he went back to Miami.

Lázaro Barredo. - And from there he went back to Miami, naturally, along with other terrorists.

Then there’s the case of Andrés Nazario Sargent, founder and general secretary of Alpha-66. From the 60s on he has been the mastermind behind and the instigator of numerous terrorist actions carried out against our country, against our citizens, against our representations in other countries, criminal acts that have left many dead and wounded and vast amounts of property damage.

At the beginning of this year, this gentleman published several announcements in the United States ¾ in February of this year, we are talking post September 11. In them he says that he is going to set Cuba on fire by infiltrating terrorists and by sabotage. Right now, in Miami, he is asking, for a contribution of $100,000,000 to implement his terrorist plans. And this man published his announcement openly in the United States.

There is Silverio Rodríguez Pérez, Alpha-66 delegate in New Jersey who has been involved in several plots against the life of Comrade Fidel and is one of those responsible for the innumerable terrorist actions committed by Alpha-66 against our country.

Or there is Rubén Darío López Castro, also an Alpha-66 member and one of its main men of action. He has taken part in several attacks on Cuban fishing boats where they sunk the boats, murdered or kidnapped the crews or left them to their fate on the high seas. This man piloted the speedboat that fired on the Guitart Cayo Coco hotel in 1995. He has also been connected to several of the plots of the life of our Commander-in-Chief.

Then there is Ramón Ignacio Orozco Crespo, known as “El Pirata” (the Pirate) who was a member of the CIA infiltration units and later joined Alpha-66. He also took part in several of the plots against Comrade Fidel’s life, in particular the one that was supposed to be carried out in the Dominican Republic in 1998 when the Commander-in-Chief went there.

José Pérez Fernández. - Orozco Crespo was the man who led the terrorist commando in the attack on Boca de Samá, about which Comrade Nancy Pavón testified in the open forum in Sancti Spíritus yesterday.

Lázaro Barredo. – Then there is the ignominious example of Rodolfo Frómeta Caballero, the top leader of the F-4 Comandos, a terrorist organization which attacks buildings on the Cuban coast and is involved in attempts on the lives of the leaders of the Revolution.

I should say that Frómeta was a witness in the Miami trial of our five compatriots criminally imprisoned and sentenced to such long sentences in the United States.

Frómeta admitted that he has been arrested twice in the early 90s. When he was a member of Alpha-66, he and other terrorists were detained by U.S. authorities in October 1993, near Cayo Maratón. They had a high caliber semi-automatic rifle and seven other assault rifles in their possession and were on their way to carry out sabotage missions and assassination attempts in our country. They were not arrested nor were the weapons confiscated; they were immediately released by the U.S. authorities.

In February 1994, he and another six members of Alpha-66 were detained in a speedboat near Cayo Vizcaíno; they had weapons, assault rifles and guns to be used in actions against Cuba. They were once again set free.

Frómeta admitted ¾ he was sent to prison for this, he served 41 months in jail ¾ that he had tried to obtain Stinger missiles from U.S. military arsenals, to try to shoot down planes and, as he admitted, to achieve his goal of getting rid of Fidel Castro. He confessed to this in the trial, and nothing was done. The group’s objective, he admitted, “was always to kill Castro and four or five of his top advisors including his brother Raúl Castro”. This is the gentleman who testified in the rigged trial in Miami, a renowned terrorist who walks around in Miami, free.

There is the case of Nelsy Ignacio Castro Matos, who is the president of the National Cuban Resistance Organization; He has also been involved since the 80sh in plots on the life of Comrade Fidel. He has taken part in innumerable terrorist plans against our country, in very many violent actions. He was one of those who was linked to the assassination attempt cooked up by Luis Posada Carriles during the Panama summit and he has been one of the main liaisons of the Miami terrorist organizations to have Luis Posada Carriles released and thus avoid justice in Panama.

Another case is that of “Entierrate”(Get lost) ¾ which is the nickname which we have to give him “Entierrate” ¾ Santiago Alvarez-Fernández Magriña who has taken part in violent actions against Cuba from the ranks of the Comandos-L organization. They possess naval equipment and military supplies and ammunition which they have used and use in this type of actions in Miami. He prepared, bankrolled and led an armed infiltration into Cuba on April 24, 2001 on the orders of Luis Posada Carriles and he continues to concoct anti-Cuban plots.

There is the “storyteller” Higinio Díaz Anné who was involved in infiltrations to back the insurgent gangs in Pinar del Río and Las Villas in the 60s. It was he who led the famous “circumnavigation” of Cuba during the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion, whose mission was to disembark in Oriente and to prepare a provocative action against the Guantánamo Naval Base, thus smoothing the way for direct U.S. intervention in our country. However, he got scared and went to Puerto Rico, with the approval of his followers like Jorge Mas Canosa and company.

He has participated in plots on the life of Comrade Fidel and in actions against our country; he has carried out terrorist actions against Cuban diplomatic missions in Latin America and Europe.

We have more than talked about Orlando Bosch Avila. He is that renowned terrorist who is not only at liberty but also has an impunity ID card so he can walk around Miami, still planning assassination plots. I have no doubt that he was at President Bush’s speech on May 20.

We have the case of the brothers Ignacio and Guillermo Novo Sampoll whom the U.S. authorities themselves have pronounced to be the proven perpetrators of 75 terrorist actions, including the assassination of Orlando Letelier, Chilean former foreign minister and then ambassador in Washington.

To mention just one of the 75, Guillermo Novo Sampoll, presently in prison in Panama, admitted to columnist Jack Anderson that he was the man who fired a bazooka against UN headquarters in 1964. Furthermore, he assured Anderson that he was not sorry for what he had done.

We have the case of Luis Manuel de la Caridad Zuñiga Rey, the famous representative of the Foundation in the Nicaraguan delegation to the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. All of our people remember how our comrades unmasked his terrorist actions there in the halls of the very UN. These started in 1974 when he infiltrated into Cuba to accomplish terrorist missions and in the 90s he has been involved in an enormous amount of terrorist actions against our country.

I’m not going to talk about Luis Posada Carriles. I’m not going to talk about Gaspar Eugenio Jiménez Escobedo, the man who murdered our comrade Artagnan Díaz Díaz. I’m not going to talk about Pedro Remón, also in jail in Panama, who murdered Cuban diplomat Félix García in New York and Cuban émigré José Eulalio Negrín in New Jersey.

I‘d like to talk, briefly, of a Miami mob politician who was at Bush’s speech with him, Tomás “Tomasito” Pedro Regalado. He is the commissioner of the Miami Mayor’s Office, a member of Abdala, of Alpha-66 and of CORU. He has been responsible for many terrorist actions against our country, has instigated violence and spread terror in the Cuban community because of his intolerance expressed in the Miami media.

“Tomasito” Pedro Regalado, in December of last year, after the tragic events of September 11, went to Alpha-66’s conference and was the principal speaker in that conference to incite its participants to continue with their war of violence against our country.

And what can we say about José Dionisio Suárez Esqivel, “Cepillo” (Brush), also at large in the streets of Miami, thanks to the efforts of the lawyers hired by the Cuban-American National Foundation. “Cepillo” was a member of Alpha-66, of the Comandos Cero, of CORU and of Omega-7. He was personally involved in more than 35 terrorist actions. The FBI included him on its list of the most dangerous terrorists living in the United States. He is the one who was behind three plans to kill Comrade Fidel. He and Pablo Virgilio Paz Romero were among those who planned Letelier’s assassination. Paz was also recently released from jail; there is an enormous file on his terrorist actions.

I’d like to end with two characters who cannot be omitted from a list of terrorists at large in the streets of Miami. I am referring first to Ramón Saúl Sánchez, the famous Comodoro, the Almirante, president of the Movimiento Democracia; a precocious terrorist who was the leader of an organization which bore the idyllic name of Jovenes de la Estrella (Youth of the Star) which was dedicated to acts of terrorism. He rose to be the second in command of CORU, the most terrorist of organizations. It is home to the most infamous terrorists and was responsible for blowing up the Cubana de Aviación plane over Barbados; an organization remarkable not only for the criminal nature and violence of its terrorist actions but also for its markedly fascist ideology. That must be stressed in this account.

And finally, José de Jesús Basulto Leon, the famous “pacifist” from Brothers to the Rescue; member of the infiltration teams that came here to our country in the 60s, before the Bay of Pigs invasion; CIA agent; instigator of countless actions against our country. He incited and caused more than 25 violations of Cuban airspace and the acts of provocation whose outcome was the events of February 24, 1996. He is responsible for what happened that day and for the death of the four people who were on board those light aircrafts on that February 24, 1996. He is to blame for increasing the policy of aggression which was implemented against our country after those events. That policy resulted in the Helms-Burton Act being signed and in countless other tools that effectively froze relations between the two countries and have led the U.S. ultra right to pursue a much more cruel policy against our country in the genocide that has been being committed against us during these last 43 years. That, Randy, is what I wanted to say at this time about the terrorists who are at liberty. There are many more, as we shall soon see.

Randy Alonso. - Those are the most representative.

Lázaro Barredo. - We shall see some of those most representative a little later on.

Randy Alonso. - They are some of the most representative and they are the most important petty chieftains of the terrorist organizations which today continue to act with complete impunity against the Cuban people from U.S. territory in an unholy alliance with the U.S. authorities ¾ as President Bush’s meeting with all these mobsters on May 20 made clear.

Rogelio Polanco will give us a quick run through that.

Rogelio Polanco. - Yes, the U.S. government is obsessed with these lists, lists of countries which sponsor terrorism and lists to certify and decertify anyone whom they think doesn’t do what they should be doing. There is also a list which was supposedly updated a few months ago, after September 11; it is a list of terrorist organizations and, strange to say, it doesn’t contain a single one of these terrorist organizations which have been mentioned many times by several panelists at these Round tables and which are also extremely familiar to our people.

Linked to all these anti-Cuban terrorist characters is a veritable litany of terrorist organizations which have arisen over these years. There are dozens and dozens of them; they reproduce, in fact, like a hydra; they appear and disappear, sometimes because of internal disputes or because of money, financing, or internecine struggles, because of who wants to be boss and also because of their very terrorist tactics. In other words, some of them turn up in Alpha-66 and then turn up later in Comandos F-4 and the names get changed so as to obtain the financing which U.S. institutions themselves give them in various ways

I should point out that they have a cloak of political organizations, of foundations, of educational institutions, of lobbyists and also of philanthropic and non-profit organizations. In other words, that is how they have presented themselves to those who perhaps naively, ¾ I think there are less and less of those people ¾ don’t realize that they are in fact terrorist organizations and that behind that cloak is a whole apparatus for financing their terrorist activities and a military apparatus to implement them against our country and as we have seen, in other countries too that have been the victims of these terrorist actions against Cuba,

They make their statements publicly; they publish them in the press. Some even have their own newspapers and radio stations; they make collections for terrorism publicly in those media; they have known addresses, their post office boxes, their telephones, their Websites too. What I’m saying is that these terrorist organizations are public and have enjoyed impunity and the complicity and tolerance of U.S. authorities, and U.S. Administrations throughout these years.

That has really been their experience, they have obtained a great deal of money. I think that their corrupt way of behaving makes them try to get more and more money and to try more and more to get more political patronage through terrorist actions.

These activities have been documented many times by us ¾ that is, by Cubans, by the Cuban Government ¾ but also at times by U.S. institutions, as we have seen here, and no action has been taken by the U.S. authorities. Not only has action not been taken, they have not been imprisoned, they have not been brought to trial, but, on the contrary, they are encouraged, actually, to do these things because those who are imprisoned are precisely those who fought against these actions and these terrorist organizations.

I have a list ¾ some on it have already been mentioned here ¾ I am perhaps only going to talk about a selection of those who are currently most active against Cuba. I remind you, however, that throughout this history there have been many organizations that have appeared in those acts of terrorism that we have mentioned and that have now disappeared. Many of their members, however continue to be active in other organizations. I will remind you of some of them: Oega-7, Poder Cubano, (Cuban Power), CORU, Unidad Cubana (Cuban Unity), Partido Unidad Nacional Democratica (Party of National Democratic Unity), Comandos L, Resistencia Cubana en el Exilio (Cuban Resistance in Exile). In other words, over the years many groups have existed.

Next I am going to talk about a selection of those who are still very active against Cuba.

Cuban-American National Foundation, with which our people are extremely familiar, founded in July 1981 by Jorge Mas Canosa. It has masterminded and provided the means for many of the terrorist actions against Cuba and has organized and paid for these actions. It has a covert military wing, which has taken upon itself the planning of the widest spectrum of terrorist actions and plots to kill our Commander-in-Chief, up to and including the latest plots in Panama, of course, and the actions against hotels in our country. They have branches in other U.S. cities, in Puerto Rico and what they call an “embassy” in Washington.

Alpha-66: It and some of its petty chieftains have been thoroughly discussed here. It is one of the groups owning a radio station. It was founded in 1962, which means it has been involved in terrorism against Cuba for 40 years and all that time has acted in the United States with impunity. It has its head offices in Miami and also has subsidiaries in New Jersey and California.

Comandos F-4. Lazáro has already talked about its petty chieftain. Rodolfo Frómeta. It was set up in May 1994 and has been involved in terrorist activities including the last one we mentioned, that of April 2001 when it tried to enter Cuba to attack tourist and industrial facilities here. And, according to reports shown on U.S. TV stations, its members receive their training in a military camp in Montura Ray, about 100 kilometers north of Miami. This is also something that many TV stations have made public in the United States; we show some of them all the time here in our Round Tables.

Resistencia Nacional Cubana began operations in 1997. Its founder and top leader is Nelsy Ignacio Castro Matos, whom Lázaro mentioned. It also uses the name Partido del Pueblo (People’s Party). Note that this is something that they do a lot, that is, they have more than one name, apparently to obtain money from several channels and to cover up the terrorist actions they do. It, too, has its headquarters in Miami.

There are several organizations of counterrevolutionary ex-prisoners. Some of these were created after 1979 and began to act in 1981. They have also plotted several terrorist actions against Cuba. One of them is called Coordinadora Internacional de Expresos Políticos (International Coordinating Committee of Former Political Prisoners), another Federación Mundial de Expresos Políticos de Cuba (World Federation of Cuban Former Political Prisoners) and all of them have, of course, been carrying out terrorist actions,

There is something called the Federación de los Sindicatos de Plantas Eléctricas, Gas, y Agua (Federation of Unions in Electricity, Water and Gas Plants) set up in the 90s by René Díaz. Since its foundation, and to justify its name, its backers have tried to present it as a union-type organization ¾ there is nothing union-like about it. Nevertheless, its members have plotted attempts on the life of our Commander-in-Chief and sabotage against economic and social targets in Cuba. It, too has its headquartered in Miami.

The Asociación de Veteranos de Bahía de Cochinos (The Bay of Pigs Veterans Association), the famous Brigade 2506, founded in 1962 by those who took part in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Many of its members have also taken part in other assassination attempts and terrorist actions against Cuba.

Frente de Liberation Cubano (FLC) (The Cuban Liberation Front) set up by William (Willy) Chávez and his son, also Willy Chávez, in Miami in 1993 to carry out sabotage. It has smuggled materials to manufacture explosive devices into Cuba.

The American Walter Van Der Veer, on a mission for this group, entered Cuba to carry out subversive actions and was arrested.

Hermanos al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue), also very well known; its terrorist actions and acts of provocation against Cuba have been well documented over the years and more and more recently. It was founded in 1991 by José Basulto León, William Schuss and Osvaldo Pla.

Consejo por la Libertad de Cuba (Council for Freedom in Cuba). This is perhaps the newest of these organizations, at the Round Tables we call it the Foundation clone. It was introduced to the public at a press conference in the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables on October 10, 2001, although it had been registered since August of that year. It was set up by 25 former honchos of the Cuban-American National Foundation, many of whom had a long history of terrorism.

The Junta Patriotica Cubana (The Cuban Patriotic Junta) is an umbrella group of organizations with headquarters in the United States and in other countries. It was founded in April 1980 by its president, Manuel Antonio (Tony) Varona who headed it until his death in 1999. Its members have also taken part in assassination attempts against Fidel and in terrorist actions against Cuba.

The Partido Protagonista del Pueblo (People’s Action Party) founded by none other than Orlando Bosch on November 15, 1993 to carry out sabotage attacks and terrorist actions against Cuba, by smuggling explosives, white phosphorous and electric detonators into the country.

OK, a question. How is it possible that this terrorist is allowed to create his own allegedly political organization in the United States? The truth is that whereas the United States has a list of terrorist organizations against whom they take measures, they do nothing to prevent the members of these organizations, the anti-Cuban terrorist organizations, from living in the United States; they don’t freeze their bank accounts ¾they continue to get their financing ¾ they neither search nor close their offices, they do not shut down their newspapers and so they continue to act with impunity.

I think this shows us once again that they have no moral right to accuse Cuba of being terrorist when they continue to abet and protect many of the terrorist organizations which have committed crimes against our country for 43 years.

Randy Alonso. – Thank you, Polanco.

(Appropriate video clips are screened)

Randy Alonso. - But this select list of Batista followers assassins and torturers that we have spoken of in today’s Round Table, this long list of terrorists who are at loose in the streets of Miami and in other U.S. cities, these Mafia-style criminal organizations Polanco spoke about this evening are not only responsible for terrorist acts against the Cuban people and for leaving victims among our citizenry. No, they are also responsible for countless terrorist actions committed in the United States against U.S. property and citizens. They are also responsible for acts against other countries that they have attacked on their own territory or in other places. This is something President Bush forgot to mention in his May 20 speech when he met with that terrorist mob which we have been analyzing today; that mob which is behind all the terrorist actions that we have been analyzing in these last four Round Tables.

I think that Professor Hevia can help us to remember some of the things this terrorist mob committed on U.S. soil.

Manuel Hevia. - Thank you very much Randy and a very good evening to you.

The U.S. people has also been the victim of groups of Cuban-born terrorists encouraged by none other than U.S. Administrations, a strand of a criminal policy of complicity and tolerance that has already lasted more than 40 years.

I should like to try and put this episode in its correct historical context; it is no less ignominious that the other subjects that have been dealt with in today’s Round Table.

Towards the end of the 60s ¾ from 1967 on, to be more precise ¾ the nature of some terrorist activities against Cuba began to change.

What had happened internally in Cuba? By 1967, counterrevolutionary organizations in Cuba had been dismembered and the bands of criminal bandits in the mountains had been completely liquidated. The powerful CIA station in Miami which, in concert with other U.S. special services, and following the U.S. government’s orders had encouraged infiltration, pirate attacks and other terrorist actions had been dismantled, to a large extent by the action and response of our people to these activities.

While the Cuban Revolution continued to be submitted to intense subversive activity in the form of assassination attempts, propaganda campaigns and espionage activities, the center of some terrorist activities had shifted to the United States and was aimed at anyone on American soil who traded with our nation. It was directed at officials in the Cuban UN mission; at federal institutions and U.S. private institutions and even at Cuban émigrés who were not in agreement with the terrorist policies of the Cuban-American mob.

Bombs started to go off in 1968 in many U.S. cities and the U.S. people, horrified, experienced on its own soil the terror that its own rulers had unleashed in 1959 against a small country, only 90 miles away. Those carrying out these acts were the same men who had been in Fort Meyer, trained in Fort Benning, in the jungles of Panama, in the jungles of Nicaragua all through 1960, 1961 and then in 1962. In a few short years they had set up their own gangs to make money from the new business of terrorism against Cuba. Many of those terrorists are the same people who, on May 20, acclaimed the U.S. President in Miami. These petty chieftains, former members of Brigade 2506 and of other terrorist groups or of the clandestine infiltration teams set up their bases mostly in Miami, New Jersey and New York. They kept up their old ties with CIA officers, with the services of the U.S. armed forces and with FBI officers who had trained them and “run” them and they continued their terrorist actions against our country. Other devoted themselves to extorting money from shopkeepers, allied themselves with local mobs and used their experience in all types of criminal activities.

The unbridled use of terrorism inside the United States in 1968 and 1969 brought the inevitable reaction from that country’s authorities who arrested some terrorists or tried to dismantle certain groups which acted independently and on their own account for political or personal ends. Nevertheless, those terrorist gangs that gave evidence to U.S. authorities about their hostile behavior against the Cuban Revolution were tolerated.

A study done by the CIA at that time concluded that the terrorist groups Poder Cubano, El Alacrán (the Scorpion), Acción Cubana and the Frente de Liberación Nacional Cubana (Cuban National Liberation Front) were the most active organizations and attributed dozens of recent terrorist actions inside the United States to them.

A process was then put in motion to try to remove some of these groups from the United States; the ones considered by the FBI itself to be the most dangerous anywhere in the country in those years. In other words, we are talking about a “pact” between terrorists and police authorities to get terrorism out of the United States. This was the equivalent of downsizing terrorism against Cuba and avoiding the negative effect that all this activity was having inside the United States.

It was not a case ¾ and let’s not claim we were deceived ¾ of wanting to stop the wave of terrorist attacks against Cuba, quite the contrary. Many criminal groups continued to take action against Cuba with complete impunity, were tolerated and had the approval of those police services.

On April 4, 1972, an explosion destroyed the Cuban Trade Office in Montreal, Canada and caused the death of Cuban diplomat, Sergio Pérez Castillo. This attack is considered to be the one that kicked off a new stage in what was referred to as the “War by All the Ways in the World”. This is a slogan invented and bandied at that time by the terrorists in the Movimiento Nacionalista Cubano, to try to justify its terrorist actions against Cuban targets outside the United States.

Nevertheless, in 1972 other terrorists from what they called the Gobierno Cubano Secreto (the Secret Cuban Government) continued to make its attacks inside the United States until 1972 without being harassed.

The terrorist gangs also took their terrorism into the Cuban émigré community itself in Miami and New Jersey. These communities were now starting to deny economic and political support for such criminal actions inside the United States. In other words, some opposition began to appear in certain sectors of the émigré community in the United States.

In 1974, according to CIA reports, terrorist actions against Cuba on U.S. soil registered an increase. The Watergate affair happened that year, something that threw U.S. society into a turmoil and, as you know, caused a crisis in Richard Nixon’s administration.

Something curious is that three Cubans with a long record of terrorism and longstanding ties to the CIA played an important part in that scandal. We know that it was these Cubans who broke into the Democratic Party offices to spy on the Democrats.

This focused the U.S. people’s attention once again on the dangers to the United States’ own security that came from having indiscriminately trained thousands of men for subversive work against Cuba.

Towards the end of 1974, terrorism against Cuba inside the United States was at its height. Federal agents sometimes tried to stop the activities of half a dozen terrorist organizations and set up special juries in Florida to investigate these activities. However, the treatment handed out by the authorities was so innocuous and the interests that opposed their punishment were so strong, that many terrorists arrested and jailed were set free after serving short sentences and returned to their old ways in open defiance of the American people.

In 1975, in the midst of intense [terrorist] activity, the fascist groups Omega-7, el Alacrán Cubano, (Cuban Scorpion) el Escorpión Cubano (the Cuban Scorpion) and los Jóvenes de la Estrella were set up. The authorities themselves were forced to admit what kind of people the members of those groups were.

I am going to quote some of Thomas Lyon’s opinions, a detective with the Dade County, Florida Office of Security. In his testimony to a Judicial Subcommittee he said, “Some groups of Cubans, assumed to be involved in terrorist-type acts against the Cuban government, are nothing less than criminals who get rich at the public’s expense and keep the funds they raise.”

In 1976 we learned once again about a pact between the U.S. authorities and the most important terrorist groups. Orlando Bosch again figures as a petty chieftain and once again moves abroad, to work for the repressive forces in Venezuela and Chile, but continues to carry our his crimes against Cuba.

This seeming crackdown by the US authorities on terrorist groups also had a hidden agenda; the terrorist who abided by the pact would not be bothered and it’s important to emphasize this fact too. The terrorist groups would again have to suspend their activity inside the United States and operate from third countries.

This new pact begot CORU, which internationalized terrorism against Cuba from third countries.

Another thing, many other groups resorted,so as to avoid police action against them, to the trick of dissolving themselves, changing their names, ceasing their operations, then reappearing and starting up operations in other states of the Union.

At that time a trend toward dialogue and rapprochement with Cuba had appeared in the Cuban émigré community in the United States. This was met with a reaction from the extreme right-wing terrorist groups which led to murders, like those of Carlos Muñiz Varela and José Eulalio Negrín, killed because of their pro-Cuba stance.

The majority of terrorist actions in {el español dice 1997 pero me parece que deba decir 1977 Miren a las fechas que anteceden and las que siguen} in 1977 were carried out by CORU and the “Comandos Pedro Luis Boitel”.

In 1978 and 1979, the level of these terrorist activities in the United States remained high. In March 1980 we know a bomb was placed in the car of the Cuban representative to the UN in New York and on September of that year Cuban diplomat Félix García, also accredited to the UN, was assassinated.

Ten years later, in the 90s, U.S. territory would once again be used as a base for terrorist aggressions against our country, with the complicity of and tolerated by its governments.

Randy Alonso. - That is the record of these organizations in U.S. territory against that country’s own property and citizens. A record which highlights some important, we might say, moments in the history of terrorism in the United States. It also gives us an idea of the character of these organizations, of the nature of those mobsters who met with President Bush. This man, who has proclaimed himself the world leader of the struggle against terrorism, this man who told the U.S. people that his priority is to struggle against terrorism, the same man who, on May 20, met with the terrorists who have murdered U.S. citizens and have destroyed property in the United States.

Jose Luis can help us to look at this subject

José L. Méndez. - Thank you, Randy.

This terrorism has been a constant threat to U.S. national security. It has been, in fact, domestic terrorism and, furthermore, a legal risk imposed on the U.S. people for more than 43 years.

This policy of allowing the terrorists to exist and operate, of permitting them to use letters of marque to carry out their activities has also affected Cuba’s interests and the interests of the US victims. It has also led to a great deal of damage to the property of U.S. public and private institutions. Suffice it to say that people from 18 countries have been the victims of these activities on U.S. soil. Anti-Cuban terrorists based in the United States carried out 542 terrorist actions between 1959 and 2001; 360 of these have been on U.S. soil. These acts have also had an impact on that country’s interests on 186 occasions ¾ plots, intentions or attempts are not included in this number, only completed acts.

It is worth while pointing out that 52% of all of these terrorist acts have affected U.S. interests on its own soil and 69, 19%, of the acts in that country were directed against Cuba. I want to give only a few examples.

In 1968, the terrorist Orlando Bosch Avila set off 72 bombs inside the United States.

On December 29,1975 the terrorist Rolando Otero Hernández exploded a bomb in La Guardia International Airport in New York. It killed 29 people and injured 75; most of them were Americans. And on December 3, 1975 this same terrorist detonated seven bombs in Miami aimed at federal and local targets, including the FBI’s offices, those of the local police, the Federal Building, a bridge, the Social Security office and in the post office.

On September 21, 1978 the Jóvenes de las Estrella claimed responsibility for the disappearance in mid-air of a plane headed for Cuba with four Americans on board. Ramón Saúl Sánchez Rizo was a member of the aforementioned organization; he was recently acquitted by a Miami court of other offences.

On September 21, 1976 terrorists from the Movimiento Nacionalista Cubano, Guillermo Novo Sampoll, Dionisio Suárez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero ¾ who have already been mentioned this evening ¾ murdered the young American woman Ronnie Moffitt in downtown Washington, and caused serious injuries and damages to her husband, also an American,

Randy Alonso. - That was the assassination of the Chilean former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier as well.

José L. Méndez. - The terrorists had also used bombs and guns to kill 29 Cuban émigrés in the United States. The John F. Kennedy and La Guardia airports in New York, the Newark, New Jersey airport and the Miami International airport had also been the targets of anti-Cuban terrorism on 14 occasions.

In New York the Cuban terrorists committed 47 acts of terror. I should also mention the threats made in the year 2000 against the then President of the United States, the Attorney General and against INS officials who were involved in the Elián affair.

Randy Alonso. - We are talking about 47 in New York alone.

José L. Méndez. - Yes. And there is a report which I think it might be interesting to mention here, an FBI report covering 1977 to 1982; the conclusions the FBI drew were that the incidence of domestic terrorism in those six years made Cuban terrorist groups more dangerous than Middle Eastern, Armenian and Croatian terrorist groups put together. Whereas Middle Eastern groups committed only eight acts of terror inside the United States during that period, Cuban terrorist groups carried out 52, comparable only with Israeli terrorist groups active in the United States at that time.

These terrorists, of course, were not self-trained. The testimony of Charles Zemuda, sheriff of Dade County is very telling, he says:

“ Those guys were good, really good, I knew them in our bomb area in the north west part of Dade county. We had a problem with some explosives that we didn’t know how to detonate, they showed us how, they really knew their stuff. There is one sure thing; the government trains its people well. Of course, they didn’t identify themselves as CIA agents, but we knew who they were.”

Randy, I think it is important to make the point that the demand made by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin on September 22, 1988, when Vice-president George Bush was heading an anti-terrorist committee, is still outstanding. This Tom Harkin, the senator said, “The American people deserve to be given the most detailed account possible concerning what Vice-president George Bush’s knew about terrorist Luis Posada Carriles’ role in the secret operations in support of the Contra” (Iran-Contra scandal) Now, I would add that it also deserves to be given an explanation of why those anti-Cuban terrorists were allowed to continue to operate with impunity in the United States; and how much George’s W. Bush’s Administration knows and tolerates those acts of terror on its own soil; where the real terrorists who stood by the President’s men on May 20 are.

And to close, Randy, I must point this out.

Long before terrorist Timothy McVeigh blew the Alfred Murrah building in Oklahoma to pieces in 1995, Cuban terrorists, trained by U.S. experts, were already using ammonium nitrate, C-4 and other highly dangerous explosives with lethal efficiency. I also think that the American people deserve an explanation about this thing of letting anti-Cuban terrorists act in the United States since, it itself has been a victim of the acts we have mentioned, and there have been a lot.

Randy Alonso. - Yes, there have been more than 500 acts all over the world, more than 300 in the United States, as José Luis said, committed by this terrorist mob trained, bankrolled and organized by the United States which have committed criminal acts against the U.S. people.

After one has heard this long list of acts that José Luis has told us about, after listening to the data Lázaro gave us ¾he pointed out several terrorists who met with Bush in Washington and Miami on May 20 and gave the pedigree of each one of them ¾ and then well the TV images of the speech in Miami ¾in the few shots there were of the surroundings because the camera was focused on President Bush¾ allowed us to identify terrorists other than those whom Lázaro told us about. They shared the stage with the U.S. president.

These pictures that you are about to see are evidence of hypocrisy and lies.

The video clips are shown.

Voice-over: On May 20 the U.S. President George Bush met in Miami with representatives of the Cuban-American extreme right. Infamous terrorists were presiding over this event.

Alberto Marcelino Hernández Hernández. He was the chairman of the Cuban-American National Foundation after the death of Jorge Mas Canosa. He was this terrorist organization’s liaison with Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch when these two were in jail in Venezuela on charges of masterminding the explosion on the Cuban plane over Barbados. In 1985 he helped Luis Posada Carriles to flee from a Venezuelan jail. Since 1990 he has personally participated in financing and organizing the plans for attempts on the life of the Cuban President which his organization has cooked up and for which they have used the services of Posada Carriles and other Cuban-American terrorists.

Roberto Martin Pérez Rodríguez, son of assassin Ludgardo Martín Pérez, a lieutenant colonel in the Batista police force. In 1959 he took part in the Trujillo conspiracy. He disembarked in Trinidad, where he was taken prisoner on August 13 of that year.

In 1989 he joined the Cuban-American National Foundation and was responsible for providing financing and for logistical support to paramilitary organizations which operated against Cuba. He took part in assassination attempts against the Cuban President at several Ibero-American summits. In 1997 he was a signatory to the declaration of support for terrorism against Cuba which the Cuban-American National Foundation published on August 11 that year.

Horacio Salvador García Cordero, In the 70s he was linked to the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (Revolutionary Student Directorate), whicht abetted terrorist actions against Cuba. In 1994, he joined the paramilitary wing of the Cuban-American National Foundation as a replacement for Luis Zuñiga Rey. The group encouraged violent plots against the life of the Cuban President and smuggled explosives and other equipment into Cuba. These were confiscated. Between 1995 and 1997, he was linked to the terrorist actions of the Cuban-American National Foundation in Cuba, in particular the attacks on tourist hotels in Havana. In 1997 he was one of the signatories of the declaration in support of terrorism published by the Cuban-American National Foundation on August 11 of that same year.

Feliciano Foyo Hechevarría. He was a member of Brigade 2506 which invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He joined the terrorist organization Cuban-American National Foundation. He has held the position of treasurer from 1987 until August 2001, financing terrorist actions against Cuba and plans to kill the Cuban president. He was one of the signatories of the declaration in support of terrorism published by the Cuban-American National Foundation on August 11,1997.

Hubert Matos Benítez. A traitor who created the Cuba Independiente y Democratica organization in 1979 from within which he has organized violent actions of intimidation to discourage economic investment in Cuba and has incited terrorist actions against our country. His organization has nourished terrorists like Nelsy Ignacio Castro Matos, who have been directly involved in Luis Posada Carriles’ violent plans against Cuba and who is now one of those who is providing money for the defense of the four terrorists in jail in Panama for having tried to assassinate the Cuban president. His organization has been linked to drug smuggling operations.

Armando Pérez Roura. He was a member of the paramilitary Alpha-66 and a correspondent for the terrorist organization CORU, an umbrella group led by Orlando Bosch. It committed more than 30 dynamite attacks on Cuban property abroad. He is the director of Radio Mambí whose airwaves he uses to incite violent actions against Cuba. He also organizing fund-raising drives for the defense of the four terrorists in jail in Panama. He is the big boss of the Cuban Unity organization, which is made up of several groups that have carried out terrorist actions against our country.

Rafael Díaz Balart-Gutiérrez. He held an important position during Fulgencio Batista’s tyranny, emigrated to the United States at the beginning of the Revolution and founded the (La Rosa Blanca) White Rose terrorist organization, whose members were mostly former Batista men and members of the Cuban bourgeoisie. He used La Rosa Blanca to organize several attacks on civilian and economic interests in Cuba causing physical harm to human beings. He is the father of federal Congressman Lincoln Díaz Balart, who, accompanied by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has been a spokesperson for the Cuba-American ultra right and terrorist organizations that are based in southern Florida.

At a time when the U.S. government is claiming hegemony over the fight against terrorism, who will ask President Bush to answer for his complicity with and protection of those who have caused the Cuban people to mourn?

Randy Alonso. - These images let us know whom President Bush met with on May 20. Just to add a few details, Rafael Díaz Balart, the father of Congressman Lincoln Díaz Balart was the founder, as was said, of the counterrevolutionary organization LA Rosa Blanca, made up mostly of Batista followers. It carried out countless terrorist actions in our country. I will quickly give three examples of these actions.

On December 23, 1959 the members of the terrorist organization La Rosa Blanca attacked the home of a peasant and seriously wounded him and his wife.

In 1960, the Havana textile factory was sabotaged by terrorists belonging to La Rosa Blanca whose leader was Rafael Díaz Balart. In that same year some members of La Rosa Blanca were surprised setting fire to a country school in Matanzas. They had already destroyed two other schools. That same year, 1960, members of La Rosa Blanca were involved in setting fire to several shops in Havana.

That is the organization of one of the terrorists who were among those chairing the event where Mr. Bush spoke.

But news reports about the event itself and other information we have, enabled us to identify another series of terrorists who attended the event at which Mr. Bush spoke. As well as those Lázaro mentioned, these who are in this video were there too.

Elpidio Nuñez Ojeda, who in the mid 80s became one of the top men in the Cuban-American National Foundation. And from that position gave money for the terrorist actions against Cuba organized by Luis Posada Carriles and also for the numerous attempts on the life of Cuban president, Fidel Castro planned by Posada. On August 11, 1997, Elpidio Núñez signed the Foundation’s declaration supporting terrorist actions against Cuba at a time when there were a series of attacks with explosives on tourist hotels in our Cuba.

Also present was Felipe Vals Bravo. In the mid 80s he became one of the top men in the Cuban-American National Foundation and was also one of those giving money for Luis Posada Carriles’ terrorist actions against Cuba in the 90s and the attempts on the life of our Commander-in-Chief plotted by Posada.

Then there was Silvia Iriondo president of the counterrevolutionary organization Madres ante la Represión por Cuba (Mothers faced with Repression in Cuba). She and the Movimiento Democracia (Democracy Movement) were actively involved in organizing and providing the financing for the fleets that tried to provoke Cuba and was a passenger in the plane flown by the terrorist José Basulto on February 24, 1996.

Also present was Maritza Lugo, who is a member of the terrorist organization Movimiento 30 de Noviembre (30^th of November Movement) and from its ranks has participated actively and directly in violent actions against our country.

The Movimiento 30 de Noviembre is responsible for abhorrent attacks like burning down La Epoca department store on December 31, 1960. It is also responsible for several attempts on the life of our Commander-in-Chief.

Also attending the event in the Miami Coliseum was Miguel Saavedra, chairman of the Vigilia Mambisa (Vigil of the Mambises) organization. This is a group used by the Cuban-American extreme right organization as a street gang if there is any sign of an improvement in U.S.-Cuba relations. It has participated directly in violent disturbances at performances by Cuban musicians in Miami. During Elián’s kidnapping, it lead the gang attacks on U.S. citizens and members of the Cuban community who were in favor of the little boy being sent back to our country. It has also been a part of several of the hostile fleets organized by the Democracy Movement and Brothers to the Rescue.

Also there, she wouldn’t miss it, was Ninoska Lucrecia Pérez Castellón, daughter of the assassin Francisco Pérez González, a lieutenant colonel in Batista’s police force, companion of terrorist Roberto Martín Pérez Rodríguez. Since1990, she has been the editor of Voz de la Foundation (Voice of the Foundation) which she has used to incite and support terrorist actions against our country and attempts on the life of our Commander-in-Chief, she is one of the signatories of the Foundation’s August 11, 1997 declaration in support of terrorist acts against Cuba.

Present too, was Roberto Rodríguez de Aragón, one of the founders of the counterrevolutionary organization Junta Patriotica Cubana which has supported anyone carrying out terrorist actions against Cuban interests abroad, such as those we have described today, and has taken part in acts of provocation against Cuban delegations at Ibero-American summits.

Also in attendance at the event with Mr. Bush was Diego Rolando Suárez Muñiz, one of the founders of the terrorist organization the Cuban-American National Foundation. He became one of its leading lights in the middles of the 80s. He gave money for Luis Posada Carriles’ terrorist acts against Cuba and also for the attempts on the life of the Cuban president organized by the former.

Also participating in the event in Miami was Sixto Reinaldo Aquid Manrique. In 1993 he set up the terrorist organization Ejército Armado Secreto (Secret Armed Army) which in April of that same year organized the attack on the Mikonos, a ship sailing under the Cypriot flag, when it was six miles off the Mantanzas coast. On November 2, 1994 he and two other counterrevolutionaries were arrested in flagrante delicto, by the FBI when they were trying to set fire to the Alianza de Trabajadores de Cuba (Cuban Workers’ Alliance) where donations for Cuba collected by the Pastors for Peace were being stored. In October 1995 he was sentenced to five years house arrest for this crime. Towards the end of 1998 he once again began preparing violent actions against our country, mainly attacks on [Cuban] civilian and economic interests.

Eugenio Llamera Rondón was also partying with George Bush on May 20. He has been involved in terrorist actions against our country and against Cuban interests abroad, as a member of the terrorist organizations Comandos L, Partido Unidad Nacional Democratica, Ejército Armado Secreto and Federación Mundial de Expresos Políticos Cubanos.

Llameras was directly involved in the attempt on the life of our Commander- in-Chief at the 1995 Ibero-American Summit.

These terrorist are at large in Miami, they meet and dine with the President of the United States and those who fight against terrorism are serving long and humiliating sentences in U.S. jails.

Arleen Rodríguez. – I think that yesterday in a gigantic and wonderful rally ¾ more than 300,000 Cubans filled the square in Sancti Spíritus ¾ the Cuban people gave a resounding reply to the feast where Bush the “godfather” gave his blessing to the terrorists on May 20 in Miami.

In Sancti Spíritus we were very moved by Magaly Llort, the mother of Fernando González Llort. Fidel called her a wonderful, heroic mother. Magaly drew our attention to two things, one was the use high ranking FBI officers made of the information they obtained on their visit to Cuba three months before our Cuban heroes were arrested in the United States. Important information was given to those FBI officers; voluminous files which listed the exact details of terrorist acts and of who in the United States committed them. The FBI’s reply was to arrest our five brothers on September 12, 1998 while the protection of impunity is still given to the real terrorists.

The second thing to which Magaly referred is something which draws the attention of all the Cuban people. Every time there is a news item about Cuban-born terrorists living in the United States who have been tried for one reason or another, as, for example, the terrorists who tried to assassinate Fidel in Margarita Island or the recent case of Ramón Saúl Sánchez, the precocious terrorist, as we reminded you here, or the case of Eduardo Arocena, we might comment on him a little later, we know that they will be acquitted, they will be found not guilty, in spite of evidence that proves the contrary. Meanwhile, our brothers are given as you said, to extremely long sentences, to humiliating sentences.

Recently, just a few days ago, the news of Ramón Saúl Sánchez’ acquittal was released. He had violated a decree by President Clinton, which was drafted in 1996 and ratified by Bush last year, to the effect that Cuban territorial waters and Cuban territory in general should not be entered. Here you have a decree by President Clinton, ratified by Bush, any infringement of which is, I repeat, punishable by a long prison term and a large fine, and this man ignores it and he has just been found not guilty. And a little earlier his two accomplices were also found not guilty. We expected that, because that is the impunity that takes effect every time that an attempt is made to try the terrorists.

This fact sets an incredible precedent for the next actions that could be carried out against our country, violations of our territorial waters or of our air space. Because this gentleman, guilty of and responsible for those acts has just been acquitted and found not guilty.

We have the case, which I mentioned a moment ago, of Eduardo Arocena, in which the “Ballerina” Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, member of the U.S. House of Representatives mob representative in Congress ¾ she came in at the end of the video we saw here¾ was implicated. Ileana Ros and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, two of the “big names” at that event on May 20, sponsored the creation of a committee for the liberation of one of the most infamous Cuban-born terrorists, Eduardo Arocena. He is the leader of Omega-77 which came to be considered one of the most dangerous U.S. based terrorist groups. When the committee headed by another Cuban-born terrorist, Héctor Fabián was set up, a recently published news items said: “the new committee to free Eduardo Arocena is sponsored by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart.”

This man who was sentenced to life imprisonment and to a 45 year jail term is obviously not going to serve them, everyone knows that, he is never going to serve his full sentence, because of the power this committee has, because of the sponsorship of those two members of Congress. You have already seen the support they have from President Bush. And this Eduardo Arocena was head of Omega-7. I would like to draw your attention to something, some information we were given by the comrades who have researched the matter thoroughly. Omega-7 is a super-terrorist organization; it was set up on September 11, 1974, carried out acts of terror until September, 1983, it has the longest record of terrorist acts inside the United States and Puerto Rico, 55 terrorist actions in the United States and 6 in Puerto Rico.

This organization coincidentally, Randy, commits almost all its attacks on September 11. On September 11, 1976 it placed a bomb on a Soviet ship in the United States. On September 11, 1980 it murdered Félix García, a Cuban official at the United Nations in New York and put in bomb in the Cuban ambassador to the UN’s car. On September 11, 1981 it set off three bombs in the United States. This is also Omega-7 and its leader, Eduardo Arocena, who admitted he had brought hemorrhagic dengue into Cuba, has the death of 158 Cubans on his conscience, 101 of whom were children, as we said in a previous Round Table.

Now, characters like Arocena are defended by those who were at the party with Mr. Bush, celebrating May 20.

This man is possibly about to leave jail, and he is about to leave out of jail thanks to the efforts of those who were gathered there and in particular the efforts of the members of Congress on the payroll of the Cuban-American National Foundation.

It is worth remembering what Fernando, one of our five imprisoned brothers said in a letter to his wife Rosa Aurora. He spoke precisely about Magaly’s son, who is a letter to Rosa Aurora had said, “The hypocrisy, the double standards, the opportunism and imperialist behavior, so common in this government’s policies, is also reflected in the rulings and behavior of the judges. When the judge was handing down René’s sentence, she said that the battle against terrorism was no justification for coming to this country to break the law. Apparently it does not justify that, in spite of the very same authorities who today sit in judgement on us history of complicity and tolerance of. But it does justify”, Fernando said,

“Massacring children in, for example, Afghanistan one of the poorest countries in the world which, as a people, was not directly implicated in the attacks on September 11.

Singer Gloria Estefan’s presence at the May 20 party was noteworthy. She continues to sing for terrorism in spite of the fact that she is the daughter of a terrorist and a victim of terrorism.

Randy Alonso. - She sang when Elián was kidnapped and today she sings for the terrorists.

Arleen Rodríguez. - Exactly. She is the daughter of a terrorist who was a mercenary in Brigade 2506, who enrolled as a mercenary in Vietnam as well, but became a victim of U.S. government state terrorism. Because her father ended up with a serious illness, poisoned by Agent Orange as a result of the chemical warfare applied in Vietnam against the Vietnamese people, something else we should remember at this time when they are trying to accuse Cuba of something as despicable as developing biological weapons.

In short, I think that President Bush might be able to ignore the terrorist record of some of these people but he can’t ignore the criminal record of everyone who was there. The file is too full.

Therefore, when we see what took place on May 20 we consider it to be much more than a ceremony to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the imperialist stage of history; much more that a Plattist ceremony, much more that a defeatist ceremony. It is a heavy-duty guarantee of impunity for terrorism. It is a very dangerous sign, especially, at a time when “by chance’ there are such terrorist characters as Otto Reich in the State Department and very serious lies accusing Cuba of manufacturing Biological weapons are put into circulation and when Cuba is included on a list of countries which sponsor terrorism. I think that this reaffirms impunity, but I also think that it open’s the door to new attacks on our country

It is worth remembering what Fidel said yesterday in the wonderful event in Sancti Spíritus. Fidel said that “Not one drop of blood has been spilt in the United States, nor one iota of the wealth there has been lost in all the 43 years the Revolution has existed because of any terrorist action originating in Cuba. Just the reverse, thousands of lives have been lost ¾ I (Arleen) should remind you that as many as on September 11 or a little more have been lost in this country if we adjust the figures to take into account that theirs is a country with a population 28 times bigger than ours ¾ and astronomical amount of property damage have been caused to our country from U.S. territory. That is something the U.S. people should be told instead of saturating them with lies and slanders.”

When the U.S. president got together with those people, when he partied with the sons and daughters of terrorists and with permanently active terrorists who have long rap sheets, he is not only sponsoring impunity, he is not only giving the nod to serious acts concerning our country, but he is also lying at the same time. In other words, he is saying to the world, “I am no fighter against terrorism.” When that man stands before the world to say, to appoint himself, to proclaim himself to be the Commander-in-Chief of the troops that are fighting against terrorism, one has no option but to say to him: “You are lying, and what is more it is a barefaced lie, because you have paraded around with the worst terrorists inside the United States itself in the history of the last 43 years.”

I should like to end by telling you about a fragment of a letter which René González Sheweret sent to friend-in-solidarity. In his amazing diary, he too has shown us the truth about the two-faced morality and the double standards and the hypocrisy surrounding the subject of the battle against terrorism.

In this letter René says,

“Little by little the truth will come to light, and then it will not be a privilege of a few people who are unusually sensitive and have an unusually keen sense of justice. Whether they like it or not, each word, each sentence pronounced during the six months of this trial is now part of history and is documented in the Miami Federal Court archives.

I am sure that this history will have to be rescued one day so the world can learn about it.”

What we try to do in the Round Tables is show the world the true history of terrorism and to tell it that the man who has arrogated the title of boss of the battle against terrorism, has just thrown dirt on his own campaign, and has become one more liar. You are harming yourself with that speech on Miami 20.

Randy Alonso. - Thank you very much Arleen, to you and to the rest of the panelists we had with us to day and to our studio audience.

Fellow Cubans:

This evening we have spoken about the attempts on the life of leaders of the Revolution, kidnapping of children, the deaths caused by the Cuban Adjustment Act, terrorists at large in Miami, terrorist actions committed in the United States and an impressive list of war criminals who are responsible for the death of thousands of Cubans. These people were not only given refuge in the United States but they used their stolen hundreds of millions to organize and lead many of the U.S. government’s terrorist plans against Cuba.

All these facts and arguments we have touched on this evening unmask, demolish and smash to pieces Mr. Bush’s cynical hypocritical accusations that Cuba gives refuge to terrorists, and for that reason it is included on the list of countries which sponsor terrorism. All that shows the U.S. government’s monstrous hypocrisy, the disgusting lie of putting Cuba on a list that should really be headed by the U.S. government.

Tomorrow the U.S. people celebrate Memorial Day, when they remember those who died in wars or those murdered in terrorist acts. None of the flowers that are placed on the graves in Arlington Cemetery, or at the foot of the huge marble monument which commemorates the fallen or on the monument to the victims of the terrorist acts in New York will be placed in memory of a victim of the aggressive or terrorist acts planned, organized or paid for by the Cuban Revolution.

As our Commander in Chief said in his speech yesterday and as Arleen reminded us, ““Not one drop of blood has been spilt in the United States, nor one iota of the wealth there has been lost in all the 43 years the Revolution has existed because of any terrorist action originating in Cuba. Just the reverse, thousands of lives have been lost and astronomical amounts of property damage have been caused to our country from U.S. territory. That is something the U.S. people should be told instead of saturating them with lies and slanders.”

The 3,478 Cuban citizens who have died over these 43 years as a result of terrorist acts are as many or more than those who died in the World Trade Center in the abominable horrendous events of September 11.

A country with a population more than ten times smaller and dozens of times smaller in land mass than the United States has seen the blood of countless of its sons and daughters flow because of the terrorist actions of the government of the most powerful empire in the history of the world; proportionately more than all the Americans who fell in the Vietnam and Korean wars.

But the Cuban people does not look on the U.S. people as its enemy. It, too, has been the victim of the criminal actions of the terrorist mobsters with whom President Bush just met and dined this May 20 while U.S. soldiers were dying in Afghanistan in the so-called battle against terrorism and while five young Cubans stand firm against humiliating and tough prison sentences because they fought the terrorism of these criminal mobsters.

A Fidel said yesterday, “ the U.S. people can count on the solidarity of this friendly generous people in it present difficulties and in the battle against the scourge of terrorism.”

But Mr. Bush and successive U.S. Administrations will have to answer, to history and to their people for having given refuge to Bastista’s torturers and murderers, for having organized the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion, for having paid for and armed the gangs of insurrectionaries who murdered more than 500 Cubans, for their attempts to assassinate Fidel and other of the Revolution’s leaders; for having set up, bankrolled and lead the dozens of the anti-Cuban Mob’s organizations which have committed countless crimes against this little country, little but large in generosity and heroism which has set itself the task of building the most just society thus far known.

We are all telling Mr. Bush, as Fidel told us yesterday, we shall demolish his falacies and lies one by one

We are still fighting!

Good night.