The mob, the factions and Bush’s money: round table held in the studios of Cuban television on May 30, 2002, Year of the Heroes imprisoned by the Empire.

(Transcript of the Council of State)

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

In his speech on May 20 President Bush announced more funds for the subversive activities of the Miami anti-Cuban terrorist mob and the counterrevolutionary factions in our country which already receive millions of dollars from the U.S. government.

The subject of our Round Table this evening is the mob, the factions and Bush’s money; on tonight’s panel we have Reinaldo Taladrid, a journalist with the Cuban Television’s News Department, Manuel Hevia director of the State Security’s Center for Historical Research, Lázaro Barredo a journalist with Trabajadores and Rogelio Polanco, editor of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

Our studio guests this evening are comrades from the Metallurgical Industry and from the Ministry of Auditing and Management.

In his May 20 speech, U.S. president George Bush said that “my administration will relax restrictions on humanitarian aid to non-governmental organizations which attend directly to the needs of the Cuban people and which help to build Cuban civil society.”

Which civil society is Mr. Bush talking about? Who will get the money that the Bush administration has decided to increase in its already chock-full budget for subversive activities against Cuba? What are Bush’s plans and what is the background to this policy? That is what we shall be talking about in today’s Round Table.

There is a long history to all this and I suggest Lázaro Barredo

give us a summary.

Lázaro Barredo. – It has been more than proven that the fabrication or the creation or the encouragement of the so-called dissident groups in Cuba has been the nucleus of the U.S. governments’ plans for aggression over these 43 years.

U.S. administrations have had no alternative but to fabricate opposition to the Revolution and I say that they have had no alternative because, in fact no patriotic force would ever ally itself with the United States. No patriotic force,
¾ this has been shown all through history of the Cuban Revolution since 1868
¾ would ally itself against the program of the Revolution: national independence; social justice; the right to develop, to national unity, which has been the most important element in efforts to resist the blows from the United States, the natural enemy of the existence of a Cuban nation for these 200 years.

I think that this is proved by history and in the case of the fabrication of an opposition is proved by the data which have been analyzed. Furthermore, each time that the United States declassifies documents, new things come to light, as happened in 1998 when the report of the CIA inspector general was declassified and details were revealed about the program of action against Cuba approved by President Eisenhower on March 17, 1960. In one of its key sections giving directives to government agencies the program proposed the establishment of dissident groups inside Cuba. In 1960, the U.S. government first allocated
$4 million to do this; by the following year, 1961, that was immediately increased to $40 million ¾ from $4 million to $40 million ¾ an indication of their intent to subvert internal order in Cuba by creating an opposition mechanism, fabricating it to some extent.

In the Santa Fe Program One of 1979, one of the recommendations in the program of Ronald Reagan’s government was to abet dissent through putative human rights groups.

That idea begins to take shape in this 1979 document, the Santa Fe program which was the Reagan administration’s’ ideological platform, it takes concrete shape in the program on Cuba.

Reagan used A Mandate for Leadership, a book that had been put together by the Heritage Foundation as bedtime reading for his government¾ he said so himself. In this book, the strategy most clearly traced out is the one they call ”Project Democracy” which outlines the strategic directions to be taken by the U.S.’s world-wide offensive against socialism and other progressive forces. This was revealed by president Reagan himself in a speech to the British Parliament on June 9, 1982.

Reagan urged his allies to take “actions to develop a campaign for democracy, for nourishing democracy’s structures, the free press system, unions, political parties all of which allow nations”, ¾ according to what he said¾ “to choose their own way.”

That is where the idea for National Security Directive number 77 came from. It was issued at the beginning of the 80s by president Reagan and it orchestrated “Project Democracy” and defined [its objectives] concerning our country ¾ and I want to dwell on this idea because it is crucial, we are talking about the years from 1981 to 1983 when Reagan is focusing the thrust of “Project Democracy” on Cuba. The aim is to create political pressure on Cuba. To do that, it outlined the strategy of using the many-pronged objective of wearing down the Revolution with internal dissent programs to foster the image that the situation facing Cuba did not arise because of its long standing confrontation with the United States ¾ I stress this fact because it is important ¾ but because of the inability of the Cuban government to and its prejudice against the idea of finding a “solution between Cubans” when it refused the so-called dialogue as a solution to orchestrate a so-called political opening.

One of the central tactics of this “Project Democracy” was to encourage some factions or individuals in Cuban society; people who, for a variety of motives, but all inspired to a large extent by opportunism and resentment, had decided to distance themselves from the Revolution’s aims in the midst of the confusion caused by Soviet perestroika. When the Russian debacle occurred these people were allying with the secular enemies of the Cuban nation. These individuals whose positions towards the Cuban Revolution’s aims were critical, had been operating over these years in the ambit of an international campaign against Cuba led by the most conservative sectors of the right. They are visited by any foreigner who wants to make him or herself look impartial about the Cuban case. They have become a permanent source of information for some of the foreign press, particularly U.S. papers and, most particularly, the Miami papers with which they have pretty open channels of communication.

A new strategy was launched on August 14, 1990 with the so-called “pacifist’ actions of that opposition. The operation was conceived of during George Bush senior’s term of office and it unveiled the creation of what was called the Cuban Democratic platform. This was a coalition of three organizations and other well known names from the so-called Cuban exile community who had decided to join forces in order to make a contribution towards a “ peaceful transition to democracy” in Cuba. Essentially, what they were proposing were negotiations between the Cuban government and the internal opposition that would lead to elections; these would have to observe all the rules of bourgeois democracy, be held under international supervision and would lead to a multiparty, market economy system.

There’s a famous letter that was published in the newspaper Granma in 1991 because this covert operation filled Bush senior with happiness so, Randy, on May 20, 1991, ¾ it seems that May 20ths and the Bushes are closely connected¾ after this project was announced, Bush senior said in Miami that he would be the first president to walk on free Cuban soil. He said that on May 20, 1991; he was, of course, courting Cuban-Americans on the eve of an electoral year. This operation gave birth to the letter published, by Granma, a letter which a CIA agent, Mr. Carlos Alberto Montaner ¾a young terrorist arrested in 1960 with plastic explosives to be used in shopping centers, I talked about this at one of the earlier round tables¾ sent to the domestic counterrevolutionary factions in Cuba giving them orders to affiliate themselves with international counterrevolutionary groups. And you, what’s-your-name, are a liberal; and you, so-and-so, are a social democrat; and you, thingamajig, are a Christian democrat.”

There are interesting things in that letter. “If a military revolt occurs,
¾ which is what they were thinking ¾ we must demand from the victor exactly the same as we demand from Castro today; that he gives the people back their liberties and calls open, supervised, multiparty elections and, possibly preceded by a plebiscite, i.e. a referendum. He remarks, “Obviously the stronger the opposition is, the more will it make its weight felt.

And adds, “this document can be taken out of the country by an international delegation consisting of a liberal, a social democrat and a Christian democrat sent to Cuba to get the document. As soon as they get overseas, they would give a press conference and would announce the formal establishment of the platform inside Cuba.”

He ends the letter by saying: “ We will at the same time have drums and whistles standing by to announce the consolidation in Cuba of a moderate respectable opposition, with wide international acceptance…” “that would be the opposition, the big, internationally accepted opposition.”

Of course, Carlos Alberto Montaner did not fail to see the big problem; he himself admits it in his letter which was published in Granma. He says, “I am not unaware that in this demand there is a logistical aspect a little difficult to swallow, how and why should we suddenly transform ourselves into liberals, social democrats or Christian democrats.”

In other words, that big operation, which was later stepped up with the Torricelli Act and something known as Track II was already underway in the early 90s. It was stepped up even more on October 6, 1995 when Clinton goes to Freedom House and publicly gives half a million dollars to that organization for financing the domestic factions in our country. It was stepped up again on January 28, 1997 when president Clinton himself revealed his famous Program for a political transition in Cuba which has more of the same: multiparty system, market economy, free elections etcetera, etetera. It is the same worn out concept that will be seen again later on in the Helms-Burton Act; the essence of Title II is the same; hand back property, set up a “democratic government”, destroy revolutionary institutions and set up a democratic government with Cuban-Americans and, of course, their fabricated opposition.

In a recent interview Otto Reich said to a journalist, “What president Bush wants is a peaceful, but swift, transition to democracy in Cuba” ¾ he said this at the end of April ¾ “so that we don’t have to talk about embargoes”.

The journalist asked him. “But 40 years later this transition has not taken place and neither is there really any way of foreseeing that it will occur, not as a result of the embargo anyway, so why not remove it?”

Otto Reich replies, “ What has to change is the government of Cuba”

I think, Randy, that this is the mission given to this “opposition”, and it is what we have been looking at here, how USAID (United States Agency for International Development) gave money to it, as did a U.S. Congress agreement to allocate not less that $2 million to that “opposition”, made after the Helms-Burton Act was passed. When you say “not less than $2 million”.

In all Parliaments, as we have explained, you set a limit, you say, you can spend up to so much. When you say “Not less than $2 million it means you can give 50, 100, 200, a billion, whatever is necessary to achieve your goal and I have absolutely no doubt about what they will do if “we lose our minds” and give these factions a hard time.

In U.S. Congress records ¾ this is not secret ¾ you can find evidence about the logistic support and the political cover given by the U.S. government to the counterrevolutionary factions operating in our country. Mr. Michael Ranneberger, then head of the State Department’s Cuban Affairs Office told this in 1999 to the House of Representative’s Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. He didn’t blush to admit that “active participation by the United States in the financing and abetting of the alleged Cuban opposition” was part of the pressure mechanism to undermine constitutional order in our country.

This is the money given by the National Endowment for Democracy, which gives money to several institutions, this is what we have here, and not only to Cuba, to third countries as well. We have looked at that here; when they want to give a prize, when they want to award a diploma they invite the gentlemen from these factions or they send envoys, as we have seen with the Czechs, the Poles, etcetera, etcetera.

Randy Alonso. - Or they supply funding to various foundations and institutions in other countries so that they, too, can be used as a way of channeling this funding.

Lázaro Barredo. – Let me tell you, I mention Carlos Alberto Montaner because he is the most active CIA agent in this “Project Democracy”, actually. He has recently given a statement saying that this whole scheme of asking for a referendum, for free elections, everything that President Bush asked for on May 20, the whole intent and purpose of that is to undermine Cuba’s constitutional order.

I have an article written by Carlos Montaner where he says,

“This is the peaceful way to take apart the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship, to bury Castroism, spadeful by spadeful without violence without repression, using certain chinks in the legislation in force in the island.” This is the aim of those factions. If any doubt remained, there is the bill they presented last year with the backing of some ultra-right members of Congress, such as Senator Jesse Helms and Congressperson Lincoln Díaz-Balart, to give 100 million in aid to the putative internal Cuban opposition. The factions here immediately came out in support of it. For example, I have here statements by Radio Martí.

One of the leaders of those factions, a woman, said, “For each one of the dissidents it is very important to know that such busy people, people with so much responsibility, remember us”.

Another went even further. “We are completely behind the position of those Congresspeople towards the embargo. As for this law in support of dissent, I think that it is a historic landmark, it is the first law in the 21^st century which gives total support to dissent.” In other words, these people feel more important because of these congresspeople’s gesture. They have a lot of nerve, actually, seeing that in the United States there are Treasury Department control regulations which say that no U.S. citizen can receive even a cent, a ball point pen from a Cuban citizen, let alone from a Cuban government employee.

The punishment for violating these regulations is a jail sentence of up to
10 years and a fine of up to $250, 000. That is the penalty for anyone receiving money from a Cuban.

Randy Alonso. – The irony in all this, Lázaro, is that there is one of these Congresspeople who has been an active publicist for these ideas about funding the Cuban counterrevolution and who is, in fact, in some trouble for accepting money from a foreigner: Torricelli.

Lázaro Barredo. - Torricelli and a whole heap of irregularities.

Well, that is in U.S. regulations. I send a ball point pen to a U.S. citizen and you can be sure that if the Treasury Department wants to harass him or her, they can lay charges against him or her, because there are several laws for that.

Alarcón once explained that here and spoke about it in the National Assembly too. There are several legal provisions the United States which forbid you from doing with a U.S. citizen what the United States wants to do with the counterrevolutionary factions in our country.

Which is why they have the need, I repeat, to fabricate this opposition because they have really no base inside Cuba which supports them in their aim to destroy the country, even though they have been working on this for ten years. If you analyze the projects which the counterrevolution has invented in the 90s, all the projects they have used as propaganda to harm the image of the Revolution, you will see they all rest on this agreement.

Randy Alonso. - Thank you very much Lázaro, for your comments.

(Relevant images are shown)

Randy Alonso. – Last May 23, three days after President Bush’s speech, the newspaper News Day published an article entitled “We are being covered in shame because of our policy towards Cuba” which includes these words:

“Our policy towards Cuba is a reflection in a fun-house mirror. The embargo on trade and U.S. tourism against Fidel Castro, which is a cold war anachronism, is still in place while the rest of the world goes in search of sun and investment opportunities.

“The Bush administration has filled its foreign policy apparatus with Cuban exiles and their sympathizers. The President promises to not give up until Castro falls and repents. Fat chance!

“The agriculture lobby and its bipartisan followers in the Capitol are trying to get rid of trade restrictions or at least to soften existing restrictions on the limited agricultural exports.

“ To date, Miami is winning in the geopolitical battle between the agricultural states and the south of Florida. After all, it holds the keys to the White House and the Governor of Florida’s mansion. This is a terrible shame but not as great as the United States decision to fund the political resistance to Fidel Castro.

President Bush formally promised that he would give even more aid to U.S. groups who say they are helping Cubans.

“Bush wants to give $6 million in aid in the 2003 fiscal year to groups who support political liberties in Cuba. That is a lot more than the $3.5 million which he gave in 2000.

“ According to our International Development Agency, he will probably get bipartisan support.

“Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was included in the Democrats’ 2000 campaign partly to win over Florida, is one of those speaking in favor of increased aid. The money will not go directly to Cuba; it will go to New York and Washington and, most generously, to Miami.

“Prominent among the groups to receive aid are the Center for a Free Cuba, a group of conservative exiles based in Florida and led by Frank Calzón, he was ¾ as you will remember¾ one of the belligerent voices demanding that Elián be permanently separated from his father and the International Republican Institute, a Washington-based organization with close ties to the Bush administration.

“The Institute supported opposition groups which staged a failed coup attempt against the democratically elected president of Venezuela, a coup that the White House seems to have supported.

“Functionaries of the Institute also acted as behind the scenes contact people between the Venezuelan plotters and the Bush administration. Now they are all for forging ties of solidarity with human rights activists in Cuba.

“The list could go on and on but in this fun house the image is clear enough. When it comes to Cuba we don’t go for victory, only for winning political races nationally and winning shame internationally.” That is what this article in the May 23^rd issue of News Day says.

As this article makes clear the U.S. government, as it has been doing all these years, has been allocating money to its institutional organizations to finance subversive activities against our country.

The main conduit for this funding to the anti-Cuban mob and to the counterrevolutionary factions has been USAID, a U.S. governmental agency.

On the role of this agency and these agencies report officially ¾ what they say behind the scenes is an unknown¾ well, what is going on with funding for subversive activity against Cuba? Rogelio Polanco

Rogelio Polanco. – Yes, I think that we have touched on this subject on other occasions but it won’t come amiss to repeat some of the details about this so-called Aid for International Development which U.S. institutions officially provide to other countries, and which turns out to be nothing other than an act of subversion against legitimately constituted governments. And as you have just reminded us with that article, one of those who receives this money is that Republican Institute whose role in the coup d’état in Venezuela has been exposed in several newspapers.

USAID is the U.S. Agency for International Development ¾ USAID is the acronym. It was created by President John F. Kennedy under the provisions of a foreign aid act. It was his executive decision and the intention was for the U.S. government to provide money to other countries.

It came into being at a time when the Alliance for Progress was also being founded for Latin America the only purpose of which was to counteract the example of the Cuban Revolution in Latin America.

It is a public agency, and receives money from official U.S. institutions. It is estimated that there are some 3,000 companies and more than 300 private organizations which have some degree of involvement with this agency.

In our country’s case, the Cuba Program came into being in 1995. President Clinton announced a financial allocation by USAID for Cuba for what at that time was referred to as encouraging a transition to democracy in Cuba, as they euphemistically call overthrowing the Cuban Revolutionary government.

They used as an excuse what they understood by provisions in the Torricelli Act, that is, some articles in the Torricelli Act, which “allow” the U.S. government to provide aid through non-governmental organizations for “a non-violent democratic change in Cuba”. The Helms Burton Act later talks about the same thing.

One must be aware that in this case, there is a unique aspect to the Cuba Program. It is the only of USAID’s programs where the decisions about giving money to organizations must meet the approval of a so-called Interagency Working Group. In other words, that there are several institutions, several public agencies of the U.S. government which directly administer and manage the Cuba Program which of course shows that there is direct interference by the U.S. government in the financial allocations to Cuba.

This Interagency Working Group is made up of a chief advisor and coordinator for Cuba from USAID and by another coordinator, who is none other than the head of the State Department’s Cuba Affairs Office. Other members are representatives from the National Security Council, the Trade Department, the Treasury Department and other State Department representatives and, of course, from the United States Interests Section in Cuba. The latter is, they say, the agency which provides information on the situation in Cuba, reviews the proposals and programs and evaluates their effectiveness.

As for the most recent program, I mean the Program Cuba proposal; I have here the proposals that were just released in May 2002. (He holds up a document) It is a program which began in1997 and which is supposedly meant to end in 2005. To date more than $15 million has been given to some 27 organizations
¾ that’s what they call them. These are institutions based in the U.S. ¾ mostly in Miami and New York and, naturally, the counterrevolutionary factions in Cuba.

There is a difference between the 2002 budget, already made public, and that of the previous year. There are five more organizations included in the provisions of this budget. There are $2.2 allocated to these new organizations and a $2.9 million increase in the amount going to organizations already covered by the previous budget.

You mentioned some of them, Randy, so I will only give them a fleeting mention: Freedom House ¾ we know it well ¾ Center for a Free Cuba, the Institute for Democracy in Cuba, the Working Group for Dissent in Cuba, CUBANET, Cuba Free Press. There are many organizations, some of them ghost organizations set up solely and exclusively to get this money from U.S. public funds and with the sole aim, as is shown in the name Cuba Program, of “encouraging a rapid and peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba and to help civil society to develop”.

Here’s something interesting: in the title, in this year’s mission statement they include the word, “rapid”. I think that this is something that demonstrates a certain level of desperation, because previously they said “a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba”, they have added the word “rapid” because they are desperate, because the goal isn’t come any closer, nor will it ever. And so they propose increasing the flow of information about democracy, human rights and free enterprise to Cuba, from Cuba, inside Cuba.

I have here some of the areas that have been prioritized. OK, they talk of helping what they call non-governmental organizations in Cuba, workers’ rights in Cuba ¾we already know that these are the so-called “free” unions which now have Bush as an advocate, something pretty much unheard of. Then there are the human rights activists in Cuba ¾ these are simply the counterrevolutionary factions and the so-called independent journalists, another disguise worn by these U.S. government hired hands in Cuba¾ and of course they also suggest planning for the “transition” in Cuba.

One of the institutions which received $1 million recently was the University of Miami, no less than $1,045,00 to plan for the transition in Cuba. Another organization which just received a large sum of money, $225,000, is an institution whose job is to review the results of the project, PriceWaterhouseCoopers. This is an organization they had to hire one way or another because they have no real idea of the effectiveness of this program; they want to know exactly what is going on.

I have a report issued by this institution; it covered the period February to May of the year 2000. It draws some very interesting conclusions, Randy. PriceWaterhouseCooper’s first observation ¾ USAID hired them to say if the program for Cuba was working or not ¾ is that in Congress there are opposing points of view on Cuba policy and on the program itself. This complicates the process of discussing the projects, delays their approval and, in some cases, slows down the implementation of the program’s activities. In other words, this is an acknowledgement that an important sector in Congress thinks that this policy has failed and doesn’t, of course, agree with it.

Another of the review’s conclusion is that the program’s effect will be seen in the long term, and that its real impact cannot be measured in this implementation phase. I think that this is way of admitting that they haven’t achieved anything, that they have failed completely with all this funding for internal subversion in Cuba and the only consolation they have is that they will be successful in the future.

Another conclusion is the lack of cooperation from the Cuban government. They say that the repressive climate created by the Cuban government means that super-discreet operational methods have to be used and this also makes it harder to evaluate the program’s activities.

Well, of course the Cuban government is always going to oppose subversion and oppose anything that facilitates the overthrow of our Revolution by the United States. Now they are calling for covert methods which are simply the methods always used by intelligence agencies. They are saying that openly, in this review of the results and the ineffectiveness of that program.

The evaluation recommends sending a functionary to the Interest Section in Cuba to work full time on USAID’s Cuba Program. This is an acknowledgment that the Interests Section in Cuba would be responsible for, and actually is responsible for ¾ as we have seen on many occasions at our Round Tables ¾ distributing these resources directly to its hired hands in Cuba.

It also recommends: assigning an additional fulltime functionary for the program to the main USAID office ¾ in other words have one person in the main office working on this program only.

Testing all informational products before distributing them to the Cuban public because they are not sure of the effectiveness of what they are doing so they want to test them on groups of people who have recently arrived from Cuba. Get that!

Finding novel ways of disseminating information in Cuba, They mean third country mercenaries who, as you know, were the latest method they tried to use to bring money to the counterrevolutionary factions.

Adapting the amount of publicity given to funding according to the potential risks to the beneficiaries and their clients in Cuba. They say some activities could be endangered if exposed to inappropriate publicity. In other words, they are calling for their activities to become more and more covert. They want to continue doing and undoing, trying to overthrow the Cuban revolutionary government in silence. Which is why it will always be our job to denounce them more and more publicly and to speak out more and more loudly about what they are doing via their hired hands in Cuba.

Randy Alonso. – I too, as you said, have that May 2002 report and they are some very interesting things we could mentioned confirming what you said. This program proposes seven specific programs for Cuba and the sums of money involved are substantial.

You were saying that more than $15 million has already been handed over. That is a multi-million dollar budget for subversion in Cuba.

For example: they propose solidarity with human right activists in Cuba, in other words with the factions. Translated into English: financing counterrevolutionary factions in Cuba. What does it say? That USAID will fund eight institutions to do that; these institutions will also be responsible for distributing the funding. For example, one of them, the Institute for Democracy in Cuba will receive $1 million; it already has the money, according to this report. The Working Group for Dissent in Cuba will receive $250,000 which has already been handed over. The International Republican Institute will receive $1,674,462 which is still being handed over. The Dissent Support Group will get $1,200,000 and Cuban Democratic Action will receive $400,000. This is one of the specific programs within the program.

Rogelio Polanco. - True, Randy and it triples the amount given to the Dissent Support Group compared to the amount allotted the previous year; that is direct funding for the counterrevolution, to the factions here. The previous year, 2001, they only got $400,000 and now they get $1,200,000; in other words, the amount tripled from one year to the next. This is the funding they say they don’t receive.

Well, there it is publicly revealed that they are receiving $1,200, 000 directly for that, from this project alone.

Randy Alonso. – From USAID alone, adding up the amounts mentioned here, there is more than $3 million allocated directly to the counterrevolutionary factions under this program.

There is another interesting grant, the funding for the so-called independent journalists. Well, how independent are they? Let’s see what the U.S. government says. That they will grant $280,000 to an organization like Cuba Free Press, which has already been delivered; $622,000 to the International University of Florida, supposedly to train independent journalists; $833,00 to create a Web site for independent journalist called Cubanet.

Rogelio Polanco. - This is the use of the virtual media, the Internet, where they can post all those lies about Cuba produced by those counterrevolutionary factions; in this case the funding increases 2.4 times because they are suggesting a grant of $833, 00 to get this “news” out on the Internet. That is direct payment to certain journalists, who are anything but independent; last year it was only
$343, 000. Just look at the amounts we are talking about.

Randy Alonso. – Here we are talking about approximately $2 million for the “independent” journalists.

There is another one; Aid to Develop Independent Non-governmental Organizations: that is to say, it is another way of covering the so-called factions. Here they give funding to five different organizations so that they can distribute the money to the so-called non-governmental organizations. I am only going to talk about two grants; they’re giving $523,000 to the Foundation for Pan-American Development and $320,000 to the University of Miami to help to develop “civil society” in Cuba; this is part of the million odd they give in funding to this university.

They are going to fund two organizations through a USAID program called Defending the Rights of Cuban Workers whose purpose is to create the so-called “independent unions” that Mr. Bush wants. There is a grant of about $168,575 for the American Center for Solidarity with Workers, already delivered, and $424,000 to the National Policy Association, to create allegedly independent unions in our country.

Another of the seven programs is the so-called “Getting Ready for Transition”; they have already used it to give money to four organizations including The Council for Cuba-U.S. Business, which we know all about because Otto Reich used to be on its board. This Center has been given $852,000 for the so-called transition in Cuba, and the University of Miami has received $1,045,000 for its transition plan, as Polanco mentioned. Now, we have read out the names of only some of these organizations because it is a fairly extensive list. However, what we have talked about adds up to quite a few million dollars. USAID openly says it is giving this money to these organizations, to abet the Miami mobs’ subversive activities against Cuba and those carried out by organizations based in New York and Washington. They have also openly talked about the funding that counterrevolutionary factions in our country are going to receive.

I think this is the best and clearest proof of what the money Mr. Bush has allocated is for; of who receives this money and of how independent these factions are, the so-called journalists and organizations which are preparing subversively to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

Thank you for your comments, Polanco.

And this is not the only organization that is devoted to sending money to the anti-Cuban mob and to the counterrevolutionary factions. We have already spoken of several of them. USAID is perhaps the most representative but another organization playing an important role in this anti-Cuban business is a private organization, that is far from private, the National Endowment for Democracy, the famous NED. It, too, has played an important role in funding these factions and that counterrevolutionary mob. I ask Reinaldo Taladrid for his comments on this subject.

Reinaldo Taladrid. – With great pleasure, Randy Let’s go to the NED’s Web page to see what they themselves say they are.

The National Endowment for Democracy is a bipartisan private non-profit, donation raising organization, founded in 1983. Thus far that’s what NED’s web page says.

It says it “receives financial contributions from the U.S. Congress” ¾that means it is paid by the U.S. government¾ and also “other donations from the private sector”.

“It has a board of directors made up of well-known people from various sectors in the U.S.”.

NED’s work, as their own web page explains, is based on three basic programs: the first is called the Funding program. In other words they themselves say that anyone who support “free trade” and “private enterprise” and has ties to the National Republic Institute or its democratic counterpart ¾both parties have a similar organization¾ can receive these donations. That means the first program exists to give money to anyone who defends capitalism.

Number two: International Cooperation for Democracy Program. This means cooperating ¾or so they say¾ with other foundations around the world which have similar ideas that agree with what they want, monitoring elections etc. This election monitoring they do has nothing to do with being concerned if half of the people who have a right to vote do vote or not. It is concerned with whether the candidate who wins or those in the race guarantee the status quo that they want for that country; they couldn’t care less about that other stuff.

Number three is called International Research Forum on Democracy this is a whole series of events, universities, publications etc. that get money from them because they say what they want to hear.

Some analysts have said, and I agree with them, that NED was created in the Reagan administration to do things differently. How? Well, the CIA used to do all these things up until that point in the 80s, and quite simply, they decided to do them openly with government’s money; the very same things the CIA did but, quite simply, to rid them of that image they had ¾or to try to rid them of that image¾ of being covert, of being special services. All of the things we have described here, were, up to the beginning of the 80s, carried out directly by the CIA, that is the special services, on the orders of the U.S. government.

The National Endowment for Democracy’s projects ¾ as we already know, gets money from the U.S. government plus the odd private donation, but most of the money comes from the U.S. government¾ had two important stages concerning Cuba. A first stage lasting from NED’s foundation in 1983 until the fall of the Soviet Union in September 1991. Until that date, almost all of NED’s money went to the Cuban-American National Foundation, the CANF. For example, between 1986 and 1987 they gave the Foundation $110, 000.

There is something odd that I want to draw your attention to here. There is a study by Professor John Spencer Nichols, of the University of Pennsylvania, which made some calculations. Look at this scam. How much money did the Cuban-American National Foundation receive from NED? This money goes from the U.S. government to NED and from NED to the Cuban-American National Foundation. Between 1983 and 1988 the Foundation received $380,000 from NED, that is, from the government. And in that same time period the Cuban-American National Foundation contributed exactly $380,000 to the campaigns of politicians to whom they wanted to give money, those who later backed their projects. It is very curious that the same amount of money that came from the government to the Foundation went into the campaigns of politicians sympathetic to the Foundation’s interests, or vice-versa. That is a study published by John Spencer Nichols, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Now, in 1990, the Soviet Union falls and a second stage begins. When I say a second stage begins, I mean that what they had been doing is stepped up, both the money and the activities. For example, between 1991 and 1992 alone, the $110,000 that, as you remember, they gave to the Foundation between 1983 and 1987 increased to $240, 750. The money began to double almost immediately.

Next I am going to tell you about some individual years to illustrate what this foundation, NED, began to do vis à vis Cuba.

Between 1990 and 1998 it supported 80 different projects, projects as different as funding publications.

For example, Encounter with Cuban Culture is a magazine paid for with NED’s money and naturally, with money that comes from the U.S. government according to the data and statistics I have here. I’ll tell you later how much money they gave them.

They also organized “international events”, all those events there have been about transitions, about how to take capitalism to Cuba, etcetera, paid for with NED’s money.

Another item about the use of their money reads as follows: “Monetary Aid and Delivery” These are the salaries for the United States’ hired hands in Cuba.
I am talking about the factions.

“Compiling information annually”; this is for the denouncements and testimonies that are given every year in Geneva. You know, there is even one of those Cuban hired-hands who earns a living making lists and subtracts numbers and adds numbers. There are two brothers, I believe, who make lists, and well, just imagine, there is plenty of money for list making.

“Obtaining information about what the groups in Cuba do”. In other words how are the hired hands behaving, they have to be supervised.

“Sending emissaries to Cuba who travel as tourists, to contact and supply the groups with money and in kind”. In other words, they are giving them money and they are also giving them things in kind, they have done both.

To pay for all of this, between 1990 and 1998 ¾ I think it was you, Randy, who said just now that we here never know exactly how much money is involved, one thing is what is said in the items in the budget, but since there are private donations and other money too, nothing is ever completely clear ¾ well, between 1990 and 1998 they spent over $6 million on all of this stuff.

Now, let’s look at some specific years and projects so that you get an idea of what the U.S. taxpayers’ money is being used for.

In 1995, for example, they gave some of those $6 million to the Free Trade Union Institute. This is an institute for creating unions, I am not going to say any more, over the last few days we have already explained what they want to set up, what kind of union. It is not a question of forming a union but of giving money to anyone who is trying to bring down the Cuban government, who opposes it, they might put the name of a union or any old name they feel like.

Another one: Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe. And what does this item say? This is pretty weird. “Sending pro-democracy activists from eastern and central Europe to Cuba” that was approved in 1995 and then, as time went by, it began to materialize; we have seen cases of Czechs, Poles, Latvians, etcetera, etcetera.

Other years I want to tell you about are1997 and 1998.

For example, in those two years $61,363 were given to the Institute for Cuban Studies, which among other things, funded a five day seminar organized by that magazine “Encounter with Cuban Culture” on “A Comparative Perspective on Cuba’s Past and Present”. This included, naturally, a per diem for the participants. Everyone understands what I am talking about; those $61,000 included per diems for those who were going to present papers at that seminar.

That year they also gave $55,000 to the Cuban Committee for Human Rights. That’s Bofill. Imagine giving $55,000 of the U.S. government’s money to Bofill. Look at just how irresponsible they can be with their own money, even if you look at it from the point of view of wanting to bring down the Cuban government. Giving $55,000 to Bofill, you have to be dumb!

Now, in 1999 they gave $182, 000 for trips to Cuba by emissaries and for money delivery. Where is that $182, 000? In the pockets of the factions’ Cuban hired hands. It’s in here, this is a document from the National Endowment for Democracy (Holds it up) this is money from the U.S. government.

In one single year they gave $182,000 to the factions here, to line their pockets, because it doesn’t say in here what it’s for specifically: “I’m giving you $10,000 to go out into the streets to protest”, I’m giving you $5,000 to present this or that. No, there’s nothing specific: they give them money and they spend it as they please.

I think it was Dr. Hevia, was it you, Doctor? who explained here several times about the restaurants, food and things it gets spent on. Was it? I remember having heard you give details about that, I mention this because in one year alone that was $182,000 pocket money.

In one year alone they gave $80,000 to the Encounter with Cuban Culture magazine, so those who publish in the Encounter with Cuban Culture magazine must know that they received money from the U.S. government.

And to top it off, they gave Bofill another $65,000, they increased Bofill’s salary by $10,000. Really, it’s insane to give $65,000 of the U.S. taxpayers’ money to Ricardo Bofill. But, well, that’s the way it goes.

Finally I would like to share four ideas with you.

First, all this activity implies ignorance about the Cuban government and Cuban legislation. The U.S. government just doesn’t get it that there is a government here, that there are laws in this country. That’s the first idea.

Secondly, you can see that it’s made evident here that the real objective of all of this is to overthrow a government. Anything that smacks of opposition and of overthrowing a government receives money.

Thirdly, what is needed is someone who has the courage to tell a U.S. taxpayer, a citizen who pays tax on his or her income, what that money is used for; to tell that person that the money ends up in the hands of Bofill and of the hired hands in Cuba; someone who tells them, “look, we are giving a part of your taxes to Ricardo Bofill Pagés” and then see what that tax-paying farmer or mechanic says.

Lastly ¾and this, in my opinion, is an idea that should be given more thought ¾ we have all said and we all know that the money leaves Washington and goes to Miami, to New York, to all those groups and most of it goes no further. We have said that there are offices, fax machines, cars, telephones, salaries, secretaries, events, etcetera; that most of the money goes no further. The $182,000 is the smallest part of this money.

So I ask myself two questions: Who can give me a guarantee that the money that went to the Cuban-American National Foundation, most of which went no further, was not used in one of the terrorist acts carried out by the Cuban-American National Foundation? How can they guarantee that the money that was sent to Posada Carriles, to Panama, to Alberto Hernández’ ¾presently Foundation president¾ office, is not part of that money? Who guarantees that this money is not used for terrorist activities? If you give money to these people you must know who you are giving it to, how can you offer a guarantee to the U.S. people that you didn’t use with their money to pay for terrorism?

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Randy Alonso. – An organization on the long list we made of organizations in Miami, New York or Washington who receive money from USAID or from NED and from the other organizations who use the U.S. government for funding both the counterrevolutionary mob and the factions in Cuba, is the so-called Dissent Support Group. We have mentioned it more than once; its headquarters are in the United States but it is connected to the counterrevolutionary factions in our country.

Comrade Manuel Hevia is going to give us some details about how much this organization receives and about its top leader.

Manuel Hevia. – Good evening and many thanks, Randy.

I am going to refer briefly to this organization which ¾ as has been clearly said ¾ is one of the twenty odd organizations that act as intermediaries and as cover for the U.S.’ gigantic subversive plan whose specific purpose is to provide financial support for counterrevolutionary factions in Cuba.

I would like, when I refer to this organization, to link it to another of these organizations ¾also a member of that big group to which you have referred; the self-proclaimed Institute for Democracy in Cuba¾ and then to link these two organizations to a character who has a long history, first as a terrorist and then in various subversive actions of another sort: Francisco Hernández Trujillo.

Francisco Hernández Trujillo, known as Frank Hernández Trujillo, has ties to and for some time now has acted as the president of the so-called Dissent Support Group, as a director of the Institute for Democracy in Cuba and is a typical terrorist turned into a prosperous board member in the Miami business of counterrevolution against Cuba.

Currently, Frank Hernández Trujillo is putting all his efforts into these two organizations which maintain an intense program of subversive activity against Cuba.

Hernández Trujillo was born in Havana in 1942. In 1960 he emigrated to the United States after taking refuge in a Latin American embassy; between October 1962 and April 1963 he was already an active member of the U.S. army’s “Special Cuban Units” which were being trained to invade Cuba. From there he moved over to the reserves after being awarded the National Service medal although he never saw active service.

He is presently chairman of the board of directors of the self-proclaimed Dissent Support Group a Miami-based counterrevolutionary front organization, which carries out all sorts of activities, and as we have said here, receives special funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Dissent Support Group was registered in Florida in March 1995 as a non-profit corporation set up to provide logistical support to groups of “dissidents in Cuba”, i.e. counterrevolutionary groups. It is a prime example of one of those inventions, we have to call them something, trying or pretending to be a non-governmental organization. The traditional intelligence services invented them as front organizations to do subversive work, in this case against Cuba.

The Institute for Democracy in Cuba (IDIC) is an umbrella group made up of 10 Miami counterrevolutionary organizations which have received, as we have repeatedly said here, a million dollars from USAID for a program of internal subversion against Cuba. In other words, both the DSD (Dissident Support Group) and the Institute for Democracy in Cuba are front organizations which are part of the mechanism involved in an attempt to foster counterrevolution in Cuba; they are the two which receive the most money. One of them, the institute for Democracy in Cuba gets $1 million in funding and the Dissent Support Group gets $1,200, 000; they have been getting this in several installments.

Frank Hernández Trujillo was also a member of the so-called Cuban-American Military Council, was on its board of directors as well as on that of another terrorist-type organization in the United States, the Cuban-American Veterans Association

According to comments doing the rounds in certain Miami counterrevolutionary circles close to Frank Hernández Trujillo ¾and this is something typical of many in the top leadership of these organizations¾ he worked for the CIA some years ago and that he is still linked to that organization.

Furthermore, Frank Hernández Trujillo keeps in close contact with the petty chieftains of counterrevolutionary factions in Cuba; he sends emissaries to them with orders, money, telephone equipment, fax machines, computers and all kinds of equipment to promote and encourage subversive actions inside the country.

I should also like to give more details about the so-called Institute for Democracy in Cuba. This institute was set up in September 1996. It too is a non-profit organization and is made up of a group of counterrevolutionary organizations. I am going to name some of them so that you have an idea of its nature. For example, at the beginning those founding and comprising it were the so-called Cuba Agenda, Cuban Alliance, Cuban-American Veterans Association (CAVA), which I mentioned a few moments ago, the Association of Cuban former-Political Prisoners and Combatants and the Miami Medical Team Foundation which has also been mentioned many times at these Round Tables and which, as we all know, has close, long standing ties to the Cuban-American National Foundation.

This organization’s platform, drawn up and submitted to USAID in 1996 is primarily directed at helping the so-called “dissent movement in Cuba”; at promoting something called “ a peaceful transition to capitalism”, “representative democracy” and the establishment of a “free market economic system”. This type of program is only what could be expected from the kind of organizations which are its members. The program, of course, implies support and funding for counterrevolutionary groups inside Cuba, providing information and support materials to the “internal opposition” ¾translation, creating propaganda to be smuggled clandestinely into our country for distribution to those groups¾ creating a network of opposition members throughout the length and breadth of our country, in other words, to improve communications between the various groups; to give material and financial aid to counterrevolutionary prisoners and to share so-called experiences of the transition to a free market economic system in formerly socialist countries.

At these Round Tables we have looked at some of those emissaries sent to Cuba from various former socialist countries. One component of their mission has been to speak about the collapse of socialism in those countries.

This, Randy, is what I can tell you, about these two organizations; they are obviously subversive and act as front organizations in this gigantic plan for subversion against our country.

Randy Alonso. – Yes, Hevia, that is the big lie involved in that so-called peaceful change those people want. They are talking about funding via an organization whose president is a well-known terrorist, who has been a member of terrorist organizations and has provided money for terrorist actions against our country.

It’s as Taldrid was saying; no one knows where the money goes, but what we do know for sure is that some of this money has also been used to pay for the terrorist actions against our country which this Round Table has been denouncing these last few days.

In addition to this Dissident Support Group, another group we have often mentioned as being one that swims in this flood of money for the Cuban counterrevolution is one called the Center for a Free Cuba, an organization with a long counterrevolutionary record; today it has explicit direct ties to the U.S. power structure.

Lázaro Barredo can tell us about it.

Lázaro Barredo. - I think that Frank Calzón who is the chairman of this Center for a Free Cuba must be feeling really frustrated. Frank Calzón who was recruited by the CIA when he was still at university at the end of the 60s; Frank Calzón who joined Alpha-66 and Abdala, two notorious terrorist organizations
¾ and we are not the only ones who call them that, FBI officers do too. Nevertheless, Calzón has made his life the most telling example of how to make one’s living from the Anti-Cuban industry, always at Cuba’s expense, from the policy of subverting order in Cuba, of popularizing the fabrication of a counterrevolutionary opposition and he in fact has always made his living in that way.

At the end of the 70s he was involved with some characters like Humberto Medrano,¾ we said a lot about him when we were talking about Radio Martí and about all the trouble there was when Radio Martí started up. We also spoke about a woman called Elena Mederos y Siro del Castillo, people who made their living from the famous human rights [campaign] at the beginning of the 70s, keeping up a systematic smear campaign.

Many of these organizations received money from that. Later he was on a committee of intellectuals for the freedom of Cuba to go up against a youth movement that had been formed in Areíto magazine ¾Muñoz Varela came out of that movement and a group of young people who were here at the end of the 70s. Then he joined the Foundation, he and terrorists Jorge Mas Canosa and Francisco “Pepe” Hernández founded the Cuban-American National Foundation. He was the first executive director of the Foundation; he and Mas Canosa were rivals for the leadership.

Mas Canosa made an arrangement with the thug, Esteban Ventura Novo and in that struggle for the leadership Mas Canosa one day made an innovative change to Calzón’s last name, turning it into a typically Cuban word ¾all Cubans will know what it was¾ and managed to throw Calzón out of the Foundation. Nevertheless Calzón immediately found work in a big press campaign directed against the Revolutionary Armed Forces and against Comrade Fidel, and immediately joined Freedom House. He was at Freedom House, in the Cuba Program. Clinton went there and gave a great deal of support to this group of which Frank Calzón was part. Then finally, once again involved in a leadership struggle, he left Freedom House and with the support of the U.S. extreme right then founded the Center for a Free Cuba. The goal was the same, to receive funding from USAID and from NED and to start to live off that; promoting human rights, promoting internal counterrevolution, promoting movements in the international community, as we have mentioned here, the Czechs, the Poles, all those problems. He gathers some notorious characters round him: Otto Reich, who could not turn up, he has a lot of ties to Frank Calzón; Mrs. Kirkpatrick, the ambassador who is one of the figureheads of the U.S. extreme right.

Randy Alonso. – Otto Reich was on the board of directors of this organization and, as the new Undersecretary of State for Latin America is still on excellent terms with Calzón.

Lázaro Barredo. – Excellent terms…others in his circles are Susan Kauffman a top board member along with Modesto Maidique and some other characters, Néstor Carbonell, Carlos Saladrigas, Filberto Agusti, we have discussed all of them here, given their pedigrees. In the Research Council there are also Cubalogists, intellectuals and various people with connections to anti-Cuban activities. For example, there’s Malcolm Falcoff, who is the extreme right personified, as is Susan Kauffman Porcel, from the American Enterprise Institute. You also have Edward González of the Rand Corporation. Then another one who was bound to turn up, James Suslicki from the University of Miami, Mas Canosa and the Cuban-American National Foundation’s coordinator of academic activities. In other words, all these characters immediately gathered round Frank Calzón, and not for nothing, he has received $2,249,709 exactly, according to USAID’s accounting ¾ Americans are very precise about such things¾ just via USAID, for all of those projects we have been talking about.

A sorry lot has fallen to him, which is why I said he must be feeling really frustrated, because all his plans always come to nothing and the sorry lot left to him is that of political sergeant because now he has to send money to be distributed, $50 per capita to all of the hired hands he has here in Cuba. The money NED gives him for a year he afterwards distributes among all the scoundrels he has here doing various jobs.

He has brought a famous character back on the scene. He’s now in Puerto Rico. Calzón is giving Carlos Franqui money ¾we should look at how these guys were connected in the 60s shouldn’t we?¾ to pay for an anti-Cuban magazine he (Franqui) is publishing in Puerto Rico. He is one of the people who have done research, promoting, for example ideas of how to step up radio Martí’s broadcasts, how to provide support for Cubans living abroad so they can become the nucleus of the subversive projects developed by the Center for a Free Cuba.

In the end, Randy, it is the same old story, living off at the expense of the subversion against Cuba.

Randy Alonso. - Thanks, Lázaro for your comments.

Another of the organizations which has benefited from these multimillion dollar sums the U.S. government has allocated for subversion against the Cuban people, including the Czech adventures and other adventures our people know about, is something called Freedom House. I’m going to ask Rogelio Polanco to tell us about that.

Rogelio Polanco. - Freedom House has been linked to the incidents with some east European mercenaries as you mentioned, Randy. It is a non-governmental organization, was founded in Washington in 1941 and its aim from its inception, according to its mission statement, is to strengthen free institutions in the United States and other countries. Well, we know the concept of freedom that organizations like this have, especially when in 1995 it decided to design a program for a free Cuba ¾ that is the free Cuba sponsored by the U.S. government. The main goal was to cultivate what they call democratic civil society in Cuba, the translation of that, as we Cubans well know, is “overthrow the Cuban Revolution”.

Another of this program’s objectives’ is to get the international community interested in supporting a peaceful solution in Cuba. This qualification always turns up in the goals of many of these U.S. organizations.

Frank Calzón ¾ Lázaro was talking about him¾ was the man appointed to head this program, he held that position until 1997 when he left that organization. He made himself responsible for sending some of those characters whose specific mission was to accomplish what we have been talking about ¾ USAID giving money to these institutions¾ that is, delivering the equipment and money personally to the counterrevolutionaries in our country.

To remind us, Randy, I have some examples here of the times when Freedom House and especially Frank Calzón were involved in such instances in his subversion program and examples of direct funding for counterrevolutionaries in Cuba with the U.S. government’s money.

In July 1995 U.S. citizens Adam Rosch Davison and George Erwin Sledge came to Cuba sent by Frank Calzón. They had instructions to contact the petty chieftains of the counterrevolutionary factions in Cuba and to give them medicines, food and money. I’ll get to how much and to whom in a minute.

In January 1996, on Frank Calzón’s suggestion, John Sweeney, from the Heritage Foundation, traveled to Cuba as a “tourist” to deliver a list of dollars with names and surnames. Naturally, it had to be signed afterwards because it was the proof that they received the money; the list has the names of some of these characters.

In April 1996, Joszed Szaer came to Cuba on a similar mission. He is a Hungarian dissident ¾ they called him to come¾ and head of the parliamentary group FIDES. He delivered money, tape recorders and computer diskettes sent by Frank Calzón to the petty chieftains of the factions. And this is where the eastern European connection begins. Since it became obvious that Americans didn’t want to be associated with delivering money personally, well, they looked for an eastern European connection. It is a bit like what they did later on in the Commission on Human Rights, seeking out the Czechs to submit the made-in-U.S.A. product against Cuba. They did the same thing here, they sought out renegade representatives from eastern Europe to come to Cuba and play the role of mercenaries.

In April 28,1997 the commercial attaché at the Czech embassy in Havana, Petr Pribik, delivered money and supplies sent from the United States by Frank Calzón to several counterrevolutionaries. They were by then already looking for a direct representative in those diplomatic missions who would be available for these acts of subversion.

In August 1997 David Norman Dom, a U.S. union activist was arrested in Cuba. Traveling as a “tourist”, he had delivered money to the counterrevolutionary petty chieftains on behalf of Freedom House.

In June 2000 a Rumanian, Cornel Ivanciuc ¾ now the Rumanians are involved too, as we will remember¾ and a Pole, Anna Krystyna came to Cuba after having met in Washington with Freedom House, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department. The purpose of these meetings was to analyze aid to the so-called “independent libraries in Cuba” which are far from being either libraries or independent.

While they were in the United States, Frank Calzón instructed them to go to Cuba as emissaries carrying material aid for a group of counterrevolutionaries there. This mission was organized and financed by Freedom House. And this is where the orders that these must be covert actions come in. In other words, this is when everything turns totally illegal, into intelligence operations to try to flout Cuban authorities. This naturally makes them into completely subversive emissaries against our country, something that would not be allowed in any country in the world.

In August 2000 Douglas Schimmel, an American tourist visited Cuba. A list verifying the amount of money given to the petty chieftains was found on him. He admitted that he had met with Frank Calzón on July 24, 2000 and that the latter had given him a list of counterrevolutionaries to whom money was to be delivered.

More recently, in the November 2000 case ¾one of the ones Taladrid spoke of¾ this was the case of the Latvians, Anda Celma and Bladis Abols, who had received money and instructions from Frank Calzón and Roberto Pontichera, program director at Freedom House, to visit Cuba to find out what was going on with the so-called opposition.

He gave them a list of people to contact and suggested they should give a lecture on the transition process in Latvia. And this is where trying to apply to Cuba what was done in eastern Europe comes in. But in Cuba’s case it has turned out very badly for them.

In January 2001, the famous visit of Czech “tourists” Ivan Pilip and Jan Bubenik, takes place ¾a lot of information was given about it at the time and our people learned all about it. When they were arrested these two said they had been given instructions and were paid by Freedom House, with Robert Pontichera as intermediary.

These are just some of the times when this organization, which receives money from the U.S. government for subversion against Cuba was caught red handed in its subversive acts in Cuba. The proof is there, the names of those they were coming to give money to are there, the time and the supplies they were coming to give them and the foreign nationals whom they used for these subversive acts in Cuba are there. This effectively shows yet again that these institutions use U.S. taxpayers’ money for subversion in our country.

Randy Alonso. – Yes, Polanco, and it is not only in the United States, this funding, this search for ways to generate subversive activity against our country has spread to other countries, mostly in Latin America.

In Spain, even, a few days ago, on May 23, after President Bush’s speech, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada published an article by journalist James Cason and David Brooks, their U.S. correspondents. The headline read “Mexico, the base of a U.S. anti-Castro group” and the subheading read ”It is funded by the White House and is part of a group or an official program to undermine the Cuban government”.

One of the things this article by the two La Jornada correspondents says is that: “Following President George Bush’s announcement this week about increasing what he defined as direct aid to the Cuban people via non-governmental organizations, these anti-Cuban groups’ activities in Mexico, according to U.S. functionaries, must be going to receive more money.

“ Although no functionary was prepared to give details of the new anti-Castro efforts, in Mexico in particular, White House officials this week said that their government hopes to be able to increase funding for opposition groups, in Cuba, in the United States and in countries like Mexico and Spain.

“ It is possible to learn how these initiatives work by reviewing the activities that the United States has funded in other countries through NGOs and in civil society-based campaigns.

Between 1996 and 2000, the U.S. government gave grants of $6,419,275 to 15 NGOs and three universities which support dissidents in Cuba.

Last year Washington gave another $5 million for these activities and is proposing to spend the same amount this year.

“An evaluation of the program by the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers reports that in 2001 a large part of this money remained in the United States, most of it with Miami based groups who make vague efforts to support anti-Castro activities.”

A bit further on the article says:

“Gillian Gunn Klitsow, a professor at Trinity College, Washington and expert in relations with Cuba thinks that these program have more to do with U.S. politics that with change in Cuba. However, these criticisms have done nothing to dissuade Bush who said last Monday: “My administration will relax the restrictions on humanitarian assistance provided by U.S. religious and other non-governmental organizations which directly serve the needs of the Cuban people and which help to build Cuban civil society, and the United States will give these groups direct aid which they can use for humanitarian and business activities”.

“Before announcing his Cuba policy this week” ¾La Jornada said¾ Bush had spoken on the phone with Presidents Vincente Fox, Ricardo Lagos of Chile and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil to give them advance news of what he was going to say and in his speech he asked other countries in the hemisphere to use their influence with the Cuban government to persuade it to allow free and impartial elections for the National Assembly and to promote real, significant and verifiable reforms.”

Last week the New York Times reported that the Bush administration intends to ask other countries in Europe and America, Mexico and Spain in particular, to help generate support for the critics of Castro’s government; but apparently”, La Jornada said, “Bush’s administration is not only seeking to promote this line with other governments.

“According to PriceWaterhouse’s review of the 2001 Aid Program to NGOs, U.S. government funds have also been channeled into supporting a network of solidarity committees set up in several Latin American countries and coordinated by a Miami-based organization called Directorio Revolucionario Democratico Cubano (Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Directorate).

“According to federal Treasury Department documents, this organization received 89% of its budget from the U.S. federal government.

“When La Jornada contacted the Directorate’s offices in Miami to ask for information about its activities in Mexico, one of its representatives confirmed that they had worked with Mexican groups and groups in other Latin American countries. However, they declined to give names of those in charge or information on how to contact them.

“Nevertheless, La Jornada has learned from their tax returns that the Directorate has set up offices for their solidarity committees in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Argentina.

“According to U.S. federal government tax form 990, which NGOs must submit to federal tax authorities, the Directorate spent $46,000 in 1999 and another $65,000 in 2000 on expenses for the Mexican office. However, PriceWaterhouse’s report offers more details on these activities and describes how the Directorate worked with the so-called Committee for Solidarity in Mexico and other groups shortly before the 1999 Ibero-American Summit in Havana to organize anti-Castro activities.

In another part of the article it reads, “Other activities in Mexico organized with the help of U.S. funds through the Directorate in Miami include a meeting outside the Cuban embassy in Mexico City on May 23, 1999.”

These are some of the revelations the Mexican paper La Jornada has published recently which show the methods used to channel U.S. government’s so-called financial support to counterrevolutionary factions and to the anti-Cuban mob in our country.

There was an interesting note in the last few days amongst all the handing out of money going on these days in the United States with this call President Bush made in Miami for an increase in the funding to counterrevolutionary factions and to the anti-Cuban mob. Mr. Joe Carollo has added his voice to the demands for money, to the money orgy going on in Miami. He is claiming that his golden handshake from his job as mayor of Miami, Florida, that his retirement pay ¾ as we might say¾ is not enough, and that if money is being handed out, then please give him a bit more too.

This is the way this TV report puts it.

Journalist. – And the amount of former mayor of Miami, Joe Carollo’s pension has not been well received either. Carollo will get a $112,000 per year pension for the rest of his life, considerably more than his salary as mayor, which was $97,000.

Some community leaders are wondering why this pension is higher than the one set by a review committee before Carollo’s term was up, but, according to the Miami Herald, Carollo thinks that he deserves a fat pension because, according to him, he saved the city of Miami.

Randy Alonso. – Well, we already know what salvation he is talking about. And it’s true that Carollo’s troubles haven’t ended, because he’s tied up in the Miami courts in divorce proceedings with his wife, after the alleged blow on the head with the teapot.

Well, it seems he is asking for an increase [to pay for] this court case.

Over and above the anecdote, the view of how the Miami mob lives and how money provides the leitmotiv of all its activities, there is a very important aspect to all this funding and support for the counterrevolutionary factions in our country. We not only have the activities of counterrevolutionary mob in Miami, we not only have these organizations in Washington and New York channeling funds to the U.S.’ hired hands in our country, we also have the role ¾ the very important role¾ played by the U.S. Interests Section in our country.

I suggest Reinaldo Taladrid tells us about this.

Reinaldo Taladrid. – The last time I spoke about the USIS here I mentioned that as a diplomatic mission they are guilty of seven mortal sins. But the dialectic is very strong and working on this today, the list of sins has increased to 9 apart from those other 7. And, well, I would like to share them with you.

For example, the U.S. Interests Sections in Cuba, a diplomatic mission:

1. Funds illegal groups whose aim is to bring down the legally constituted Cuban government.

Firstly, a diplomatic mission cannot give money to any local group in any country and far less to an illegal group, a group, moreover, that openly or covertly sets itself the goal of bringing down the legitimate government.

If there are still any doubts about this, whether the Interest Section does or does not give money, I am going to ask you to replay the video of a ceremony which took place in the University of Miami a short while ago, in February of this year. (The video is screened.) At this ceremony the U.S. government’s money is being given to something which is called “Cuban Transition Project” ¾ we have already explained that they are giving more than one million and forty five thousand dollars to the University of Miami¾ in other words, how the Cuban government is going to change, how to overthrow the Cuban government. So, those attending were, look, “the big bad she-wolf” Ileana Ros, smiling; next to her Adolfo Franco who was one of her hired hands but is now the person at USAID in charge of handing out money for all of Latin America. Then, look, just behind Franco is none other than the head of the U.S. Interests Section, Mrs. Vicky Huddleston, there at that ceremony. At the ceremony she said that she guaranteed that this money would get to those it was intended for, down to the very last cent.

If the Interests Section is not involved in handing our money to illegal groups in Cuba why did she say at that ceremony that she guaranteed that this money would get to those it was intended for, down to the very last cent? One or other of these statements is untrue, but what is clear is that the Interests Section is involved in this.

2. The U.S. Interests Section in Cuba gives material supplies, not just money, to these illegal groups whose aim is to overthrow the Cuban government. They give them all kinds of propaganda, all kinds of books and they also give them the tools to do all that work. Well, if you have hired hands, you have to give them the tools to do their job because if you don’t what will the hired hand do, where will they write, what will they do? In other words, they provide their hired hands with tools and with propaganda.

3. They ask their local hired hands for a great deal of information that has nothing to do, not even remotely, with the excuses they use for all of this; that if democracy, if the struggles, that if policy etcetera, economic information and suchlike, that has nothing to do with that. What is that called in good Cuban?
I leave it to you.

4. In that Interests Section office and that U.S. Interests Section building there is an enormous amount of technical equipment which has nothing to do with the diplomatic work of a diplomatic mission; technical equipment to listen in, to record, etcetera. As far as I know, that is not used in the work of improving relations between the two countries or for doing diplomatic work or the things a diplomatic mission is meant for. What I will tell you, what I always say, don’t even think of phoning on a cell phone in this country because they are listening in and recording all the time.

5. To give you an idea: between 1998 and 2000, 540 [U.S.] functionaries visited Cuba as temporary functionaries. 30% of those U.S. functionaries who visited Cuba, the Interests Section here, were identified as officers of U.S. special services, who came to… look at Cuban nature? What did so many special services officers come here to do? It’s a good question for the Interests Section to answer.

6. The U.S. Interests Section has used and abused the visits that Cuba, as a unilateral gesture of good will, because it is not stipulated in the agreement, has allowed them to make to the places to which people are returned under the provisions of the immigration agreements.

Since they go to those places and are now bored with verifying that there are no reprisals and that nothing happens, they have started to use these visits for two things. The first is to study and recruit new hired hands; they have begun to look for where there might be a breeding ground for new hired hands. The second is to continue looking for information which has nothing to do with going there to verify if there were or weren’t reprisals ¾ and there haven’t been¾ against the citizens who are returned under the provisions of the immigration agreements.

7. They have made a permanent job ¾ this is Pi, a constant¾ of torpedoing as many as possible of the good will visits that U.S. citizens make or try to make to Cuba. This includes preventing or trying to prevent a ship carrying students from coming here. There’s no way they want it to come, but when it does arrive and they can’t stop it from coming, then they do everything possible to prevent them meeting Cubans and even more to prevent a meeting with Comrade Fidel. That’s their great fear, it’s as if Fidel were a snake charmer. But it’s simply that he tells the truth and they are afraid of the truth because he doesn’t tell them anything but the truth and they have done unspeakable things around that.

8. They not only try to stop meetings and to block visits; if Americans comes to Cuba for their own completely legitimate purposes, even if they come in a legal capacity, with authorization, then they call them and oblige them, force them to meet with them, there in the Interests Section. They give them their view of Cuba, they give them material that is called Cuba Update, although the visitors have not asked for it.

For example, a group of orthopedic surgeons came to a congress on orthopedics and they immediately went to look for them, they took them to the Interests Section, they began to talk to them about things. The doctors, the orthopedic surgeons, who had come to talk about orthopedics pretty soon got mad because they asked what was going on and said that they were even going to complain about their behavior as diplomats in that office, as Americans. They force this on them.

But they impose these meeting not only on doctors. They employ another variant when U.S. politicians or politicians from other countries come. They use their local hired hands and they force them to have meetings with these visitors. This is not even very ethical because if a senator comes or a politician you can’t arrange a meeting with one of your hired hands, because you know what views the hired hand is offering. This is self-poisoning; this U.S. politician who came to learn about the situation in Cuba arranging a meeting with a hired hand, with someone I am paying, I know what that person will say this is self-polluted information.

9. The last one is new, Randy. Now the U.S. Interests Section is waging local political campaigns in the United States. That is indeed new and if you can replay the video for me, ah there it is (The video is screened). What is the head of diplomatic mission doing at a local event in Miami, before May 20, before the Florida gubernatorial elections, an event, quite simply, to celebrate giving U.S. government money to institutions in Miami? What is she doing there? She is doing local politics, she is campaigning for the re-election of Jeb Bush, she is working for his local political campaign. This is really something new they have brought in.

To end, the best definition, [of what they do] is a little honest Freudian slip. It came, I think, in an interview with the foreign press given by a group of functionaries from the U.S. Interests Section and I am going to quote. They said, ”The support we give them ¾ the are referring to their local hired hands, the factions¾ “ is only moral support and sometimes we give them snacks although we also give them aspirins and pens”, It will be History’s responsibility to see what those words mean.

Randy Alonso. – Thanks, Taladarid.

The final destination of this long chain, whose links are the many who swim in the money from the U.S. budget, is the counterrevolutionary factions in our country, the hired hands of the U.S. Interests Section and of the U.S. government. Here are Manuel Hevia’s comments on the funding and support that these factions receive.

Manuel Hevia. – Thanks, Randy.

In today’s Round Table we have given a very clear explanation of the subversive structure of this gigantic operation for funding the counterrevolution in Cuba. It is important now to evaluate exactly how this process works in our country.

In the first place, given the nature of the mercenaries in the counterrevolutionary factions on the U.S. payroll, the U.S. government has found itself obliged, from the word go, to provide them with funding and material supplies. It has not only supplied them, but also, as has been stated here quite clearly¾ the whole structure of subversion which supports this funding work.

So, the centers mentioned here act as the intermediaries with these groups. They provide them with financial, material and logistical supplies; they publicize all sort of events on Cuba in various countries; they pay for magazines and for publishing anti-Cuban propaganda; they also pay for the trips when the emissaries come to our country to do liaison and supply work with these groups and to guarantee the work of the self-proclaimed independent journalists. These, as we all know, are the ones who supply most of the slander and false information to the misnamed Radio Martí. They also supply other libel and are behind many illegal acts.

But that is not all, these centers also make their living from the business of counterrevolution and at the expense of these grants. There are quite a few accusations of misappropriation of these funds ¾ Taldrid told us about them¾ accusations of embezzlement of these funds, about the high salaries of the managerial staff and there are even internal complaints from petty chieftains when they sometimes don’t get the money hey have been promised.

These centers not only send cash to the factions they also send other equipment to make their work easier. They send computers, printers, office equipment, literature and propaganda to be sent to the media.

They use the widest variety of methods to send these supplies. These range from fake tourists ¾ also discussed here¾ who come as emissaries trying to cover up their real mission, to the actual diplomatic bag of the country aiding and abetting these actions that uses this route to bring in propaganda materials afterwards supplied to these groups.

I should like to provide some details about what they do, for even if they do use legal channels to bring in money and other supplies, what they do constitutes an illegal operation.

At the January 24, 2001 Round Table, just a year and four months ago, we said that, according to studies that have been done, it was estimated that between 1993 and 1999 there were more than 325 material and financial supply operations to these factions. We also estimated the amount involved as being several hundred thousand dollars. There were also vast amounts of material goods sent from abroad to these petty chieftains.

Now, it is estimated that between the year 2000 and the present there have been almost as many supply operations, using various channels, as there were between 1993 and 1999. In 2001 alone they were 200 supply operations of this kind. In 2001 alone, that is last year alone, the cash delivered to the petty chieftains of these counterrevolutionary factions is estimated to be over $100,000.

Randy Alonso. – That is the cash.

Manuel Hevia. – I should like to clarify an important point, Randy, The funding brought into Cuba, both in cash and in kind, is invariably delivered here to those petty chieftains, to the ones the Miami mob considers to be the most useful for and most committed to their plans. The amount supplied will of course, depend, to a large extent, on this last point; once it is in the hands of the most important chieftains, it is shared out, at best, as suits them.

The money supplied by U.S. taxpayers after delivery is usually spent in dollar shops on articles for their personal use, perfumes, alcohol, meals in restaurants and “paladars” [private family restaurants that have a 12 seat limit] and on taxis, as has been explained in other Round Tables.

I am going to provide some examples that give the amounts supplied by these Miami mob front organizations.

For example, the self-proclaimed counterrevolutionary journalists, Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, Luis Alberto Rivera Leyva, Oscar Espinosa Chepé, Rafael Ferro Salas, and Eduardo Pérez Arrufa received $12,600 and many other supplies just last year. In that same year, another three chieftains also received about $12,000. This gives us an idea of the amount of money which is flowing directly to many of these people.

In 2001 alone, counterrevolutionaries Rafael Avila Pérez , Carmelo, Díaz Fernández, Lázaro González Gómez and Gladys González Noy also received a total of $4,500.

In August 2000 the petty chieftain, Pedro Alvarez Ramos received $6,000 from an international union organization with ties to the Miami mob. In April of the following year the same man received another $1,000.

In 2001 and 2002 chieftains Raúl Rivero and Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz received thousands of dollars from abroad through different channels and for different ”purposes”. To this must be added computer equipment, office supplies, food and all kinds of propaganda.

Randy Alonso. – There have been prizes created, too, as a way of giving money to these two guys.

Manuel Hevia. - Exactly, Randy.

I should like to give some specific details about these two cases. For example:

June 2000. An emissary coming from abroad delivered approximately $5,000 to Elizardo Sánchez.

April 12, 2002 ¾ just a few weeks ago¾ Frank Hernández Trujillo, whom we were talking about only a few moments ago, had 60 pounds of medicines, ball point pens and other food delivered to chieftain Elizardo Sánchez.

Now for Raúl Rivero. April 2000. Reporters without Borders, another subversive organization, which is well-known and has been involved in all this subversive activity against Cuba for some years now, delivers an undetermined sum of money to this chieftain; it is to be shared between a group of counterrevolutionary prisoners.

November 2001: Raúl Rivero receives several hundred dollars from another Miami organization.

May 2001: Raúl Rivero receives several hundred dollars and some things for his own use from one of those Miami organizations.

January 2001: Raúl Rivero receives a personal computer and a lot of literature.

May 2002: Raúl Rivero receives medicines and various kinds of foodstuffs from none other than Frank Hernández Trujillo.

Between 2001 and the present, chieftain Marta Beatriz Roque has received some $10,000 which has allowed her to buy all sorts of equipment including computers, means of communication, access to the Internet and other personal objects.

The subversive organization, Reporters without Borders this year gave more than $2,500 to members of factions of self-proclaimed “independent journalists’ and that’s not counting a large amount of office supplies, literature and propaganda.

Between 2000 and 2001 the Miami-based organization, New Cuban Press, another recipient of some official U.S. government funds, has given $40,000 to counterrevolutionary press groups.

Guillermo Gortázar of the Hispano-Cuban Foundation, another organization with close ties to the Miami mob also gave $4,200 to another two factions leaders in April last year.

In the last two years, the aforementioned Frank Hernández Trujillo, boss of the Institute for Democracy in Cuba and of the so-called Dissident Support Group, has organized at least 53 supply runs to factions in Cuba using emissaries and other channels. These have brought mostly food and cash.

This chieftain ¾ and I think this is something interesting we should look at¾ went to Washington at the beginning of April this year and met with high ranking State Department Officials in order to report on and to try to solicit more funding for his activities.

Other groups of a decidedly terrorist nature have also been involved in sending money from the United States to these factions. So far this year they too have had several thousand dollars in cash delivered. I shall give you a few examples.

Last January the terrorist José Basulto, of Brothers to the Rescue gave $600 to two factions petty chieftains.

In February last year, Alpha-66 had $1,200 delivered to petty chieftain Elizardo San Pedro Marín, who is in jail in Cuba for carrying out terrorist actions for Alpha-66.

The terrorist organization, 30 democracy Noviembre, gave another $600 this February to chieftains Marcos Lázaro Torres Léon and Mercedes Figueroa. In April this year it gave another $400 to the first named chieftain.

We have, Randy, dozens more examples which would make this list interminable but which would, there is no doubt, show how much money and other supplies are sent to these mercenaries by these front organizations of the Miami mob and the empire.

Randy Alonso. – Organizations, Hevia, which are also expecting a deluge of money to rain down after Mr. Bush’s promises. Some of them have come out with statements saying: “Please, Mr. President, don’t tell them we are your hired hands, don’t say you are sending us money, don’t make us look like your hired hands any more”. Now that everybody knows it is so, there’s no need to say it. However there are others who have come out and said, “No, no, no, there is no need to hide anything here, we want you to keep sending us money”.

We were talking about the Cuba Free Press, that organization which receives some of this funding and which distributes counterrevolutionary information over the Internet. Well, on May 24, 2002, four days after Mr. Bush spoke, it posted a news item on one of its web sites which says: “Opposition members demand the United States give them direct aid”

This news item reads: “Our 6^th of January Civic Movement said that yes we are in favor of U.S. government aid being sent directly to the internal opposition groups, said Bárbaro Antonio Vela Grego, the movement’s president.

“Vela Grego said: “We don’t allow anyone to speak on behalf of the rightwing groups. We support’, Vela Grego added, ‘all the embargo’s measures and we say a loud yes to the aid offered to us by the U.S. government’.”

Anyway, the credo of those counterrevolutionaries, of those counterrevolutionary factions is very easy: strangle the Cuban people and send us as much money as you can. Those are the politics, the credo of the U.S.’ hired hands in Cuba.

I think that is enough information to show the direct connection between the money promised by Mr. Bush, the Miami counterrevolutionary mob and the factions which, acting as a fifth column, work for them in our country.

I thank the panelists who have been with me this evening, and our studio guests.

Fellow Cubans:

One of the main aspects of the aggressive policy against Cuba

re-stated by U.S. President George W. Bush during his mob orgy in Miami on May 20 is an increase in the already massive financial aid to the terrorist anti-Cuban Miami mob and to the counterrevolutionary factions which act as a fifth column in our country for their subversive activity against the Cuban Revolution.

Although 2 million Americans lost their jobs last year because of cutbacks in their companies, although more than 12,000 New Yorkers wander homeless through the Big Apple, although more than 126,000 nursing positions remain unfilled in U.S. hospitals because wages are too low and staffing has been frozen, the U.S. government, brazenly and contemptuous of its own people, allocates tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars to finance the overthrow ¾by any means possible¾ of another country’s legitimate and popular government.

Those chasing the deluge of money promised by Bush are the Miami terrorists who have made a business of terror and profit out of the counterrevolution; the U.S. hired hands in Cuba who try to use their master’s money to live by their wits, as they themselves admit, while they try to carry out the orders of the paymaster.

But Yankee investment is less and less profitable, for while they keep adding zeros to the sums of money they give, the results of their subversive plans against the Cuban nation fail more and more spectacularly.

Meanwhile, from this side of this story, the people of this island, who don’t have vast resources, are improving a thousandfold their education their culture, their awareness and their honor, the undefeatable weapons for winning this battle.

Marti already told us; some have sold out and many are for sale, but a cry of honor can push back those, who with their herd mentality or their appetite for lentils, break ranks as soon as they hear the whip that calls to them, or when they see the table set”

We are still at battle stations.

A very good night to you all.