Russia and Cuba signed a military cooperation agreement, which will allow Russian forces to use Cuban bases for intelligence collection, and other purposes. The Russians paid for it by providing Cuba with a $350 million line of credit (for the purchase of Russian goods.) Cuba has not been able to get credit for years because they have defaulted on so many debts. Currently, Cuba owes Russia over $20 billion for past purchases. Source: Strategy Page
Sphere: Related ContentYou are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2006.
Russia will provide Cuba with a 10-year $355 mln loan with interest at 4% per year, Russia’s prime minister said Thursday. Mikhail Fradkov signed a Russian-Cuban intergovernmental agreement earlier Thursday. He said the credit will be used to finance the delivery of Russian goods and services to the socialist Caribbean country in 2006-08. Fradkov said the intergovernmental agreement identified seven areas in which the credit will be used: investment cooperation projects, modernization of Cuba’s energy sector, reconstruction of water conservation facilities and railroads, the design and delivery of air navigation systems, and the modernization of the transportation system. The two countries also signed a military cooperation agreement. The two met privately and did not speak to the press about the encounter. But Alexander Bochanov, the press liaison at the Russian Embassy in Havana, said that Russia had agreed to restructure some $166 million of debt acquired in recent years. Source: AP; Ria Novosti
Cuba has fired the heads of two of the country’s most influential companies in a bid to bring the computing and telecommunications enterprises back under firm state control amid a national anti-corruption drive, industry sources said on Monday. Information Technology and Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes, 74, a former revolutionary hero, took over the sensitive sector that controls communist Cuba’s communications, computing, Internet and software development late last month. His was acting president Raul Castro’s sole ministerial appointment since he took over temporarily from his brother Fidel Castro on July 31 after the latter underwent intestinal surgery. The shake-up at the companies did not appear to be aimed at opening up the sector to foreign capital or to information and entertainment from outside the country, said the foreign and local sources, all of whom wished to remain anonymous. They said Valdes was unhappy with the independence shown by some company directors and their inability to rein in subordinates despite an ongoing drive to increase state control over the economy, improve efficiency and fight corruption. Cuban President Fidel Castro declared war on corruption a year ago, warning it could undo his 1959 revolution. Together with his brother Raul, Castro mobilized youth and Communist Party stalwarts to root out corrupt practices within the state bureaucracy, leading to widespread sackings in recent months. Valdes fired the president of Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba SA (Etecsa), Jose Antonio Fernandez, and the vice minister for information, Nelson Ferrer, for failing to control the fixed-line and mobile services monopoly, the sources said. Source: Reuters
Commentary
Ramiro Valdes ascension to head the Ministry of Communication has sparked speculation that Valdes is creating an intelligence apparatus within the ministry. His virtual control of communications, computing, Internet and software development, places him in a powerful position and in direct competition of Fidel Castro’s designated successor, Raul Castro. Valdes capacity to surveil the Cuban nomenclature and military hierarchy is making the ruling elite uneasy and distrustful.
Sphere: Related ContentBi-lateral relations between the governments of Spain and Cuba are at a delicate crossroads as a result of another diplomatic confrontation which remains difficult to assess. In less than a week, the Cuban government has canceled two 
meetings with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to the recent meeting between the Spanish Secretary of State Bernardino León and the internal Cuban dissidence during the Fourteenth Ministerial Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) celebrated in Havana in mid-September in which Spain was invited to attend. A few hours after seeing dissidents of diverse political views in the Spanish Embassy on September 14, the government of Fidel Castro suspended a pre-arranged meeting Bernardino León and Cuban vice-minister Eumelio Caballero. Last week, another reunion between Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque and his Spanish counterpart Miguel Ãngel Moratinos, that was scheduled to take place during the sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, wherein bilateral discussion were to be discussed. Spanish diplomatic sources confirm that both meetings did not take place because of a decision by Cuban authorities. Source: El Pais
A high level military delegation, presided by Division General Charles Richard Mondjo, Chief of the General Staff of the Congolese Armed Forces (FAC) will visit Cuba. During their stay, the delegation will have an ample program of activities which will include visits to military units and a host of cultural and historic sites. Source: Granma
Sphere: Related ContentAccording to a classified assessment conducted by the National Counterintelligence Executive in which unclassified segments are cited in yesterday’s Washington Times’ column Inside the Ring, Cuban mole Ana Belen Montes caused serious damage to US intelligence:
Ana Montes, a Cuban spy working inside the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), caused serious damage to U.S. national security by revealing U.S. electronic intelligence-gathering secrets and also by providing a feedback mechanism for communist disinformation from the Castro regime.The damage is outlined in a classified assessment completed several months ago by the office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, now under the new Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte. It was disclosed this week in the new book by Bill Gertz, Pentagon reporter for The Washington Times, titled, “Enemies: How America’s Foes Are Stealing Our Vital Secrets — And How We Let It Happen.” According to unclassified portions of the assessment, Montes met openly with Cuban intelligence officers at restaurants in the D.C. area as often as twice a week, a rate much more frequently than other spies. Counterintelligence officials determined that the damage caused by Montes was nearly equal to that caused by CIA turncoat Aldrich Hazen Ames and FBI traitor Robert Philip Hanssen, who both spied for Russia. Montes had almost unlimited access to U.S. secrets, including the identities of American intelligence personnel and information that defectors provided to U.S. intelligence. A senior U.S. counterintelligence official familiar with the damage assessment said: “As a career analyst with high-level security clearances, [Montes] had access to virtually unlimited amounts of sensitive data from a number of intelligence community organizations.” She turned down several promotion opportunities to remain as a DIA analyst and keep her access to secrets. The counterintelligence official said that Montes commented during one debriefing she viewed “just about all the information there was about Cuba.” Montes also networked extensively with other civilian and military intelligence officials and agencies, allowing her “to obtain information that was not readily available to the typical analyst,” the official said. She sat with a special interagency intelligence group known as the Hard Target Committee, which would meet to discuss all the intelligence operations under way in the most difficult places, including Iran, China and North Korea. Over the years she had access to hundreds of thousands of intelligence reports, many of which she could re-create because “she had an extraordinary, almost photographic memory,” according to the counterintelligence official. The damage assessment concluded, “Montes was the first national-level analyst from the intelligence community known to have turned traitor and the most damaging Cuban spy arrested to date.” The report noted that Montes “was able to effectively inform the Cubans of the United States information gaps and served as a feedback loop for the Cubans that potentially would facilitate the formulation and execution of a robust denial and deception program at U.S. intelligence.”
The counterintelligence official said: “Her damage was especially grave and affected every major intelligence community organization. She compromised numerous sensitive intelligence collection activities and provided Havana with a unique window into Washington that undoubtedly helped the Cubans chart their tactics and strategy in dealing with Washington.” U.S. officials also think that information she provided to the Cubans led to the deaths of Nicaraguan anti-communist Contra rebels and possibly of American agents as well.
Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba’s foreign minister, said he expects Fidel Castro to be fully back at the helm by early December. Asked whether he expected Fidel to be back in power for the postponed celebration of his 80th birthday on Dec. 2, Perez Roque said Fidel‘s health is improving, “and I have no questions in my mind that we will be able to celebrate his birthday in December as he deserves.” “I have no doubts that his recovery is coming along quite well, and that Fidel will be able to fully devote his time to his duties without any impediments whatsoever,” he said. He also touted the success of the recent summit of the Nonaligned Movement in Havana, where 117 countries pledged to work together to defend international law, oppose pre-emptive military action, and counter U.S. efforts “to impose its designs on the rest” of the world. “When Fidel goes back to fully resume his duties, Raul will continue to be the second man in charge in leading the state, the government and the party,” he said. “We stand ready to move forward, but we‘re not begging to do so as a favor, and we can spend another 1,000 years the same way we are right now,” he said. “We have proved that you can live perfectly well without depending on the United States. Source: AP
Sphere: Related ContentCreative Commons
Addenda
