Posts from — May 2008

A Cuban intelligence officer gives an unprecedented interview to a foreign news organization.

Via AP:

Cuba has documented proof that U.S. officials on the island are delivering private funds to political dissidents in order to undermine the communist government, Cuban officials said Sunday.

Although Cuba has accused U.S. officials of funneling federal funds to dissidents before — a charge Washington has repeatedly denied — Sunday’s accusation is the first to suggest American diplomats are acting as couriers to deliver privately donated cash, outside Washington’s auditing oversight.

Cuban Foreign Ministry and State Security officials made the accusation in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of a detailed accusation they plan to outline at a news conference on Monday. They gave no further details.

An official from the U.S. State Department’s U.S. Interests Section in Havana declined to comment on Sunday and said authorities at the American mission were unlikely to respond until they had seen a detailed denunciation. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have authorization from Washington to speak with the media.

The Cuban officials — Josefina Vidal Ferreira, director of the Foreign Ministry’s North American Department, and Manuel Hevia Frasquieri, director of Cuban State Security’s Historic Investigations Center — declined to name the American officials they accuse of acting as couriers.

They also withheld the name of a “noted terrorist of Cuban origin living in U.S. territory,” whom they claim provided the funds. They declined to say how much money was allegedly involved or who received it.

“It’s a scandalous deed that shows just how far the United States is willing to go to subvert the internal order,” Vidal said. Giving dissidents private cash marks a “qualitative difference” in the way financial support is being channeled to the political opposition on the island, she said.

Cuba’s government has documented proof that officials at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana were involved, Hevia said, suggesting that some of that evidence would be presented, along with other details, at Monday’s late morning news conference.

Cuba has accused officials at the American mission of providing U.S. government funds and material support to the island’s tiny opposition for years. U.S. officials have acknowledged sending books, radios, tape recorders and other items purchased through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which receives government funding, but they have always adamantly denied giving dissidents cash.

During a 2003 crackdown, Cuba charged 75 opposition members with being “mercenaries” working with U.S. officials to overthrow the communist system and sentenced them to long prison terms. Twenty of the original 75 have been released — 16 on medical parole and four into forced exile in Spain.

U.S. officials and dissidents denied those charges.

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The recent reforms enacted by the government of Raul Castro are actually “counter-measures” to restrain the population from further discontent vis-à-vis social and economic factors, which the elites fear may precipitate a combustible spark in society posing a threat to the stability of the monarchic regime.

One prevalent and consistent restriction is access to the global Internet.

AFP reports on Internet access for Cubans:

Cuba’s recent social and economic reforms do not include allowing greater access to the Internet, authorities in the Americas’ only one-party communist state said.

“Cuba is not concerned with the individual connection of its citizens to the Internet,” said deputy minister for Computer Science and Communications, Boris Moreno, on Friday.

“We use the Internet to defend the Revolution and the principles we believe in and have defended all these years,” added Moreno, quoted by the official Prensa Latina news agency. He said preferential access to the Internet went to medical centers, scientific facilities and schools.

Rights groups such as Reporters Without Borders and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission have criticized Cuba for its tight regulation of the Internet.

Internet access is available in some hotel lobbies for short periods of time, but paid for in hard currency. The price is astronomical for most Cubans who earn the equivalent of less than 20 dollars a month.

Cuba blames US sanctions for not allowing more abundant and affordable Internet access, claiming it is forced to use costlier satellite access. But potential capacity may get a boost in a few years with the planned connection to an undersea fiber optic cable by ally Venezuela.

Raul Castro, 76, took over as president in February after his ailing brother Fidel Castro, 81, left Cuba’s helm after almost 50 years as leader.

In March Raul Castro authorized the sale of personal computers to Cubans, and sales began this month, drawing new attention to restrictions on the Internet. Computer sales were banned in 2003 with Cuba blaming a nationwide power shortage.

Raul Castro also has launched other reform measures including allowing Cubans to stay in tourist hotels, take out mobile phone contracts, and buy appliances such as computers, motorbikes and pressure cookers.

The government also is carrying out some farm reforms hoping to boost food production, which Havana calls a top national security issue.

But Cuban authorities have refused to give a travel visa to a Cuban blogger who was to have flown to Spain to receive a top journalism award.

US President George W. Bush on May 7 urged Cuba to free political prisoners, dismissing as “cosmetic” social and economic changes Raul Castro has made since becoming president.

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El Nuevo Herald reports Colombia’s communist guerrilla movement, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - FARC, and the Cuban government in coordination with Venezuela’s army have for the last three years actively participated in the formation of special forces and militia units for “the defense of the Bolivarian revolution” according to documents contained in the computer of deceased guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes.

Interpol issued this week its forensic report on the FARC computers and hardware seized by Colombia.

Accordingly, ‘Based on our careful and comprehensive forensic examination of each of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits and on consideration of all the evidence reviewed by our experts, INTERPOL concludes that there was no tampering with any data on the computer exhibits following their seizure on 1 March 2008 by Colombian authorities,’ said Interpol’s Secretary General Noble.

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Venezuela, Cuba’s patron, is supplying its armed forces with new weaponry. Will this be the advent of a modernization of Cuba’s own armed forces with the financial support and direct supply from Venezuela?

Via Bloomberg:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will order $2 billion of Russian weapons, including submarines, during a visit to Moscow this month, Kommersant reported, without saying where it got the information. Venezuela, which has bought $4 billion of Russian arms in the last three years, will order four Project 636 diesel subs, Mi-28 combat helicopters and airplanes made by Ilyushin Co., Kommersant said.

Chavez is also purchasing arms from China.

Via Malaysia Sun:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has contracted to buy Chinese military training planes, expanding recent arms purchases and cementing ties. Chavez has detailed the order for Chinese K-8 planes, calling them ‘excellent planes for the boys.’ Chavez has said he will continue working on the issue of military equipment through Chinese sources, even though the US has accused him of launching an arms race. Washington has accused Chavez of carrying out an arms spending spree that could destabilize the region.

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Via Bloomberg:

Venezuela supports the entry of Brazil and Cuba into the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as their exploration programs are likely to make them exporters, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula said he wanted Brazil to join the group, less than a year after Chavez first joked about the possibility in the wake of an oil find that may be the biggest in the Americas since 1976. State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA agreed a year ago to explore blocks off Cuba.

Chavez, a long-time advocate of higher oil prices, said Venezuela shouldn’t produce too much oil now as it must safeguard resources for the future. He doesn’t plan to reduce oil sales to the U.S., he said. Venezuela sold the least oil in five years to the world’s largest consumer in March.

Abdalla El-Badri, OPEC’s secretary general, will visit Venezuela to discuss “a variety of topics,” Chavez said, without elaborating further.

El Badri will discuss Venezuela’s oil output in a visit to the country, Dow Jones Newswires reported April 21, citing Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez. The topic is a source of contention, as OPEC uses estimates from outside consultants to gauge its members’ production, while Venezuela wants to report its own number.

OPEC published its individual members’ output targets on the Internet in September and then removed them. Venezuela says it produces 3.3 million barrels a day of oil and condensate. Bloomberg estimates crude output at 2.34 million.

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Brazilian political scientist and diplomat Antonio Rangel Bandeira, a leftist and admirer of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, believes the “reforms” initiated by Cuban leader Raúl Castro is an attempt to establish in Cuba a Chinese model with the support of the military, and considers the regime dependent on the support of Venezuela to sustain itself.

He was interviewed by Argentina’s Diario de Mendoza, click here to read the rest of his comments in Spanish.

[H/T: El Nuevo Herald]

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