Military & Defense

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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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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Fidel Castro in his May 4 op-ed voiced concern on the reassembly of the US 4th Fleet, which was announced in early April.   Today, the head of USSOUTHCOMM assured that the fleet did not pose a regional threat.

Via AFP:

The commander of US Southern Command, Admiral James Stavridis, sought Thursday to reassure Latin American military chiefs that reinstating the US Fourth Fleet in the region posed them no threat.

“It is not an offensive force in any way,” he told reporters after a meeting of military chiefs from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in Brasilia.

“The IV Fleet’s entire purpose is cooperation, friendship, response to natural disaster, missions of peace and, yes, there will be counter narcotics work, as is traditional.”

The Navy’s announcement last month that it was reviving the fleet after a nearly 60-year slumber, to direct increasing American naval presence in the Caribbean and Latin America, has provoked concern among leaders in the region.

Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro said it signaled a return to gunboat diplomacy, while Bolivian President Evo Morales called it “the Fourth Fleet of intervention.”

The Fourth Fleet was a major US navy command during World War II when it was used to enforce blockades and protect against enemy submarines and raiders, but was eliminated in the 1950s.

From July 1 it will take operational responsibility over navy ships assigned to the region from the US Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, based out of Florida.

Stavridis said the fleet’s objectives included training exercises and humanitarian relief, adding: “It is strictly for planning and training.

“When the IV Fleet executes one of the missions that I mention, it will do so with ships that are given to it by the US Navy, for that mission. There is no aircraft carrier in the IV Fleet.”

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Political structure
May 6th 2008
From the Economist Intelligence Unit
Source: Country Report

Official name

Republic of Cuba

Form of government

Centralised political system, with close identification between the PCC and the state

Head of state

The president, Raul Castro, took over from his brother, Fidel, on February 24th 2008

The executive

The Council of Ministers is the highest executive body; its Executive Committee is composed of the president, the first vice-president and the vice-presidents of the Council of Ministers

National legislature

National Assembly of People’s Power; 614 members elected by direct ballot; the Assembly meets twice a year, and extraordinary sessions can be called

Legal system

A People’s Supreme Court oversees a system of regional tribunals; the Supreme Court is accountable to the National Assembly

National elections

Provincial and national assemblies: last elections January 20th 2008; next elections due in January 2012. Municipal elections: last held October 2007; next due in April 2010

National government

The organs of the state and the PCC are closely entwined, and power devolves principally from the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers

Main political organisation

The Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) is the only legal political party

President of the councils of state & ministers: Raul Castro Ruz

First vice-president: Jose Ramon Machado Ventura

Vice-president: Carlos Lage Davila

President of the National Assembly: Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada

Key ministers

Agriculture: Maria del Carmen Perez

Armed forces: General Julio Casas Regueiro

Audit & control: Gladys Maria Bejerano Portela

Basic industry: Yadira Garcia Vera

Communications & informatics: Ramiro Valdes Menendez

Culture: Abel Prieto Jimenez

Economy & planning: Jose Luis Rodriguez Garcia

Education: Ana Elsa Velazquez

Finance & prices: Georgina Barreiro Fajardo

Foreign investment & economic co-operation: Marta Lomas Morales

Foreign relations: Felipe Perez Roque

Foreign trade: Raul de la Nuez Ramirez

Government: Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz

Justice: Maria Esther Reus Gonzalez

Labour & social security: Alfredo Morales Cartaya

Light industry: Estela Dominguez Ariosa

Public health: Jose Ramon Balaguer

Science, technology & the environment: Fernando Gonzalez Bermudez

Sugar: Ulises Rosales del Toro

Tourism: Manuel Marrero Cruz

Transport: Jorge Luis Sierra Cruz

Central Bank president

Francisco Soberon Valdes

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The National Park Service of the US Department of the Interior published in 2004 an Historic Resource Study on the Cold War in South Florida providing a brief overview of activities in the region associated with Cuba and other Latin American countries:

South Florida was the location of many important events during the Cold War period 1945- 1989. The region’s proximity to Latin America made it an operational center for both covert and overt activities as the United States pursued its policy of containing communism. From the 1950s until the end of the Cold War, government officials directed operations from south Florida military installations such as Homestead Air Force Base, Opa Locka Marine Air Station, and the various U.S. Navy facilities in Key West that affected events in Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other nations throughout Latin America.

Click here to read the study [pdf].

[H/T: Cryptome]

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Fidel Castro has written his latest reflection titled: “The Living and the Dead.” The Maximum Leader turned op-ed writer acknowledged recently sacked Education Minister Luis Ignacio Gómez Guriérrez as “truly exhausted” and “losing energy and revolutionary conscience.” While referencing his numerous travels abroad on behalf of Cuban education, Fidel chastised him for previous speeches whereby he took “personal accomplishment” instead of “extolling a body of work that was the authentic product of numerous revolutionary cadres.”

Fidel mentions the selection process of his replacement Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella, who was among the list of fifteen candidates.

However, further along his reflection, a cryptic passage summons the following:

“When I had the privilege of also being consulted on the eve of the election of the Council of State, I did not hesitate in proposing that prestigious military leaders –who brought our heroic people glory and moral authority– such as Leopoldo Cintras Frías and Álvaro López Miera, who are mature, modest, brimming with experience and energy, younger than the military officer who is one of the strongest and most threatening candidates for the leadership of the empire, should be proposed to the National Assembly as candidates for membership in the Council of State. I know other cadres, quite a bit younger than they are, highly qualified, with excellent training and not very publicized, people whom we must consider.”

Is this tacit acknowledgment that those generals selected to the Council of State where chosen because they are loyal acolytes of Raul Castro and the younger generation of capable officers were passed over?

Moreover, does this cryptic passage alert us to a discontent by officers, and that future and careful consideration by Raul’s regime should be made to advance the younger generation within the officer corps to quell such discontent?

Something worth pondering about the state of internal cohesion of the armed forces.

[H/T: La Nueva Cuba.]

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Cuba’s Central Army commemorated on Friday its 47th anniversary. A politico-cultural ceremony took place at the Defense Preparation School in Matanzas presided by Army Corps General (Lt. General) Joaquín Quinta Solá (Chief, Central Army), presidents and vice-presidents of the Defense Councils of the five provinces comprising of respective commands.

A military review was held with blocks of infantry, tank, and artillery units, Special Troops, Revolutionary War Navy, Ministry of Interior, sharpshooters, Camilitos, units of the MTT (Territorial Troop Militias) and Production and Defense Brigades.

Source: AIN

[Photo: Central Army military review, 2005.]

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