[Ppnews] Cuban Five - Which Side Are You On?

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon10152009.html

October 15, 2009


The Untold Story of the Cuban Five

Which Side Are You On?

By RICARDO ALARCÓN de QUESADA

FBI officials received a huge amount of concrete, 
detailed information about anti-Cuban terrorist 
groups, including their exact locations, with 
addresses and phone numbers, photographs and tape 
recordings describing sinister plans in their own 
voices and many other data.  At no time did they 
protest or express concern regarding Cuba’s 
ability or methods used to obtain such precise evidence.

They just thanked us and asked for some time, 
arguing that they got more evidence, far much 
more, than what they could have expected.

When Gabriel García Márquez met President 
Clinton’s closest advisors at the White House on 
May 6, 1998, nobody asked how Cuba had unveiled 
those terrible plots. One of the American 
gentlemen just said, “We have common enemies.”

It was exactly the same on every other occasion 
when we met in Havana, Washington or elsewhere to 
discuss with American officials the information 
we had on terrorist attempts. They never 
complained in any manner, directly or indirectly--not even in a whisper.

US officials never objected to our investigative 
efforts for some very obvious reasons. The 
history of violence and terror against Cuba is 
quite long – has lasted so far half a century – 
and is very well documented in an extensive 
bibliography partially registered in the US 
Congressional Record and also available in 
declassified, or not yet so, official papers with 
which our American counterparts, we should assume, are well familiar.

With such a background Cuba has the right (even 
the inexcusable obligation) to protect itself and 
its people and to discover what may be in the 
making among those who try to cause material 
damage and human suffering. This is the 
universally recognized principle of self defense.

The Americans were very well aware of that. As 
they surely remembered, when we learned about an 
assassination attempt against President Reagan we 
promptly shared the information with them, the 
Great Communicator’s antipathy towards Cuba 
notwithstanding. Washington did not complain 
then,  but expressed thankfulness.

They also knew that Cuba is just a small island 
in the Caribbean, with a population a little 
above 11 million people. Cuba does not have 
satellites getting data from outer space, neither 
has it any of the extremely sophisticated devices 
that are in common use by the American and other 
Big Powers intelligence services.

Cuba only has human intelligence. Something that 
is admitted now as indispensable in the United 
States, something that would have saved many 
American lives if it had been aptly used by the 
US before the terrible events that shook America in 2001.

And ours is not paid human intelligence. We have 
never spent money, as others do by many billions, 
to buy information or contract with expensive 
agents around the world. We depend on the 
generous heroic sacrifice of youngsters like 
Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René.

Long before the heinous attacks of 9/11, Gerardo 
Hernandez Nordelo said these simple truths to an 
American Court that regrettably was unwilling to listen:

“Cuba has the right to defend itself from the 
terrorist acts that are prepared in Florida with 
total impunity, despite the fact that they have 
been consistently denounced by the Cuban 
authorities. This is the same right that the 
United States has to try to neutralize the plans 
of terrorist Osama Bin Laden’s organization, 
which has caused so much damage to this country 
and threatens to continue doing so. I am certain 
that the sons and daughters of this country who 
are carrying out this mission are considered 
patriots, and their objective is not that of 
threatening the national security of any of the 
countries where these people are being sheltered.”

When Gerardo wrote those words many of the 
individuals, who would later use civilian 
aircrafts as lethal weapons against Americans, 
were finalizing their training right there in 
Miami. But the local FBI did nothing to frustrate 
their horrendous project. They didn’t have time 
for that. Their time was devoted exclusively to 
protecting their own terrorists by persecuting 
and punishing Gerardo and his comrades.

The FBI, at least in Miami, was not fighting 
terrorism. Neither was it preventing criminal 
attacks against Americans or Cuba. It was on the other side of the fence.

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada is president of the Cuban National Assembly.




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