[Ppnews] The Untold Story of the Cuban Five - Alarcon

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon09032009.html

September 3, 2009


The Untold Story of the Cuban Five


Indicment À La Carte

By RICARDO ALARCÓN de QUESADA

More than seven months after the Cuban Five were 
arrested and indicted a new charge was presented 
by the US Government. Again, the charge was one 
of “conspiracy”, but this time to commit murder 
in the first degree and was brought specifically 
against one of the Five, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.

The new indictment came after a public campaign 
in Miami actively promoted by “journalists” on 
the US Government payroll, including reports 
about meetings in public places attended by 
well-known Cuban exile leaders, US prosecutors 
and FBI officials, in which the accusation 
against Gerardo was openly discussed. It became a 
clear demand by the most violent groups in town 
and was a central focus of the local media.

The Government acquiesced to the demand and 
introduced the Second Superseding indictment 
whose essential new feature was adding this 
“crime” to Gerardo's list of charges.

This was a political concession to anti-Cuban 
terrorists, who were seeking revenge for the 
downing by Cuba’s Air Force, in February 24, 1996 
of two airplanes (Model O2 used by the US Air 
Force first in Vietnam and later in El Salvador 
wars, as was concretely the case with these two 
planes) piloted by members of a violent 
anti-Cuban group, an event that had taken place 
two years before the Cuban Five were detained, 
when those airplanes were within Cuban airspace.

The timing was very suspicious, indeed. According 
to information provided by the Government at 
trial, the FBI had found the real nature of 
Gerardo’s revolutionary mission in Miami and was 
monitoring him and controlling his communications 
with Havana at least a couple of years before the 
downing of the planes.  If that incident was a 
result of a “conspiracy,” in which Gerardo was a 
key participant, why wasn’t he arrested in 1996? 
Why was this issue not even mentioned in 
September 1998 when he was first detained and indicted?

The planes belonged to a group led by José 
Basulto, a veteran CIA agent involved in many 
paramilitary actions since 1959, included the Bay 
of Pigs invasion and a number of assassination 
attempts on Fidel Castro. In the 20 months 
preceding the incident, this group had penetrated 
Cuban airspace 25 times, each one denounced by the Cuban government.

After so many diplomatic démarches the US 
Government wanted to appear responsive. It 
initiated an investigation about those flights, 
asked for Cuba’s help in providing details of 
previous provocations, acknowledged their receipt 
and thanked for them.  On February 24, 1996 such 
administrative proceedings had not been 
completed, but later Mr. Basulto was deprived by 
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of his 
pilot license and he doesn’t fly anymore (at least legally).

The provocateurs had blatantly announced that 
they will continue making illegal flights into 
Cuba’s airspace and even proclaimed that the 
island, which was at the time suffering its worst 
crisis ever – worse in economic terms, that the 
Big Depression, according to a UN report – was 
not able to respond to their illegal incursions. 
In January, Mr. Basulto brought with him an NBC 
TV crew from Miami who filmed and broadcast how 
they overflew downtown Havana throwing out 
propaganda and other materials. Cuba made it 
public that such provocations will not be 
tolerated anymore, made the proper notifications 
to all that may be concerned, including the US 
Government, the State Department and the FAA, 
which in turn warned Basulto and his group that 
they should refrain from such flights.

The alleged “conspiracy” was in itself a 
monumental stupidity, incomprehensible to any 
rational mind. It supposed that the Cuban 
government had decided provoke an all-out war 
with the United States, a military confrontation 
that obviously would have resulted in a terrible 
blow not only for the Cuban government, but for 
the entire nation and its people. In any crime 
motivation is always a key factor, a decisive 
cue. What could have been Cuba’s motivation to 
provoke such an event precisely at that moment, 
the most risky for the survival of our country 
without allies or friends in a world and a 
hemisphere under the full control of the United States in 1996?

Cuba did exactly the opposite. It denounced one 
by one, each provocation to the FAA and to the 
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, 
the UN family institution dealing with these 
matters) and sent dozens of diplomatic notes to 
the State Department. But Cuba went farther. It 
did his best to reach out to the highest level of 
the US Administration, the White House, trying to prevent more incidents.

The New Yorker issue of January 1998 dedicated to 
Cuba on the occasion of the Pope’s visit included 
a serious article in which a fairly objective 
account of those efforts by Cuba can be found. 
(Carl Naguin, Annals of Diplomacy Backfire, The 
New Yorker, January 26, 1998, 
<http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998>http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998 )

Yes, there was a conspiracy to provoke the 
tragedy of February 24, 1996. But it was the 
entire and exclusive work of the same Miami 
groups that have launched a half-century 
terrorist campaign against Cuba, the same gang 
that will afterwards kidnap Elian Gonzalez, a 
six-year-old boy. Events from which they always came out with impunity.

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




Freedom Archives
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