Did U.S. government pay journalists to write “incendiary stories”?
Members of the "Cuban Five"
The U.S. National Committee to Free The Cuban Five has called a press conference for June 2, 2010 in Washington to reveal what it says is “new evidence that the U.S. Government has covertly paid tens of thousands of dollars to Miami journalists working for major media outlets” to publish “incendiary stories” about the case. The committee says it will name names and provide details on the amounts of the payments to each journalist.
The information was uncovered through a freedom of information request last year to the American Board of Broadcast Governors, demanding details of U.S. government payments to the journalists. Although the committee received some documents, it plans to go to court to get what it calls “critical underlying documents” the BBG still refuses to release.
During the press conference, the Free the Five Committee also plans to unveil details of a new nationwide campaign “to provide remedy and relief to the Cuban Five based on the U.S. government's misconduct and covert operations which deprived the Five of their fundamental right to a fair trial.”
In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the Five’s 2001 convictions based on the fact that they couldn’t get a fair trial in the highly-charged anti-Castro atmosphere in Miami.
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
Hernandez to file new motion
Gerardo Hernandez
Lawyers for Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cubans serving time in American prisons in connection with the Cuban Five affair, will return to court in June 2010—nine years after his original conviction—to present a writ of habeas corpus, asking the judge in the case to reconsider his sentence.
Three other members of the Five—Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez—were re-sentenced to lesser terms last fall.
Following his conviction in June 2001, Hernandez was handed two life terms plus 15 years. The final member of the Five, Rene Gonzalez, received a 15-year prison term. Neither man was included in the 2009 re-sentencing process.
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
Revenge of the divorcée
Ana Margarita Martinez
Ana Margarita Martinez, the ex-wife of Cuban double agent Juan Pablo Roque, is attempting to file a lawsuit in Florida against American companies that provide travel service between Florida and Cuba. If she's successful in freezing funds those companies currently pay to Cuba's Havanatur, it could make it more difficult for Cuban Americans to visit relatives in their homeland.
News of the lawsuit comes from Inter Press Services, quoting reports in Mexico's La Jornada newspaper.
1995 wedding: in happier times
In 2000, Martinez won an unprecedented "rape" case ruling against Roque—essentially for not telling her he was a spy when he married her in 1995, less than a year before he returned to Cuba. The next year, the Florida courts ordered the Cuban government to pay Martinez $27 million in damages for what the Miami Herald described as "her pain and suffering as a victim of Roque's spy scheme and in punitive damages because Roque used his sham marriage to infiltrate South Florida's Cuban exile community and Brothers to the Rescue, the volunteer pilots who search the seas for Cuban rafters."
"These writs are not about politics or U.S. Cuba relations, and they are not about the right to travel to Cuba," Martinez argued in a press release. "They are not a political act or an effort to hurt U.S. businesses or interfere with air travel to Cuba."
Martinez is attempting to interest a Hollywood filmmaker into making a movie of her story.
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
Guerrero transferred
Antonio Guerrero
"Free the Cuban Five" reports that Antonio Guerrero, who was serving a life+10-year sentence in connection with the Cuban Five spy case, has been moved from his maximum security institution in Florence, CO, to a medium security jail in the same Colorado city.
In October, a court in Miami reduced his sentence to 21 years and 10 months.
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
Posada pre-pre-trial delayed yet again
An El Paso, Texas, judge has postponed until June 2, 2010, a scheduling conference with prosecution and defence lawyers to—finally—set a date for Luis Posada Carriles' trial on perjury charges. The prosecution claimed a "serious scheduling conflict" with the May 20th date. But as the Miami New Times noted: "Critics say the government is only trying to punt on the case because it threatens to divulge many classified documents that detail the old man's associations with the CIA and other American government agencies. Already, a big portion of the court records are under seal."
Luis Posada Carriles
Posada, 82, a militant anti-Castro Cuban exile, is widely considered to have been the mastermind behind the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight that killed 73 people, as well as a 1997 terrorist bombing campaign in Havana that killed an Italian-Canadian tourist.
He won't attend the El Paso hearing. Posada's lawyers convinced the judge he is too old and too ill to travel by plane or car for a court appearance. Instead he will listen in on the proceedings by phone from Miami where he is currently living.
Ironically, though Posada isn't charged specifically with any of those crimes, the Texas case could provide judicial corroboration of his role in the 1997 attacks. The US government now alleges that Posada lied during immigration hearings—he'd illegally returned to the US in 2005—when he denied he was "involved in soliciting other individuals to carry out the bombings... in Cuba."
Given that the US failed to indict Posada for his role in the actual bombings—despite evidence provided by the Cuban government at the time, which ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of the Cuban Five rather than Posada or any of the plotters—the current case is bound to be controversial.
That may explain why, as the Miami Herald has reported, there has been an "unusual level of secrecy" surrounding the proceedings. At least 40 motions filed by various parties to the case have so far been ordered sealed from public scutiny.
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
Things to know before you go…
"Canadians and other foreigners travelling to Cuba now need to hold travel insurance approved by island authorities before they can enjoy their time in the sun.
"Those without coverage will have to buy a local policy that can cost up to $3 a day. The new law took effect Saturday (May 1, 2010) and requires travellers who can't show they have authorized insurance to buy a policy from state-run Cubatur before being allowed into the country..."
If you're planning to visit Cuba, you should also read my cautionary tale about using credit cards in Cuba
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
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About
This is the site for Sting of the Wasp, collected research and other materials for an in-progress narrative nonfiction book about the Cuban Five by Stephen Kimber.
The Cuban Five were members of "La Red Avispa"—the Wasp Network—spies Havana dispatched to Florida in the early 1990s to infiltrate militant anti-Castro exile groups that Cuba believed were plotting terrorist attacks on its soil. The Cuban Five were arrested, tried, convicted and are all now serving long prison terms in the United States.
In the United States, they are virtually unknown. In Cuba, they are heroes.
That’s the short version of the story. The long version is… well, more complicated... Stay tuned.
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