Resources
Overview
- Matt Frei of the BBC narrates this short documentary which attempts—and succeeds reasonably well—in putting the conflict between Cuba and the United States into some context. (Includes the transcript of a prison interview with René Gonzalez.)
- Miami journalist Kirk Nielsen includes many of his pieces on Miami's militant exile groups for Miami New Times and other publications at his "Nielsen Readings" blogsite. An index to his Cuba Archive can be found in the right column.
Gerardo Hernandez
- Gerardo Hernandez, the controller of the Wasp Network, talks with American journalist and documentary maker Saul Landau in a five-part telephone interview from his jail cell.
Raul Cruz León's confession
- In this video prepared by Cuban State Security, confessed bomber Raul Cruz León reconstructs his trail of bomb planting at Havana hotels in July and September of 1997. (Spanish)
Cuban exiles
- A site called the Cuban Information Archives includes an extensive collection of documents, including many primary source documents on Miami's exile community.
Check out this trailer for Vivien Lesnik Wiseman's very personal but powerful documentary about her father, Max Lesnik. Man of Two Havanastells the story of Lesnik, a Castro ally who fell out with the Cuban ledser shortly after the revolution and settled in Miami where he became a voice of reason in what was an unreasonable world—and paid the price for it. In the end, Man of Two Havanas is an entertaining, provocative primer for anyone wanting to understand Miami's often inexplicable Cuban exile community. From the documentary's website:
"Okay, here’s the situation. I was born in Havana. That makes me Cuban. But, I was raised in little Havana, which makes me Cuban-American. However, since I don’t see Castro as the root of all evil in the universe, nor would I strangle him with my bare hands given the opportunity, I am a little out of step with my tribe. I always have been. And I really don’t care.
My dad, on the other hand, does care. He cares a great deal. Back in Havana he was a revolutionary and fought alongside Castro for the freedom of the Cuban people. Then he had a falling out with his old friend and it was Miami, here we come.
But his animosity towards Castro did not last and he soon wanted dialogue with the Cuban government. Perhaps, to live in peace. That’s when the shit the fan.
Bombings, death threats and drive by shootings were a daily occurrence in our home.
But who would do this to us? We were Americans. Surely, it must be the Communists, right? Wrong. My father became the focal point of the anti-Castro terrorists. These are Americans, people, like you and me. Well, not exactly. They were trained by the CIA.
What most Americans don’t know is that terrorism in America did not begin on September 11th. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a reign of terror in Miami. There were as many as seven bombings in one day and hundreds per year. The culprits were not Communists. They were Americans. And my family was at the epicenter. Bombs away…"
Luis Posada Carriles
- Journalist Ann Louise Bardach—author of Cuba Confidential and Without Fidel—maintains a web page with links to many Posada stories, including her own.
- Georgetown University's National Security Archive, an independent research centre and library for de-classified US government documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, reports that "CIA and FBI records... identify Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles... as a former CIA agent and as one of the "engineer[s]" of the 1976 terrorist bombing of Cubana Airlines flight 455 that killed 73 passengers. " This is the link to the documents in its Posada files.
Travel and tourism
General
- The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, established in 1975 "to promote the common interests of the hemisphere, raise the visibility of regional affairs and increase the importance of the inter-American relationship, as well as encourage the formulation of rational and constructive U.S. policies towards Latin America" comments regularly on the state of Cuba-U.S. relations.
Miscellaneous
- The Cuban Government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains its own website specifically dedicated to the cause of the Los Cinco.
- The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five is a San Francisco-based but national organization dedicated to raising awareness about the case and winning freedom for the Five.
- There are many other Free the Five committees around the world. A few of them:
- The Red Avispa Cuban Espionage Case. Despite its obvious bias—the website's parent page is called Fry the Five!—the page offers some useful links to less biased news stories about the case.
Copyright 2010 Sting of the Wasp: The Cuban Five Connection
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About
This is the site for What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five, 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 sentenced to 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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