The untold story of the Cuban Five
Forbidden Heroes -Part 4:
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada President of the National Assembly of
People’s Power
Indictment À La Carte (1)
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José
Basulto |
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 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, Basulto
brought with him an NBC TV crew from Miami who filmed and broadcasted
how they over flew 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.
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Gerardo
Hernández Nordelo |
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)
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.
It happened in Miami
The Court of the Southern District of Florida is not an international
tribunal, neither is it a UN body having jurisdiction on matters
affecting relations between countries.
It has a very specific duty, which is to determine if a particular
defendant is guilty or not of a concrete charge.
In instructing the jury in the case of Gerardo Hernandez, the Court
recalled the language of the Government’s indictment:
“Count 3 charges that defendant Gerardo Hernandez conspired with
other persons to perpetrate murder, that is, the unlawful killing of
human beings with malice aforethought and premeditated intent in the
special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States”.
(Transcript of Trial before the Honorable Joan A. Lenard, June 4,
2001, pages 14587 - 14588)
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