Expanding the 'axis of evil'
The Bush administration is busy spreading disinformation, propping up the Contras and tightening the siege on Cuba, writes Faiza Rady
This year's May Day celebration held a special significance for Cuban workers, who participated in massive rallies in the capitals of the island's 14 provinces. Pedro Ross, secretary-general of the Central Organisation of Cuban Trade Unions, estimated that close to seven million people took to the streets on International Workers' Day.
The rallies commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Latin American revolutionary hero José Mart’, and the 50th anniversary of the attacks on the Moncada Garrison in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel Garrison in Bayamo by a group of young revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro on 26 July 1953. This year the Cuban workers also expressed their anger at the escalating American assaults against their country. "The current climate and the aggressive US policies imply an overwhelming mobilisation as a response from the people and workers to the plans of the US administration," explained Ross.
Marching with the workers, Cuban leader Fidel Castro addressed one million people at the José Mart’ Revolution Square in the Cuban capital, Havana. "We do not want Cuban or US blood to be shed in a war. But never did a people have such profound convictions for which to fight," Fidel told the masses, who cheered the Cuban Revolution.
In solidarity with the Cuban people, Hispanic artists and writers sent a May Day message condemning the US campaign against Cuba. "At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilisation against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment of Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion," read the message signed among others by writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Luis Sepulveda and Nadine Gordimer; film director Pedro Almodovar and singers Joan Manuel Serrat and Victor Manuel.
Last Wednesday in Cairo, Cuban Ambassador Luis E Marisy Figueredo held a press conference to denounce the escalation of aggressive US policies against Cuba, which had been largely overshadowed by the US-led war on Iraq. "The last few weeks witnessed a huge campaign against Cuba because 75 Cuban mercenaries, on US payroll, received jail sentences ranging between three and 29 years," said the ambassador. "The US presented the case as a violation of human rights, claiming the Contras were in reality 'dissidents' and that the Cuban government violated their freedom of expression," added Figueredo.
Notwithstanding the Bush administration's strident defence of the alleged dissidents -- trailed by a well orchestrated US media campaign -- the promotion of mercenaries as "dissidents" and "human right activists" can be a tricky business, even for the US. The Cuban ambassador went on to explain that Havana courts have sufficient evidence to prove that the 'dissidents' were in effect on CIA payroll, and had clear directions to destabilise the Cuban state. To this effect, the CIA channeled more than $20 million to notorious Cuban Contra groups through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) -- an agency that sometimes serves as a conduit for the CIA.
Although not known for its creativity, the Bush administration has -- at the very least -- exhibited a kind of ingenuity on its anti-Cuba campaign trail. Take the manner in which George W Bush bypassed the House of Representatives' opposition to his choice of political appointees for Latin America. Last year in a rare manifestation of political acumen, the US president actually used a Congressional recess to appoint Otto Reich as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
For the Bush administration, Reich was the right man for the job. A Cuban- American with close ties to the Miami- based Cuban Mafia and the extreme right-wing, Reich's long-term obsession has been to overthrow the Cuban regime. This is an obsession dating back to Reich's university days in the early 1970s, when he was recruited by the CIA. A smooth operator, Reich rapidly rose through the ranks following a highly successful disinformation campaign aimed at destabilising the Sandanista government in Nicaragua. Promoted to the post of director of Public Diplomacy at the State Department in the early 1980s, Reich proceeded to swamp the US media with colourful fabrications about the "Sandanista threat" against the US. A highly successful version of the imminent danger theme involved the launching of Soviet-made MIG fighter planes to attack the US mainland. Other stories demonised the Sandanistas as "racists" and "persecutors of the Miskito Indians" -- a pervasive fiction, which took on a life of its own.
Besides organising political mud- slinging and spreading lies about democratically-elected governments, Reich also became a master at covering up the CIA's tracks in its dirtiest operations in Nicaragua.
But Reich's claim to fame preceded what became known as the "dirty war in Nicaragua". In fact, Reich first established his credentials during his tenure as US ambassador to Venezuela under CIA cover.
In Caracas, he managed to secure the release of fellow CIA agent Orlando Bosch, a killer convicted of sabotaging a Cuban airliner. On 6 October 1976, Bosch planted a bomb on Cubana flight 455. The plane exploded and all 73 passengers died.
An accomplished diplomat, Reich handled the Bosch case with finesse -- using his ties to the Venezuelan Mafiosi and junta-based network to free the convicted terrorist. But good things do not last forever and Reich finally fell from grace over the Iran-Contra Affair, an operation to fund the anti-Sandanista Contra army through CIA-channeled drug money.
Recycled by the Bush administration after 9/11, Reich was moved in December 2002 from the all-too-visible post of assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs to the position of special presidential envoy for Latin America in the Security Council. This is the place where the US president's fundamental decisions concerning Latin America are adopted. Thus Reich sits where its really at. For all intents and purposes, it is Reich who now formulates and directs US policy in Latin America.
Competent and savvy as ever, the special presidential envoy lost no time dallying around. Reich went straight to business taking on Venezuela. Working with his usual flair, Reich propped up the opposition, engineered a coup and tried to oust the country's democratically elected President Hugo Chavez from power. Unfortunately, things did not quite work out the first time around. The second round is ongoing.
As assistant secretary of state, Reich set up the US State Department's policy guidelines for Cuba. Accordingly, the propaganda machine was turned on full blast, churning out a new variety of fabrications. "One day they would say that Cuba was planning electronic warfare against communications in the United States; and the next, that a Chinese ship loaded with weapons was headed for Cuba," said Fidel at a 25 April televised roundtable detailing the Bush administration's defamation campaign against Cuba.
In addition to demonising Cuba, Reich's guidelines naturally included a recycled version of the Contra army -- posing as dissidents in Cuba.
This was to be the job of James Cason, one of Reich's closest collaborators at the US State Department during the "dirty war in Nicaragua". Dispatched to Cuba as head of the US Interest Section in Havana last year, Cason has done a good job so far. Since he took office, counter-revolutionary activities are on the rise: over the past seven months there have been seven hijackings of Cuban air and sea crafts. Enlisting Contras to destabilise the state, Cason has successfully promoted them as "besieged" and "courageous" human rights activists.
Meanwhile, the US is tightening its siege around Cuba.
