Sorry Mr. Assayas and Mr. García Bernal: Wasp Network plotted terrorism and caused deaths of innocents

Setting the record straight.

There is a buzz on the internet, about the Wasp Network, a film about the Cuban spy ring implicated in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. No one that we know has seen the movie, but there is already calls for a boycott on social media.

Whether one wishes to boycott the movie or not is a personal decision.  However, we do believe that it is important to set the record straight.  

The Wasp Network engaged in espionage: its primary objective was to spy on US military facilities, it also planned to smuggle arms and explosives into the United States, it provided information that led to the extrajudicial killings of four innocent Americans, infiltrated two nonviolent exile groups and carried numerous other activities, but will focus on these for the sake of brevity.



The film's director Olivier Assayas in a press conference for the movie made a blanket statement about the Cuban exile community that was slanderous.  Gael García Bernal at the same press conference made the false claim that "they were not going somewhere else to kill someone ... they are spies that are trying to stop violence ... there is something unique about the real story that highlights the act of love that made them do this." He also claimed that they "were proven innocent." They weren't.

Here are the facts.

The Wasp network was made up of over forty officers and agents, four escaped to Cuba when the FBI began rounding them up on September 12, 1998. Ten were captured, and five of them pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution. 

Alejandro Alonso, Linda Hernandez, Nilo Hernandez Mederos pled guilty and were all sentenced to seven years in prison. Joseph Santos Cecilia pled guilty and got four years in prison and Amarylis Silverio Garcia de Santos pled guilty and was sentenced three and a half years in prison.

They are unpersons in Cuba.  

The remaining five spies, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, who had refused to cooperate with U.S. authorities or plead guilty went on trial and the evidence against them was overwhelming.  

Gerardo Hernández was found guilty of espionage and murder conspiracy and sentenced two life terms to be served consecutively; life for Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino; 19 years for Fernando González; and 15 years for René González.

The Cuban "WASP" spies arrested in 1998 used coded material on computer disks to communicate with other members of the spy network.

Their primary objective was "penetrating and obtaining information on the naval station located in that city." They communicated about "burning down the warehouse" and sabotaging Brothers to the Rescue equipment. They had been instructed to identify who would be flying aboard the Brothers to the Rescue planes at certain times.

Mr. García Bernal speaks of a radical act of love, but fails to mention it because he was not looking at what Brothers to the Rescue were doing.

In February of 1991 news accounts of the death by dehydration of 15-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo, a rafter fleeing Cuba, as U.S. Coast Guard officials tried to save his life shocked the moral imagination of several pilots. 

This was not an isolated event. Academics Holly Ackerman and Juan Clark, in the 1995 monograph The Cuban Balseros: Voyage of Uncertainty reported that “as many as 100,000 Cuban rafters may have perished trying to leave Cuba.” Anecdotal evidence documents that some of them were victims of the Cuban border patrol using sand bags and snipers against defenseless rafters. 

It was within this context that on May 13, 1991 Brothers to the Rescue was founded with the aim of searching for rafters in the Florida Straits, getting them water, food, and rescued. In December of 1993 Brothers to the Rescue inaugurated their permanent hangar naming it after Gregorio.

Coretta Scott King and Brothers to the Rescue's Jose Basulto

Brothers to the Rescue by November of 1995 was collaborating with the Florida Martin Luther King Institute for Non-violence and took part in the King Day parade in 1996. 

On February 8, 1996 The Miami Times reported “that this group has come around to the belief that change can be brought about in Cuba in the same way that it was brought about by Dr. King in the United States.” 

The Miami Times concluded in the editorial “Spreading King’s Message” that “in throwing Dr. King's principle into the volatile mix of Cuban exile politics, Brothers to the Rescue is showing a willingness to be creative.”

They risked their lives in the Florida Straits to rescue Cuban rafters and at the same time Brothers to the Rescue challenged the Cuban exile community to abandon both the failed violent resistance and appeasement approaches in order to embrace strategic nonviolence.  This path followed the way of Martin Luther King Jr. with both civil disobedience and a constructive program. What was the end result? Brothers to the Rescue saved more than 4,200 men, women, and children ranging from a five-day old infant to a 79 year old man, and rescued thousands more during the 1994 refugee crisis.

One year after the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre in which 37 men, women and children were killed Cuban exiles organized a flotilla to travel in a civic non-violent manner to the spot six miles off the Havana coastline where the "13 de Marzo" tugboat had been attacked and sunk to hold a religious service for the victims. The Brothers to the Rescue overflight of Havana, where they dropped bumper stickers in Spanish that read "Comrades No. Brothers" was in response to Cuban gunboats ramming the lead boat of the flotilla. 
 

Brothers to the Rescue also served as a bridge between a nonviolent civic movement inside of Cuba and an exile community seeking a different approach. Cuban dissidents announced on October 10, 1995 the intention to hold a national gathering of the opposition in Cuba on February 24, 1996. The coalition of over a 160 groups named themselves the Cuban Council. Brothers to the Rescue in an open and transparent manner sent $2,000 of privately raised assistance to this coalition on February 13, 1996. In the days leading up to February 24 over a 180 dissidents were imprisoned in a nationwide crackdown.

 
The events surrounding the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down began weeks in advance with the dictatorship planning out the shoot down and using its spy networks to obtain information to carry out this act of state terrorism while blaming the victims in the media coverage.

Jose Basulto with Rene Gonzalez and Juan Pablo Roque.

It was a conspiracy to destroy Brothers to the Rescue while at the same time taking attention away from a crack down on a national gathering of the democratic opposition in Cuba. This was taking place in the midst of a profound crisis for the Castro regime following the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 and a warming relationship in 1994 between the Clinton administration and the Cuban dictatorship that included secret joint military exercises. 

However, none of this changed the brutal nature of the Cuban dictatorship in how it dealt with Cubans on the island or the continuing hostility of the Castro regime for the United States. 

Two Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, providing information to the Castro regime on the group, disinformation to the FBI, and their Cuban spy ring leader, Gerardo Hernandez warned the two infiltrated agents not to fly during a four-day period that included the day of the premeditated attack. Six days before the attack a Cuban pilot saw Cuban MiGs rehearsing the shoot down.  

On February 24, 1996 at 3:21pm and 3:27pm two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by two Cuban MiGs over international airspace killing four. Two more MIG’s chased a third plane to within three minutes of downtown Key West, but that plane made it back and provided critical information on what had occurred.

Within moments of the shootdown, allegations were immediately generated that Brothers to the Rescue had involved itself in "paramilitary activities against the government of the Republic of Cuba." Juan Pablo Roque, who had defected the day before, and arrived in Cuba through Mexico, claimed that they had been planning to introduce anti-personnel weapons to blow up high-tension plants. This cover story collapsed when the third plane returned to Key West.

Martyred on February 24, 1996

The four men who were killed represented all aspects of the Cuban diaspora: Armando Alejandre Jr, a child who arrived with his parents from Cuba in 1960, Carlos Costa, born in Miami Beach in 1966 and Mario Manuel de la Peña, born in New Jersey in 1971 the children of Cuban exiles. Pablo Morales was born in Cuba in 1966, raised there and was saved by Brothers to the Rescue when he was 26 years old while fleeing the island on a raft. Two were from Havana, one was from New Jersey and the other from Miami Beach.

The Brothers to the Rescue shoot down case in the U.S. courts 

U.S. courts found the Cuban government guilty of premeditation in the February 24, 1996 shoot down. Family members of the four men have over the past twenty years pursued and continue to pursue justice. They have had concrete results.

1. On November 14, 1997 U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King found Cuba guilty in civil court of planning the shoot down before the actual attack, and noted that there had been ample time to issue warnings to the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft if these had been needed. 
2.  A jury in criminal court presided by U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard on June 10, 2001 found Cuban spy Gerardo Hernandez guilty of conspiracy to commit murder because of his role in providing information to the Cuban government on the flight plans of Brothers to the Rescue. 
3. On August 21, 2003 a U.S. grand jury indicted the two fighter pilots and their commanding general on murder charges for the 1996 shoot down. Indictments were returned against General Ruben Martinez Puente, who at the time headed the Cuban Air Force, and fighter pilots Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez and Francisco Perez-Perez. The defendants were charged with four counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and two counts of destruction of aircraft. They are still at large.

There has been a lack of political will on behalf of several White Houses to pursue justice in the premeditated, extrajudicial murders of these four men.

The Obama administration commuted the double life sentence of Gerardo Hernandez, the one man actually imprisoned for conspiracy to commit murder in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down on December 17, 2014 setting him free and returning him to Cuba.  

Nevertheless, the families of Armando, Mario, Carlos and Pablo continue their struggle for memory, truth, and justice on behalf of their loved ones. This means “the indictments of the military officials involved, from Raul Castro, Minister of the Armed Forces, down the military chain of command” and documenting what happened.

The excerpts of the press conference released on the internet make a travesty of this episode, and raises concerns among many that the movie will demonize those who saved thousands of lives while celebrating those who conspired successfully to murder four humanitarians and deal a powerful blow against a nonviolent movement.

What was broken up in South Florida on September 12, 1998 was a terror spy network with plans to damage property and kill persons with the objective of planting terror. The network achieved part of their objective in providing information that led to four extrajudicial killings. 

George Orwell could have cited the so-called "Cuban Five" campaign and the press conference for the Wasp Network as examples of newspeak on the order of "War is Peace" only that it in this case it declares "Terrorism is Anti-Terrorism" "Lies are Truth", "Terrorists are Heroes", and "cold blooded murder is a radical act of love."  

Shame on them. 

Seven Reasons why Fidel Castro was that bad and the world is a better place now that he is gone

This is not a top seven list, but a compilation of seven actions by Fidel Castro that earn him the title of mass murdering tyrant. It is a rebuttal of those who now claim that the old tyrant who died on November 25, 2016 "wasn't that bad." Unfortunately the harm done by this dictator is not limited to Cuba and has survived him. Links will be provided for sources that back up the claim made.

Fidel Castro twice called for an all out nuclear holocaust

1. Pushed twice for the Soviet Union to launch first a full out nuclear attack on the United States (First Strike). The first time was during the October 1962 Missile Crisis in a letter to Nikita Khrushchevand the second time in the early 1980s were Fidel Castro pressed the Soviets hard for a nuclear strike against the United States. This revelation became public knowledge on September 21, 2009 and the newspaper of record The New York Times quotes the source: Andrian A. Danilevich, a Soviet general staff officer from 1964 to ’90 and director of the staff officers who wrote the Soviet Union’s final reference guide on strategic and nuclear planning is quoted in the early 1980s, saying that Mr. Castro “pressed hard for a tougher Soviet line against the U.S. up to and including possible nuclear strikes.” The general staff, General Danilevich continued, “had to actively disabuse him of this view by spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba of a Soviet strike against the U.S.”

2. Fidel Castro participated in genocide collaborating with a convicted war criminal in Ethiopia and defending alleged war criminals from Sri Lanka and Argentina. In Ethiopia the Castro regime backed Mengistu Haile Mariam with advice, troops and high level visits by both Fidel and Raul Castro.  War crimes such as a provoked famine and the targeting of ideologically suspect children for mass killings led to downplaying the role of the Castro regime in the whole affair.  On May 28, 2009 amidst a human rights crisis in Sri Lanka the Cuban government's diplomats took the lead and successfully blocked efforts to address the wholesale slaughter there. In the 1970s the Castro regime also began an unusual relationship with the military dictatorship in Argentina helping to block efforts to condemn it at the United Nations Human Rights Commission for thousands of leftists disappeared by the regime. Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone Ramayón, brutal military dictator of Argentina between 1982 and 1983 (in the picture above with Fidel Castro). On April 20, 2010, the Argentine despot was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of 56 people in a concentration camp. 

Raul Castro preparing prisoner to be executed by firing squad

3. Fidel Castro came into power with firing squads broadcast over television in order to terrorize the populace. Court proceedings fell far short of international standards. Conservative estimate gives the range, according to Matthew White in his website Necrometrics, at between 5,000-12,000 Cubans killed by the Castro regime compared with Chileans killed by the Pinochet regime which number 3,197. Rudolph Joseph Rummel, a political science professor at the University of Hawaii and an expert in Democide (murder by government) also takes into account the Cuban boat people who have died fleeing the dictatorship and estimates 73,000 dead Cubans between 1959 and 1987. In The Black Book of Communism in chapter 25 "Communism in Latin America" by Pascal Fontaine states that in Cuba between 1959 through the late 1990s "between 15,000 and 17,000 people were shot."


4. Murdering refugees for trying to flee the country. In 1972 Fidel Castro goes to the Berlin Wall and praises border guards who shot and killed fleeing, unarmed civilians who just wanted to live in freedom. During his visit to East Germany Castro compared the Berlin Wall with the defenses his regime had near the Guantanamo Naval Base. Eleven years later a front page story in The Miami Herald on July 7, 1993 described what US soldiers at Guantanamo had witnessed: Cuban marine patrols, determined to stop refugees from reaching the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, have repeatedly tossed grenades and shot at fleeing swimmers and recovered some bodies with gaff hooks, U.S. officials charged Tuesday. At least three Cubans have been killed in the past month as Cuban patrol boats attacked swimmers within sight of U.S. Navy personnel at Guantanamo. These acts of brutality led to a formal diplomatic note to the Cuban government by the Clinton Administration.  One year and six days later the Cuban tugboat "13 de Marzo" was attacked and sunk on July 13, 1994 claiming 37 lives, mainly women and children.

37 victims of the 13 de Marzo Tugboat on 7/13/94

5. Fidel Castro turned Cuba into a state sponsor of terrorism. Castro sponsored and trained terrorists and promoted terrorism internationally. The Castro regime has a long history of sponsoring terrorism beginning in the 1960s with the Tricontinental meetings where terrorism was viewed as a legitimate tactic. The University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies in 2004 published a chronology of Cuban government involvement in terrorism covering between 1959 and 2003. For example, their report lists how in 1970 the Cuban government published the "Mini Manual for Revolutionaries" in the official Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO) publication Tricontinental, written by Brazilian urban terrorist Carlos Marighella, which gives precise instructions in terror tactics, kidnappings, etc. translated into numerous languages which were distributed worldwide by the Cuban dictatorship. There is a chapter on terrorism that defends it as a legitimate tactic. On March 1, 1982 the Cuban dictatorship was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This was less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government.  

Partners in narcotics smuggling: Manuel Noriega and Fidel Castro 

6. Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro facilitated cocaine smuggling into the United States. The U.S. State Department on March 1, 1982 declared Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism whose government was was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government. In 2001 at Georgetown University when I questioned General Barry McCaffrey, who at the time was advocating sharing intelligence on drug trafficking with the Castro regime, about this relationship between Cuba and Colombia's drug trafficking guerrillas and he recognized it and expressed his concerns.  During General Manuel Noriega's trial information emerged  in 1992 publicly implicating the Castro regime as the Sun Sentinel reported at the time: "Federal prosecutors say Noriega traveled to Havana to ask [Fidel] Castro to mediate a potentially deadly dispute with top members of Colombia`s Medellin cocaine cartel. They say the cartel chiefs were upset because a major drug lab had been seized in Panama despite payment of millions of dollars in protection money to Noriega. According to the Noriega indictment, Castro negotiated a peace accord between the cartel and Noriega at the 1984 meeting. The allegation forms a cornerstone of the racketeering and drug trafficking charges against Noriega." At the same time convicted cartel leader Carlos Lehder directly implicated Raul Castro and U.S. fugitive Robert Vesco "to route cocaine flights through Cuba." Capitol Hill Cubans blogged how two years later, a federal indictment listed General Raul Castro as part of a conspiracy that smuggled seven and a half tons of cocaine into the United States over a 10-year period but the Clinton administration overruled prosecutors.

Hugo Chavez with freed coup plotter Hugo Chavez who he mentored into power

7. Fidel Castro was the author of the events in Venezuela that led to first Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro's succession to the presidency. In 1990 following a request made by Fidel Castro to Lula Da Silva the Sao Paulo Forum was established with the goal to rebuild the Communist movement or as they put it: “To reconquer in Latin America all that we lost in East Europe.” This set the course for the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela that has been a game changer both regionally and internationally. Food riots are now breaking out in what was once the richest government in South America. The hunger, the suffering, and deaths of thousands of Venezuelans should be laid at the feet of Fidel Castro who prepared and backed Hugo Chavez with the assistance of the Cuban military and intelligence services that are keeping Nicolas Maduro in power today. However the communists with their agents of influence in the media will blame capitalism, the United States, imperialism, global warming, and anything else that distracts from pointing the finger at them.

The high price paid by the Obama administration to re-launch the U.S. embassy in Cuba

A shameful legacy

Despite what the Obama Administration and mainstream media would have you believe the United States and the Castro regime have had extensive diplomatic contacts since 1977, military contacts since 1994, and trade since 2000. This is why when Obama pledged on December 17, 2014 the objective of normalizing diplomatic relations the Castro regime was able to raise numerous demands that the United States has complied with that undermine U.S. security and credibility. Below are the top three:

• Releasing Castro spies on December 17, 2014 serving life prison sentences, including one for conspiracy to murder three U.S. citizens and one resident. 
• Secondly, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary removing the Castro regime from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on May 29, 2015. 
• Finally, on July 27, 2015 watering down the State Department's human trafficking report for political aims including ignoring the severity of sex trafficking in Cuba and the use of slave labor.

Secretary of State John Kerry will be in Havana, Cuba to raise the flag at the US Embassy on Friday, August 14, 2015 and that would be the perfect day to remind the world the price paid in compromising not only the national security of the United States freeing terrorist spies and letting ones guard down as to the terrorist threat posed by the dictatorship but also undermining the credibility of the State Department's report on human trafficking and respect for human rights. Above and below are images that we encourage you to click on and share with others on social media or print them out to use in public protests to hold the administration accountable.

Fact : February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown was an act of State Terrorism

Fact Sheet on Brothers to the Rescue Shoot down (February 2011 Update)

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts" - Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend."- Mahatma Gandhi

FACT 1: By definition: Terrorism is the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear)
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=terrorism


FACT 2: Cuba is responsible for violating the right to life (Article I of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, who died as a result of the direct actions of its agents on the afternoon of 24 February 1996 while flying through international airspace. 

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
REPORT Nº 86/99 CASE 11.589 ARMANDO ALEJANDRE JR., CARLOS COSTA, MARIO DE LA PEÑA, AND PABLO MORALES vs. CUBA
September 29, 1999
http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/Cuba11.589.htm

FACT 3:Cuba is responsible for violating the right to a fair trial (Article XVIII of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of the relatives of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, in that to date the Cuban authorities have not conducted an exhaustive investigation with a view toward prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators and have not indemnified those same relatives for the damage they suffered as a result of those illicit acts.

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
REPORT Nº 86/99 CASE 11.589 ARMANDO ALEJANDRE JR., CARLOS COSTA, MARIO DE LA PEÑA, AND PABLO MORALES vs. CUBA
September 29, 1999 http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/Cuba11.589.htm


FACT 4: In Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba, 996 F.Supp. 1239 (S.D.Fla. 1997), a federal district court awarded the families of three of the four occupants of the “ Brothers to the Rescue” planes shot down by Cuba in 1996 a total of $187.7 million in damages against Cuba.

Lawsuits Against State Supporters of Terrorism: An Overview by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney American Law Division
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RS22094_06232005.pdf


FACT 5: WASP spy network was involved. One of the “illegal officers” (Gerardo Hernandez) was convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder based on his role in the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft in international airspace by Cuban Air Force jet fighters, which resulted in the deaths of four people, three of them U.S. citizens.

http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2008/June/20070712120209atlahtnevel0.7962915.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brothers_to_the_rescue/index.html



FACT 6: Brothers to the Rescue had spotted and saved thousands of rafters in the Florida Straits and was engaged in such a mission on that day. The one plane that skirted the boundary briefly was the only one to return. The other two were shotdown miles away from Cuba’s boundary having never entered or touched it on that day and the planes had been in contact with the Cuban tower throughout the flight.

ICAO Resolution on February 24 shootdown
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/nr/1996/pio199606_e.pdf



FACT 7: On July 26, 1996 the United Nations Security Council: "Noting that the unlawful downing of two civil aircraft on 24 February by the Cuban Air Force violated the principle that States must refrain from using weapons against airborne civil aircraft, the Security Council this afternoon condemned such use as being incompatible with the rules of customary international law "

On the conclusion of the ICAO report on the shooting down of two civilian aircraft by Cuban Air Force Resolution 1067 (1996) Adopted by the Security Council at its 3683rd meeting, on 26 July 1996
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,UNSC,,CUB,4562d94e2,3b00f1522b,0.html



FACT 8: The issue of controversy arose from Jose Basulto's (one of the survivors of the attack) belief that elements in the Clinton Administration collaborated with the Cuban government in this act of state terrorism: ....I'm sure that behind this there was at least intentional, gross negligence on the part of some people in the U.S. government. I don't know who they are. I haven't been able to prove a conspiracy as such, but the possibility exists.''

Clear and Present Danger / The Miami Herald February 16, 1997
http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/brothers21497.html


FACT 9: Ana Belen Montes, the US intelligence community's top analyst on Cuban affairs had throughout a sixteen-year career at the Defense Intelligence Agency sent the Cuba intelligence service sensitive and secret information and helped to shape US opinion on Cuba. Scott W. Carmichael, a senior security and counterintelligence investigator for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), served as the lead case agent on the Ana Montes espionage investigation. In the first five pages of his book True Believer he indicates that his investigation was triggered by her odd behavior before and after the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. On September 21 2001 Ana Belen Montes was arrested and subsequently charged with Conspiracy to Commit Espionage for the government of Cuba. Montes eventually pleaded guilty to spying, and in October, 2002, she was sentenced to a 25-year prison term followed by 5 years of probation. Montes is listed as FMC Register #25037-016. Her tentative release date is listed as July 1, 2023.

True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy
http://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Inside-Investigation-Capture/dp/1591141001
Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator - Ana Belen Montes
http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=IDSearch&needingMoreList=false&IDType=IRN&IDNumber=25037-016&x=16&y=19


FACT 10: A Cuban pilot said he saw Cuban MiGs rehearsing the shootdown six days beforehand in a October 8, 1998 Miami Herald article.

Cuban pilot: I saw MiGs rehearse shootdown by Carol Rosenberg / The Miami Herald
http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/migsrehearse.html

 

FACT 11: On December 27, 2010 and again  in a January 19, 2011 clarification the defense of Cuban spy-master Gerardo Hernandez acknowledged that "there was overwhelming evidence that the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes occurred in international airspace, not Cuban territory."

The Miami Herald: Cuban spymaster now claims Brothers to the Rescue shooting was outside Cuban airspace by Jay Weaver December 27, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/26/1989507/cuban-spymaster-now-claims-brothers.html

The Miami Herald Corrections & Clarifications: January 19, 2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/19/2022551/corrections-clarifications-january.html#storylink=mirelated


Conclusion based on the facts the Cuban government committed an act of state terrorism when it blew two civilian aircraft out of the sky with air to air missiles while in international airspace after the government planned and prepared to carry out the act months beforehand.

Justice for the Four Victims not Impunity for the Cuban Five who murdered them

See that justice and due process are observed in Brothers to the Rescue killings

Four murder victims of the WASP Network

The Free Cuba Foundation has launched a petition drive to see that justice and due process are respected in the case of the so-called Cuban Five (ten were caught and charged) because terrorists involved in the murder of Americans were pardoned in 1999 by the Clinton Administration with the active work of Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder (now Attorney General in the Obama Administration). Furthermore there is an active campaign underway to seek their pardon by Hollywood celebrities and artists many of them sympathetic to the dictatorship in Cuba using the regime's talking points to deny the crimes committed against Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales. We believe that in addition to this being a profound injustice the pardoning of unrepentant terrorists would only encourage more terrorism against the United States and in the world generally. It is for these reasons that the petition drive has been launched. Please sign the petition and help spread the word.



Gerardo Hernandez, Ramón Labañino, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez are currently in prison for acts of espionage and state terrorism against US citizens. They plotted to sabotage planes, set fires, and planned sending a mail bomb to a person in South Florida with aim of causing their death. None of these men have demonstrated any remorse for their actions.

The February 24, 1996 murders of Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the United Nation’s Security Council, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights gave proof to the deadly seriousness of their plans.

First, it is troubling that General Ruben Martinez Puente, Francisco Perez-Perez, Lorenzo Alberto Perez Perez who were indicted on four counts of murder, two counts of destruction of aircraft and one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals in August of 2003 and Juan Pablo Roque indicted in May 1999 as a foreign agent (although he played a role in the conspiracy to murder three US citizens and one US resident) have not been pursued to the full extent of the law.

Why hasn't the U.S. Department of Justice under either the George W. Bush or Barack Obama Administrations presented Interpol with an arrest warrant for the three Cuban Air Force officials indicted for the 1996 murder of four U.S. nationals and for the Cuban agent involved in the conspiracy to have them killed?

Secondly, it is dismaying to learn that Gerardo Hernandez’s name is being raised in a possible exchange or release. He has had due process in a trial with the best attorney’s money could buy that have put on a zealous defense and appeals process for their client. Gerardo Hernandez’s conviction on conspiracy to commit murder is the only justice the victims and their families have achieved to date in criminal court.

Please sign the petition here