[Ppnews] An Interview with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuban Five

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau04172009.html

April 17-20, 2009


An Interview with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuban Five

Infiltrating Alpha 66

By SAUL LANDAU

This conversation took place on April 1, 2009. 
Our film crew received Justice Department 
approval to talk with “the prisoner,” with a 
prison official in the room. Before his 1998 
arrest, Gerardo Hernandez directed the operations 
of the other Cuban State Security agents who 
infiltrated violent groups in the Miami area for 
the purposes of stopping them from carrying our 
terrorist attacks on tourist sites in Cuba. We took complete and careful notes.

Saul Landau: What was your mission and why?

Gerardo Hernandez: In the US in general and 
Florida specifically, many groups contemplated 
and carried out acts of terrorism in Cuba.  We 
were collecting information on Alpha 66, the F4 
Commandos, the Cuban American National 
Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue.  Many 
years have passed and I hope that nothing has 
escaped me but I think those were the principal 
groups in which we working [infiltrating].

SL: What did you learn through your infiltration?

GH: The first thing that struck me was the 
impunity with which these groups operated, 
violating the laws of the US: The Neutrality Acts 
[of the 1790s] that supposedly means no 
organization can use American soil to commit terrorism against another country.

In the case of Alpha 66, the operatives would 
take a fast boat and shoot at targets along 
Cuba’s coast. When they would return to Miami, 
they would hold a press conference lecture and openly say what they had done.

And when someone would ask, “Hey, doesn’t that 
violate the neutrality laws,” they would reply: 
“Not really, because first we went to one of the 
Keys somewhere in the Caribbean and then we went 
to Cuba. So technically, we didn’t leave from the 
US.”  They did this openly and no US agency took responsibility.

SL: In what years?

GH: This has been going on since 1959. I 
personally began dealing with this in the 
1990s.  Since I’ve been here in prison in 
Victorville [California] about 3 years ago, I 
think in 2005 they arrested a Cuban right here in 
this county with an arsenal, all kinds of weapons 
in his house. And the first thing he said was, 
“Well, I am a member of Alpha 66 and I’m using 
these weapons in the struggle for Cuban freedom.”  That was his defense.

SL: Were the Cuban Five all volunteers?  How does 
one prepare to infiltrate an enemy group in an 
enemy country? And then act as if you were 
enemies of your country and friends of them?

GH: Yes, all volunteers. In my case, I’m not a 
career military man. I studied to be a diplomat. 
It took me 6 years to complete my degree in 
International and Political Relations. 
Afterwards, I went to Angola, as part of a 
voluntary international mission.  And while I was 
in Angola it seems I sparked the attention of the 
Cuban intelligence services, and when I got back, 
they approached me with this mission. They said, 
“We know you studied to be a diplomat, but you 
know our country has a certain situation with 
these terrorist groups that are coming from 
Florida to commit all kinds of crimes and we need 
someone to go and fulfill these tasks.”

I could have said “No, I studied diplomacy, I 
want to be a diplomat,” but Cubans, those who 
were raised with the Revolution, know that during 
the past 50 years our country has faced almost a 
war environment. In Cuba, he who doesn’t know 
personally a victim of terrorism, at least knows 
about the plane that exploded over Barbados, 
killing 73 people [October 1976]. Who doesn’t 
know about the bomb [in 1997] that killed Fabio 
di Selmo [an Italian tourist and guest at 
Havana’s Hotel Copacabana detonated by a 
Salvadoran who said he was hired by Luis 
Posada  ] just to mention a few acts?  There was 
a pre-school where the counter revolutionaries 
lit a [gas] tank on fire. These actions are part 
of the Cuban conscience.   So, I told the 
Intelligence officers, “Yes, I am prepared to fulfill this mission.”

SL: How did you manage to infiltrate these 
groups? How did you convince them, people like 
Jose Basulto [head of Brothers to the Rescue], for example?

GH: For Cubans in this country, everything is 
connected. Cubans in the United States have 
enormous privileges, ones that no other citizens 
of the world have. Cubans arrive by any route, 
including with false passports, and the only 
thing they have to say is, “I come seeking 
freedom,” and right away the US gives them all 
the documents they need.  So, in the case of 
Basulto, for example, one of our comrades who 
infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue had originally 
“stolen” a plane from Cuba. Rene [Gonzalez, 
another of the Cuban Five] flew his plane here 
and, as is the custom, he was received as a hero. 
He got lots of attention and, later joined the 
Brothers. His job was collecting information about that organization.

So, if you ask me how, I say that we used as our 
foundation for infiltration the very privileges 
all Cubans receive when they arrive in this 
country; even those who took others with them, 
and have hijacked airplanes, or have put a gun up 
to a pilot’s head.  Look at people like Leonel 
Matias, who [in 1994 he hijacked a boat in Cuba 
and killed a naval officer in the process] killed 
someone on a boat, arrived here on that boat, 
with his gun -- and the body was even discovered. 
But despite all of that, he didn’t have to face 
any processes in the U.S. justice system. Those 
people are automatically pardoned. So using 
exactly that kind of advantage, we were able to 
penetrate to a certain level, these organizations.

When I mention Brothers to the Rescue, some might 
think, “This is a humanitarian organization that 
rescued balseros [rafters].” On the contrary, 
while their activities were limited to rescuing 
balseros, they had no problems with the Cuban 
authorities. What people tend not know is that 
Jose Basulto, the head of that organization, has 
a long record as a terrorist. He trained with the 
CIA, and infiltrated Cuba in the 1960s.  In 1962, 
he came to Cuba on a fast boat and fired shells 
at the Cuban coast, including targeting a hotel. 
Even Basulto, with all his known history, had no 
problems while he limited his actions to rescuing 
balseros. In 1995, however, the United States and 
Cuba signed migratory agreements specifying that 
boats intercepted at sea would no longer be 
brought to the United States; rather they would 
be returned to Cuba. At that point, people 
stopped contributing money to Basulto and his 
organization because, they said: “Why are we 
going to give money to Basulto’s organization? 
When he calls the coast guard, they are just 
going to return those balseros to Cuba?”

So, when Basulto saw his business in danger, he 
invented this invasion [in 1995] of Cuban 
airspace as a way to keep people donating money. 
We presented this evidence in our case. If the 
press hasn’t wanted to pay much attention to 
this
well, they don’t want to touch such 
material. It doesn’t behoove them. I am referring 
to the corporate press. The documents are all 
there showing how Basulto and the Brothers to the 
Rescue were trying out handmade weapons in order to introduce them in Cuba.

When Basulto testified at our trial [2001], our 
attorneys asked him what he intended to do with 
all those weapons. All this is in the trial 
record, though no one seems to want to pay 
attention to it. People tend to talk about the 
Brothers to the Rescue as if they were a 
humanitarian organization, omitting the part 
about terrorism; like they omit the facts that 
the FBI had penetrated that organization as well. 
The FBI had someone inside the group giving them 
information on the Brothers’ activities. Why 
would the FBI penetrate a humanitarian organization?

Saul Landau is currently making (with Jack 
Willis) a film on the Cuban Five. His other films 
are available on DVD from 
<mailto:roundworldproductions at gmail.com>roundworldproductions at gmail.com. 
He is a fellow of the Institute for Policy 
Studies and autho of 
<http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html>A 
BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD (Counterpunch A/K).




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