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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/landau04172009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau04172009.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">April 17-20,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>An Interview
with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuban Five
</i></b></font></h1>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000"><b>
Infiltrating Alpha 66 <br><br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By SAUL LANDAU
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">T</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>his 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.<br><br>
<b>Saul Landau: What was your mission and why?<br><br>
</b>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].<br><br>
<b>SL: What did you learn through your infiltration?<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>SL: In what years?<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
<b>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?<br><br>
</b>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.”<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
<b>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?<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?”<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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?<br><br>
<b>Saul Landau</b> is currently making (with Jack Willis) a film on the
Cuban Five. His other films are available on DVD from
<a href="mailto:roundworldproductions@gmail.com">
roundworldproductions@gmail.com</a>. He is a fellow of the Institute for
Policy Studies and autho of
<a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html">
A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD</a> (Counterpunch A/K).<br><br>
<br><br>
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