U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and U.S. Representative Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) published on January 20, 2023 an OpEd in Medium on how appeasing the Cuban government leads to misery. They highlight the brutality of the dictatorship against prisoners of conscience, and the fact that there are over a 1,000 Cuban prisoners of conscience today in the island.
“Last month, regime thugs savagely beat pro-democracy activist José Daniel Ferrer at a state prison in Santiago de Cuba. His wife and two children were forced to watch. And when Ferrer’s young daughter tried to protect her father, the officials brutalized her, too. This is not an isolated incident. For years, Ferrer has been on the receiving end of cruel and unjust treatment simply for speaking out against the Cuban regime. Tragically, there is no end in sight for him, his family, or the more than 1,000 Cubans jailed and tortured for using their voices.”
On October 28, 2022 a Cuban coast guard ship purposefully rammed and sank a boat just north of Bahía Honda, in the province of Artemisa that was heading north to the United States with Cuban refugees. At least seven were killed. Family members of the victims, and survivors spoke out, and were then targeted by the secret police.
Officials prepared a montage denying that the events had taken place, but one of the victims bravely spoke out again to set the record straight, and three other survivors, who escaped the island in mid December, confirmed that the government’s version was false. It had been a premeditated massacre. The U.S. Embassy in Cuba on October 29, 2022 tweeted that the massacre had been an “accident” repeating the Cuban government’s false narrative.
Senator Rubio (R-FL) and Congressman Mario Daz-Balart (R-FL) wrote a paragraph in their OpEd referring to Jose Daniel Ferrer's plight that also applies to the October 28th Bahia Honda massacre.
These are not the actions of a government seeking greater openness and good-faith engagement. These are the actions of criminals interested purely in self-preservation, who routinely use force to oppress, intimidate, and silence anyone who dares to challenge their illegitimate rule.
The State Department on January 19, 2023 following the “Law Enforcement Dialogue” published a statement that is troubling when one considers the record and nature of the Cuban government.
“This type of dialogue enhances the national security of the United States through improved international law enforcement coordination, which enables the United States to better protect U.S. citizens and bring transnational criminals to justice. These dialogues strengthen the United States’ ability to combat criminal actors by increasing cooperation on a range of law enforcement matters, including human trafficking, narcotics, and other criminal cases. Enhanced law enforcement coordination is in the best interests of the United States and the Cuban people.”
Engaging in “international law enforcement coordination” through increased “cooperation on a range of law enforcement matters, including human trafficking, narcotics, and other criminal cases” with the Cuban government does not enhance the national security of the United States.
Havana’s sponsoring of terrorism, its ongoing harboring of notorious terrorists wanted by US justice, its involvement in drug trafficking, and weaponizing and profiting off human trafficking, demonstrates that Cuba today is run by a criminal regime.
With regards to bringing “transnational criminals to justice” the three years of “Law enforcement dialogues” did not see terrorists or cop killers pursued by the FBI turned over. On August 3, 2022, Senators Bob Menendez (D) and Marco Rubio (R) introduced bipartisan legislation in the Senate to extradite a number of criminals harbored by the Cuban government after committing terrorist acts and murdering Americans in the United States. Among those still wanted by the American justice system are Joanne Chesimard, William "Guillermo" Morales, Charlie Hill, and Victor Manuel Gerena.
Worse yet, the regime in Cuba has a track record of passing (or selling) U.S. secrets to enemies of the United States. In the case of Russia the only time that relations cooled, was not due to U.S. engagement, but to Russia flirting with Perestroika and Glasnost during the Gorbachev era, and entered a deep freeze during the Boris Yeltsin presidency. Relations resumed their historic closeness with Vladimir Putin’s presidency in 2000.
The response by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez should equally give one pause.
“Bilateral cooperation to confront scourges like terrorism, illegal trafficking of migrants and migratory fraud benefit both countries and we are committed to it despite the economic blockade and incessant hostility of the United States.”
Is the U.S. cooperating with Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism on the scourge of terrorism? Will they also be cooperating with Iran, North Korea and Syria? The State Department 2022 report on Cuba and human trafficking is damning.
“The Government of Cuba does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so, even considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, if any, on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Cuba remained on Tier 3. Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some steps to address trafficking, including investigating, prosecuting, and convicting traffickers, and identifying victims. However, during the reporting period, there was a government policy or pattern to profit from labor export programs with strong indications of forced labor, particularly its foreign medical missions’ program. The government continued to deploy Cuban workers to foreign countries using deceptive and coercive tactics and failed to address labor violations and trafficking crimes despite an increasing number of allegations from credible NGOs, former participants, and foreign governments of Cuban officials’ involvement in abuses.”
Will the Biden Administration in the next trafficking report downplay Havana’s dismal record on trafficking in 2023, as was done in 2015 during the Obama Administration that outraged anti-trafficking groups who condemned the report for being politicized?
Unmentioned in the reporting is what the Castro regime is doing today on the international scene.
The Cuban government’s ongoing support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for China’s aggressive actions against Hong Kong and Taiwan, the backing of other terror regimes in Iran, North Korea, and Syria. These regimes all share a profound hostility against the United States, and democracy more broadly. Cuba also participated in military exercises conducted by Russia in Venezuela and Iran in 2022.
Havana has soldiers and intelligence agents in Venezuela that have been described by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro as an “occupation army”. In addition to their other duties in Venezuela some of these Cuban assets are overseeing the torture of Venezuelan dissidents.
In Venezuela, Havana has soldiers and intelligence agents who have been described as a "occupation army" by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro. In addition to their other responsibilities in Venezuela, some of them supervise the torture of Venezuelan dissidents.
Medium, January 20, 2023
Weak “Engagement” With Cuba Will End in Misery
By U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and U.S. Representative Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL)
Last month, regime thugs savagely beat pro-democracy activist José Daniel Ferrer at a state prison in Santiago de Cuba. His wife and two children were forced to watch. And when Ferrer’s young daughter tried to protect her father, the officials brutalized her, too. This is not an isolated incident. For years, Ferrer has been on the receiving end of cruel and unjust treatment simply for speaking out against the Cuban regime. Tragically, there is no end in sight for him, his family, or the more than 1,000 Cubans jailed and tortured for using their voices.
These are not the actions of a government seeking greater openness and good-faith engagement. These are the actions of criminals interested purely in self-preservation, who routinely use force to oppress, intimidate, and silence anyone who dares to challenge their illegitimate rule. And yet, there are men and women in the Biden Administration who foolishly advocate for weaker sanctions and greater “engagement” with the dictatorship.
In the wake of a “law enforcement dialogue” between the U.S. Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security and the Cuban regime, it appears Obama-era holdovers in this White House are doing everything in their power to reverse common-sense Trump-era policies, with the goal of lifting sanctions and removing Cuba from America’s state sponsors of terror list — a boon for the regime that shows these socialist-leaning ideologues learned nothing from their past mistakes.
When President Obama attempted his appeasement of the Cuban regime, the result by any objective standard was total failure. If anything, the oppression appeared to get worse during Obama’s presidency. Political prisoners released as part of the deal were rearrested in the succeeding months. Meanwhile, any profits from increased trade and travel went only to the Communist Party elite and the Cuban military, not the Cuban people.
None of this came as a surprise to those of us who are familiar with the Castro brothers and their puppet successor, Díaz-Canel. We know from experience that they use every gesture of international goodwill as an opportunity to strengthen their grip on power. That is why activist Jorge Luis Garcia Perez called Obama’s actions a “betrayal of the aspiration to freedom of the Cuban people.”
So why do Biden Administration officials insist on doing this all over again? It’s for the same reason that they want to normalize relations with Venezuela’s narco-dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and play nice with the Chinese Communist Party. Rooted in globalist economic theory and blinded by Marxist sympathies, they believe that “engagement” with dictators and the opening of markets will lead to universal liberty and prosperity.
History says otherwise. If we put appeasement into practice with Cuba, we will lose the leverage we need to prevent greater oppression of Ferrer, the Ladies in White, the San Isidro movement, and other anti-regime voices. We cannot forget that we are dealing with criminals who use illegal immigration as a weapon against the U.S., support international narco-terrorists like the ELN and the FARC, and remain a staunch ally of America’s greatest adversaries — from Nicaragua and the Maduro regime to Iran, North Korea, Putin’s Russia, and Communist China.
President Biden must not lift sanctions on Cuba’s dictatorship or remove it from the state sponsors of terror list. There are real ways the U.S. can help the Cuban people, such as providing them with uncensored internet access and American broadcasting; sanctioning human rights abusers, including the Cuban military; and advocating on behalf of the hundreds of political prisoners unjustly detained after the mass protests on July 11, 2021. The path of “engagement,” on the other hand, will help neither the Cuban people nor America. To the contrary, appeasing the Cuban dictatorship will only embolden and enrich the oppressors.
https://senatormarcorubio.medium.com/weak-engagement-with-cuba-will-end-in-misery-3bdcc0c9c2a5
State Department, January 19, 2022
United States and Cuba Resume Law Enforcement Dialogue
Media Note
January 19, 2023
On January 18-19, U.S. and Cuban officials met in Havana to discuss topics of bilateral interest on law enforcement matters under the U.S.–Cuba Law Enforcement Dialogue.
This type of dialogue enhances the national security of the United States through improved international law enforcement coordination, which enables the United States to better protect U.S. citizens and bring transnational criminals to justice. These dialogues strengthen the United States’ ability to combat criminal actors by increasing cooperation on a range of law enforcement matters, including human trafficking, narcotics, and other criminal cases. Enhanced law enforcement coordination is in the best interests of the United States and the Cuban people. This dialogue does not impact the administration’s continued focus on critical human rights issues in Cuba, which is always central to our engagement.
The Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Justice co-chaired the dialogue for the United States. The U.S. delegation included representatives from the Department of State’s Bureaus of Western Hemisphere Affairs and Office of the Legal Adviser; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Coast Guard; and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Officials from the U.S. Embassy in Havana also participated.
These discussions marked the first Law Enforcement Dialogue between the United States and Cuba since 2018. The United States and Cuba held four Law Enforcement Dialogues from 2015 to 2018. Engaging in these talks underscores our commitment to pursuing constructive discussions with the Government of Cuba where appropriate to advance U.S. interests.
https://www.state.gov/united-states-and-cuba-resume-law-enforcement-dialogue/
Reuters, January 29, 2023
U.S., Cuban Officials Wrap Up Law-Enforcement Talks in Havana
By Dave Sherwood and Matt Spetalnick
HAVANA/WASHINGTON, Jan 19 (Reuters) – A visiting U.S. delegation wrapped up two days of talks on law-enforcement issues with Cuban officials in Havana on Thursday, the two governments said following the first meeting of its kind since the previous Trump administration stopped such dialogue.
The talks, which included the State Department, Justice Department and Homeland Security – and their Cuban counterparts – as well as FBI and immigration officials and the Coast Guard, had been expected to focus on combating cybercrime, terrorist threats and drug and human trafficking.
“This type of dialogue enhances the national security of the United States through improved international law enforcement coordination,” the State Department said. But it stopped short of announcing any agreements between the Cold War-era foes.
Washington’s concerns about counterterrorism were among items on the agenda, U.S. officials had said.
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the talks were mutually beneficial.
“Bilateral cooperation to confront scourges like terrorism, illegal trafficking of migrants and migratory fraud benefit both countries and we are committed to it despite the economic blockade and incessant hostility of the United States,” Rodiguez said.
Cuba’s Interior Ministry separately praised the meetings as taking place in a “climate of respect and professionalism.”
Shortly before his term ended in January 2021, President Donald Trump had placed Cuba on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Biden administration has been reviewing this since taking office.
This week’s meetings marked the revival of the law-enforcement dialogue, which was launched in 2015 under former President Barack Obama but was stopped in 2018 under Trump as he rolled back his predecessor’s historic detente with Communist-ruled Cuba.
President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president, has begun rolling back some of Trump’s policies but has maintained others, insisting the Cuban government must improve its human rights record after a crackdown on protests in 2021.
U.S. officials did not respond to a Reuters question whether the agenda included discussion of Cuba’s possible removal from the terrorism-sponsoring list. Cuba has called the designation a “slander” and false pretext to punish it economically.
Asked about the issue, a State Department spokesperson said: “After a careful review of all available information and intelligence, the Secretary of State will only designate or rescind SST designations after concluding that a country meets the relevant statutory criteria in accordance with applicable law.”
When asked whether the United States was considering delisting Cuba, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told a daily briefing he had “no change in policy to announce” and said the Havana talks were specifically security-related.
It was the first Biden administration delegation known to have traveled to the island this year and appeared to signal increased openness to engage on specific issues of mutual interest despite icy relations.
The State Department said “this dialogue does not impact the administration’s continued focus on critical human rights issues in Cuba.”
U.S. and Cuban officials last year held talks on migration as Washington sought to stem the flow of Cubans to the United States by land and sea.
Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and Dave Sherwood; Editing by Bradley Perrett & Simon Cameron-Moore
https://www.thestkittsnevisobserver.com/u-s-cuban-officials-wrap-up-law-enforcement-talks-in-havana/
The Daily Signal, January 13, 2023
Security / Commentary
Biden’s Misguided Cuba Policy, Havana’s Master Spy, and the Danger of Wishful Thinking
By John Suarez / January 13, 2023
The Biden administration’s Cuba policy—a return to that of the Obama administration, based on a misreading of history and misinformation spread by agents of influence in Washington—does not bode well for U.S. interests.
The reality is that Cuba’s dictatorship is a criminal enterprise that has spent more than six decades destabilizing democracies in the Americas and succeeded in ending them in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.
Without well-placed spies in Washington, that would not have been possible.
Ana Belen Montes, a 17-year spy for the Fidel Castro dictatorship, served 20 years of a 25-year prison sentence and was released on Jan. 6 from a federal prison facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Officially, the reason for the shortened prison stay was due to good behavior. Montes, a Puerto Rican, has moved to Puerto Rico.
Unrepentant, Montes repeated the same narratives she advanced while working for the Castro dictatorship in her first statement out of prison.
Montes, 27 at the time and a Johns Hopkins University master’s degree student working for the Justice Department, was recruited by Cuban intelligence in 1984. In 1985, she began working for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency after graduating.
She worked for Cuba, a state sponsor of terrorism, through 17 years spying for Havana, and her analyses downplayed Havana’s threat. Montes whitewashed Havana’s six-decade record of terrorism (including on U.S. soil), drug trafficking, brutality against Cubans, repression in Nicaragua and Venezuela, and genocide in Ethiopia.
Along with Montes at DIA, Havana’s Directorate of Intelligence successfully infiltrated the CIA, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, conducting influence campaigns, burning spies, and passing secrets to Havana that were then sold to other enemies of America.
Montes revealed secrets that led to the deaths of 65 Central American soldiers, and at least one American soldier. In March 1987, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front guerrillas killed Greg Fronius, a 27-year-old American soldier, because Montes leaked secrets to Havana.
In June 1985, they brutally killed four U.S. Marine embassy guards, two other American civilians, six Salvadorans, and citizens of other countries as they sat at a sidewalk cafe near the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador.
In February 1996, Montes facilitated a meeting between U.S. government officials and retired U.S. Navy Adm. Eugene Carroll to relay recent Cuban threats, allowing the now-deceased Carroll—who had become a left-wing anti-military activist—to shape public opinion in favor of Cuba while negatively portraying the anti-Castro Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
U.S. counterintelligence officer Scott Carmichael wrote in his book “True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy” that he believed that that was a “influence operation”—a covert attempt to influence public opinion.
In 1997, Montes drafted a Pentagon report claiming Cuba had a “limited capacity” to harm the U.S., which Castro referred to as “an objective report by serious people.”
Montes was chosen as a team leader to examine the effectiveness of U.S. Air Force bombing in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Officials feared that, given Havana’s long history of selling secrets to enemies of the U.S., if Montes obtained the Pentagon’s war plans for Afghanistan and gave them to Havana’s Directorate of Intelligence, the Castro regime would pass them on to the Taliban.
That hastened her arrest on Sept. 21, 2001.
The “most damaging non-human intelligence she provided to the Cubans,” according to retired FBI agent Peter Lapp, was information about “a U.S. secret satellite program” that was so sensitive “that prosecutors were banned from using it had the case gone to trial.”
Although the information was unrelated to Cuba, investigators believe Castro passed it on to other regimes hostile to the United States. According to DIA analyst Chris Simmons, selling secrets is a profitable business for Havana.
Montes’ claims that Cuba posed no threat persisted in Congress for a decade after her arrest, in order to justify removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
During her tenure in Washington, the following facts were buried:
Cuba was first added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism in March 1982. The State Department confirmed that Havana was using a drug ring to smuggle arms and money to Colombia’s M-19 terrorist group.
M-19 members stormed Colombia’s Palace of Justice in November 1985. Eleven of Colombia’s 25 Supreme Court justices were among the hostages killed. Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s current president, was an M-19 member in the 1980s.
“In the Arab world, some 3,000 [Cuban advisers] can be found in Libya and Algeria, among other things training terrorists and Polisario guerrillas,” wrote John Hoyt Williams in The Atlantic in 1988.
Today, Havana works with Hamas and other Islamist terrorist organizations, Latin American terrorist groups, as well as terrorist regimes in Iran and North Korea, and is backing Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
On Feb. 24, 1996, Havana carried out Operation Scorpion, using intelligence provided by the Wasp Network in the U.S., which led to the killing of four Brothers to the Rescue members in international airspace.
According to Simmons, the former Defense Intelligence Agency spy catcher, the Wasp Network (“La Red Avispa” in Spanish) “was the largest foreign spy network to operate in the United States.”
This spy network also targeted U.S. military facilities, planned to smuggle arms and explosives into America, and assassinate a retired CIA agent.
The post-Castro regime in Cuba has continued to sponsor and harbor terrorists to the present day, despite vehement denials, and shows no signs of abating.
The record shows Montes was a traitor who supported a terrorist regime that killed Americans and U.S. allies while harming U.S. interests.
She should have been sentenced to life in prison, but instead struck a deal and was sentenced to 25 years and last week was released early. At minimum, given the harm she caused and her lack of repentance, Montes should not have been released before serving her full sentence.
The State Department announced Thursday, less than a week after her release, that it was resuming a “law-enforcement dialogue” with the stated goal of bringing “transnational criminals to justice.”
Then-President Donald Trump ended the “dialogue” initiated by President Barack Obama in 2015. During the initial three-year dialogue, none of the terrorists or fugitives from American justice held by Havana were handed over to the U.S.
The phrase “law-enforcement dialogue” is inaccurate. In Cuba, there is no rule of law. To keep power, there is a dictatorship and a repressive security apparatus. There is no such thing as “law enforcement.”
That was evident during the nationwide protests on July 11, when political police beat down, clubbed, and shot nonviolent protesters in the back. That became clear when Cuban witnesses who had documented that criminal behavior were tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Where might this Biden thaw lead to? On Oct. 14, 2016, the Obama administration issued a presidential directive on “United States-Cuba Normalization,” which included a problematic instruction.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) will support broader United States government efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, with intelligence community elements working to find opportunities for engagement on areas of common interest through which we could exchange information on mutual threats with Cuban counterparts.
Reading this presidential directive from 2016, it’s clear that the Biden administration is using it as a blueprint for its unfolding Cuba policy, which ignores the nature of the regime in Havana and threatens not only American lives and property, but also the fate of democracy in the Americas.
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U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, August 03, 2022
Menendez, Rubio Introduce Legislation Demanding Cuban Regime Extradite American Fugitives, Terrorists
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was joined today by Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in introducing the Trooper Werner Foerster and Frank Connor Justice Act. The bipartisan legislation defines U.S. policy to require the immediate extradition or return of all fugitives from justice currently receiving safe haven in Cuba to avoid prosecution or confinement for criminal offenses committed in the United States. Among the more than 70 fugitives believed to be receiving safe haven in Cuba are convicted felons Joanne Chesimard and William Morales, whose crimes led to the death of two New Jersey residents. Other fugitives being harbored by the Cuban regime include individuals charged with offenses ranging from hijacking to kidnapping to drug offenses and murder.
The new legislation also requires the U.S. government to actively raise the issues of fugitives with the Cuban government and take additional steps to ensure Cuba does not violate its obligations under existing bilateral extradition treaties. The legislation also requires increased transparency over the total number of U.S. fugitives in Cuba and State Department efforts to secure their extradition, and prohibits the use of any foreign assistance for law enforcement cooperation in Cuba until the country complies with its extradition treaty obligations and returns U.S. fugitives.
“It is unacceptable that the Cuban regime continues to harbor criminals responsible for committing heinous acts in the United States, including terrorist bombings, murdering American police officers, hijacking planes, and trafficking arms,” said Chairman Menendez. “The families of the victims of these fugitives, including many in my home state of New Jersey, have spent decades unable to find closure and see justice done as a direct result of the Cuban regime’s actions. This bill will send a strong message to these families that the United States government has not forgotten their plight, and it will ensure that the issue of American fugitives remains a top priority for U.S. policy towards Cuba.”
“The communist regime in Cuba has provided safe haven to Joanne Chesimard, Guillermo Morales, Charlie Hill, Victor Manuel Gerena and other criminals responsible for planning and carrying out violent crimes against Americans,” said Senator Rubio. “By doing so, the regime has robbed these victims and their families of justice. This bill takes an important step by requiring the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to use diplomatic tools to secure the extradition of all fugitives residing in Cuba to face justice in the United States. Until the regime hands these fugitives over to face trial in American courts, it absolutely should not receive taxpayer assistance or sanctions relief.”
“Decades ago, I promised my mom Mary Connor Tully that we would bring justice to convicted fugitive William Morales who, along with his FALN terrorist comrades, murdered her first love, my father Frank Connor,” said Joseph Connor, son of Frank Connor who was killed in 1975 by FALN terrorists currently being harbored by the Cuban regime. “The Trooper Werner Foerster and Frank Connor Justice Act can make that promise a reality. We implore the United States to use all resources available to bring Morales and all terrorists and criminals back from Cuba to face justice.”
In May 1973, Joanne Chesimard and two accomplices executed New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster during a routine traffic stop. Although Chesimard was tried, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, she escaped from a New Jersey prison on November 2, 1979 and is currently a fugitive in Cuba. In 2013, Chesimard was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Most Wanted Terrorists list.
William Morales, leader and chief bomb-maker for the terrorist organization FALN, committed numerous terrorist attacks on United States soil, including the bombings of Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan in 1975 and the Mobil Oil employment office in New York in 1977, which killed five people, including Frank Connor of Fair Lawn, N.J., and injured over 60 others.
Find a copy of the legislation HERE.