Mr. President, we have miles to go before we sleep.

[seafan]

This week, April 17-19, will prove to be very important in US-Cuba relations. President Obama is due to announce today that he will lift restrictions on the ability of Cuban-Americans to send money to their families in Cuba, and also to allow them to visit Cuba, by lifiting the 47 year-old travel ban.


As usual, there are some who wish to stop this, sticking to a hard line that has obviously been ineffectual in raising the living standards of the Cuban people. Unfortunately, some of these fierce opponents belong to the Democratic Party.


Later this week, President Obama will travel to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. He will undoubtedly hear from many who hope for a new beginning with US-Cuba relations.


From the Trinidad Express:

THIS EASTER weekend, as President Barack Obama engages in further briefing sessions for his participation in the Fifth Summit of the Americas, he would already have had substantial intelligence/ political indicators on what to expect from representatives of the various subregion's whose representatives will be among selected speakers at the ceremonial opening and plenary sessions of the three-day (April 17-19) event.

It may not be the summit of "trial by fire"(euphemism for political fireworks) as the legendary retired former Cuban President, Fidel Castro, has written following his recent meeting in Havana with Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega.
But, to judge from various reports, it appears that, from across the ideology spectrum, radical as well as liberal and conservative leaders of South and Central America, as well as the Caribbean region can be expected to raise voices in favour of the imperatives for a new beginning in US-Cuba relations.

.....

Skirmishes are inevitable, according to diplomatic sources. But Obama could be expected to maintain his trademark "cool" demeanour as he seeks to learn by "listening", as he is fond of saying, about the deep-rooted social and economic problems facing the masses in the Latin America-Caribbean region-problems and challenges from which the US cannot be disssociated-and why it must join in new partnership model for sustainable development.

.....

The official programme, with all its pomp and ceremony cast around an elaborate network of military/police secuirty never experienced in the host country, or any other CARICOM state, is yet to be publicly announced.
It could well be delayed until "Air Force One" is in the air heading for Trinidad and Tobago on Friday, April 17 with the politician who has been stealing the show at every international fora since his inauguration as President: Barack Obama.

However, insider sources have indicated to this correspondent that there are as of now five speakers scheduled to address the opening session: President Obama, the Presidents of Argentina (Cristina Fernandez deKirchner) and Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega) and Prime Ministers Dean Barrow of Belize and host Patrick Manning who will be the last speaker

.....

Prime Minister Harper is now expected to be first to speak at the plenary session that begins on Saturday morning (April 18). That's when a range of other heads of state and Government, among them Venezuela's Hugo Chavez...

...

Even in the US voices are being raised by lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike for dialogue between Washington and Havana for an end to both Cuba's exclusion from the OAS and termination of America's almost half a century of a very punishing trade and economic embargo which the Cuban people have courageously and innovatively survived.

.....

Interestingly, the Congressional Black Caucus recently returned from Cuba, pleased with their visit with Fidel Castro, and hopeful that the US may be closer to improving relations with Cuba, after many decades of a harsh and punitive embargo.


With confluence of these two important events, the CBC's Cuba visit and the uncoming Summit of the Americas, there was this very curious little story from earlier this week.

According to this just-released 2007 State Department Report, it claims that Cuba 'has tried to weaken the morale of US Diplomats on the island by poisoning their family pets'.

The 64-page report written in 2007 states that the life of U.S. diplomats serving in the U.S. Interest Section (USINT) – which issues visas and performs other diplomatic services in Havana – was laden with poor morale “in part because USINT life in Havana is life with a government that ‘let’s you know it’s hostile.’”

.....

Cuban officials would often try to create dissention within the ranks of U.S. diplomats on the island according to the report, which was prepared and released by the State Department inspector general.

“Retaliations have ranged from the petty to the poisoning of family pets. The regime has recently gone to great lengths to harass some employees by holding up household goods and consumable shipments. The apparent goal has been to instigate dissension within USINT ranks.”

“(H)ousehold effects and consumable shipments are languishing in containers awaiting customs clearance. Customs clearance has also lagged for some unaccompanied air freight shipments,” the report says.

The official account of U.S. diplomats in the Communist country closely follows recent political efforts to improve ties with Cuba.

And that, is perhaps the answer. Is this suspiciously timed release of fear-mongering 2007 report from the Bush State Department the work of a Cheney "stay-behind"?

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence.

Could be.


This brings us to Michael E. Parmly, the top US Diplomat in the U.S. Interest Section (USINT)in Cuba from September 10, 2001 until July 2008, during the period identified in the curious Hill report.

Chief of Mission of the United States Interests Section in Havana, or USINT, a post he held from September 10, 2005 to July 2008.<1> He succeeded James Cason at this post and is predecessor to Jonathan D. Farrar.

Micheal Parmly is accused by Cuba, substantiated by considerable evidence, of being a "mule", to carry funds from a jailed terrorist in the US to dissidents on the island who aim to oust Cuba's government.


From CBS News, May 22, 2008:

For one week now Cuba has been revealing apparently warm links between local dissidents, U.S. diplomats posted in Havana and a Miami businessman, Santiago Alvarez (Fernández-Magriñá), now jailed in the U.S. on weapons charges.

Today Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque demanded that Washington investigate and take steps to stop what he described as the illegal behavior by these diplomats, including Michael Parmly, the head of the U.S. Interests Section, America’s lone diplomatic outpost in communist Cuba.

He’s especially ticked off because Parmly himself allegedly hand-carried cash from Alvarez’s NGO, the Fundacion Rescate Juridico, in Miami to dissident economist Marta Beatriz Roque in Havana.

Alvarez is considered a terrorist because of his involvement with an attempted bombing in Havana in the 1990s. The person sent by him to place the bombs was captured by state security and, under their watchful eyes, engaged Alvarez in a taped phone conversation. It in, the Miami businessman is heard saying the bomb should be placed in the famed Tropicana nightclub where it can do the most damage. Also not in his favor is Alvarez’s close friendship with Luis Posada Carriles, charged with the 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cubana civilian airliner that killed all 73 people on board.

For three nights running Cuban state television has rolled out video, intercepted phone conversations and e-mails to prove their point:

This “scandalous” behavior and “obscure drama,” the foreign minister charged today, violates Cuban and U.S. laws and international conventions. In particular, he said, it goes against the 1977 bilateral accord that established Cuban and U.S. Interests Sections in the corresponding capitals. And he demanded Washington investigate and provide answers.

Perez Roque, however, has to be aware that there is little chance of the Bush Administration doing that. As he himself noted, President Bush delivered another of his hard-line speeches railing against the Castro regime just yesterday.

“It was a decadent show, an irrelevant and cynical speech, an act of ridiculous propaganda,” … by an “exhausted leader” engaged in “packing his bags” to return to his ranch, the foreign minister said.

Meanwhile, Parmly, as scheduled, winds up his tour of duty in Havana this summer. It’s unlikely that this latest dust-up between the two countries will be resolved by then. The State Department has already announced that his replacement will be Jonathan Farrar, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Based on his past statements, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Farrar disagrees with the President’s policy on Cuba.

.....

Havana still waits for an answer from the US.



So, we have a now-former top US diplomat in Cuba, who stands accused of funneling money from a jailed Cuban terrorist in Miami, Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñá, to mercenaries and dissidents in Cuba who are attempting to oust the Cuban government. Incidentally, the dissident on the island to whom Parmly carried this money is named as Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello. She is close friends with Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.


From Juventud Rebelde in Cuba:

The facts are clear: Michael Parmly, head of the United States Interests Office (USIS) in Havana, and Robert ‘Bob' Blau, an official of that diplomatic headquarters —now risen to deputy head of the Cuba Desk in the Department of State—, acted as “mules” for the terrorist Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriñá, as couriers of cash payments to his political mercenaries in Cuba.

The proof is irrefutable. The leading role of these messengers in the transfer of the money is shown in phone conversations, e-mails, videos, communications, and even in statements to the press, revealed in the third broadcast the Roundtable news/commentary program dedicated to the scandalous connection.

They have violated the laws of Cuba, the Vienna Convention relating to the norms of international diplomatic relations, the agreement that in May 1977 decided the establishment of the respective Interests Offices, and the of United States’ own legislation, because they are acting under a precept whereby a policy of visceral hate rules. Against Cuba, everything goes. The objective of this conspiracy has been to cause incidents that justify an intervention.

On three occasions Michael Parmly travelled to Miami, expressly to meet with people trusted by the counterrevolutionary leader Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, and to pick up sums of money for her, to finance illegal activities on the island and to distribute it among members of several small groups. The funds came from the “friend” of the Fundación Rescate Jurídico, imprisoned in United States under three serious federal charges: possessing a huge cache of weapons, false documentation and obstruction of justice.

The representatives of a government has established a budget of $47 million to finance terrorists in Miami and their henchmen inside Cuba, who Washington also guides and controls, have the effrontery to reach the point of being lent out as envoys and messengers.

.....

Carmen Machado, a close collaborator and intimate of Fernández Magriñá, in an email sent on September 25, 2006, asked Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, “will you have somebody who can take these things to you soon or should I look for someone here.” The answer was immediate: “Dear Carmen: I generally use people that go to Miami and they come in without any problem... I know that you will realize who they are...”

The matter is of supreme importance. “Things,” “mangos,” “letters,” “postcards,” “telegrams” or “silly little things” identify in code the substantial sums of money and their amount; for that reason it required a prompt explanation to the “dear Carmen” and friends in another e-mail: “in next few days Juan Carlos (Fuentes, the nephew of Roque), will receive a visit from somebody who can bring me things, what ever you want to send can be given to them(...) It can’t be a large packet, but a few silly things, yes...».

The man that arrived in Miami was Bob, to whom Martha had explained that those “silly things” were donations for the Congreso de Bibliotecas (Congress of Libraries). “I don't know the figure exactly, but María told me that she also had something for me, please call her before the visit, so that it is all in one go, because these opportunities are not that frequent.” Dollars or Euros, I don't care, Bob told him that “there is no difficulty.”

Carmen Machado delivered the money to Juanca, the nephew, who met Robert Blau at the end of October 2006. We can deduce that he knew about conspiracies and undercover work, since he asked him not to use e-mail to give “detail” of the shipment, but the deed was already done, and Juanca lied. It wasn’t worth a scolding from Auntie Mc Duck, “this is their way and they will surely know it.” The thing is that the computer with which many of the messages were written is in the headquarters of the Washington’s Interests Office in Havana.

In the exchange of notes, on more than one occasion that of Miami mentioned Bob, and this earned another piece of advice from Roque from the friend, “don't use your name again...”

In the files of Immigration and Foreigners office in Cuba, it states that on November 5, 2006, Robert Blau (Bob) arrived in Havana. He is also captured on camera at the José Martí International Airport.

There is more proof that adds to the difficulty in this case and which constitutes the crime of conspiracy in the United States. This is because Parmly knew of the document to influence a judge and that he helped to reduce him the sentence of Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriñá, a man subjected to two trials.

The document referred to their requesting Martha Beatriz Roque to send it on November 1, 2006 from USIS, and it was signed by her and by the executive secretary of the organization.

A document that got lost in the USIS itself, upset her greatly. She reported this to Michael Parmly, who said he would find out what had happened. Total complicity.

Carmen said to him, “I wanted you to know and that you can count on me as a friend, something which I’m also proud of” – an admission that links her to the terrorist that within a short time can return to her adventures with her partners in crime Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, since the good judge reduced his sentence to ten months in jail and a fine of $2,000 and two years probation.

Make that two high-ranking US government officials.



This week we learned of new US indictments handed down against Posada Carriles, and for the first time, he is linked to the 1997 tourist bombings in Cuba.


And the terrorist, Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñá, now in prison on weapons cache charges, who sent money via US Diplomat Michael Parmly and State Department Deputy head of the Cuban desk Robert Blau, to the Cuban mercenaries, happens to own the fishing boat, Santrina, on which he gave passage to terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in 2005, to the US.


From April 26, 2006:

TERRORIST Luis Posada Carriles illegally entered the United States on March 18, 2005 aboard the Santrina, owned by Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñá, according to documents presented before a federal court in Florida by U.S. district attorneys.

"By affirming that Posada Carriles entered the United States on the Santrina with Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñá, the prosecution itself is questioning the credibility of Posada, Alvarez, his accomplices and even the White House," lawyer José Pertierra told Cubadebate. Pertierra is the Venezuelan government’s legal representative in the extradition case of the Cuban-born terrorist who is a naturalized citizen of Venezuela.

Upon entering the United States illegally, Posada and his accomplices lied to protect the Santrina crew. "To help a terrorist enter the United States illegally is a very serious felony that is punishable by several years in prison. To lie to cover up a felony is also a federal crime," added the legal expert.

Luis Posada Carriles entered the United States on March, 2005 and although that was publicly known, the Department of Homeland Security did not arrest him until May 17, 2005. Washington denied knowing his whereabouts. "Now we learn that one of the people who helped Posada to enter the country illegally worked for the FBI. It is evident that the White House has always known how Posada entered the country, with whom he entered, and where he was living," assured Pertierra, who added: "This is a blemish on them all."

Gilberto Abascal, key witness for the U.S. district attorney in the case of Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñá and Osvaldo Mitat, informed authorities of his participation in the illegal operation to clandestinely bring Posada from Isla Mujeres, México, to Miami on the shrimper Santrina.

A document signed by U.S. District Attorney Alexander Acosta and Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Hummel states that Abascal, an FBI informant, reported the crime. The revelation about Posada appeared in a letter dated February 27, sent by the district attorney in response to a petition by lawyer Arturo Hernández, who represents Fernández-Magriñá.

"He (Abascal) also traveled with Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñá in his boat (Santrina) to Mexico during the successful adventure in human trafficking that resulted in Luis Posada’s illegal entry in the United States," the text of the letter reads.

El Nuevo Herald admitted this Saturday that "it is the first time a government document has corroborated that an FBI informant was in contact with Posada during his transfer to U.S. territory. The Cuban government has alleged this version of the account since April, supported by a report in the Mexican periodical Por Esto!, but Posada kept claiming that he reached the US by crossing the Texan border in a car and later taking a bus to Miami."

.....

Again, is there any further evidence required that high level US Government officials under the Bush Administration were actively involved in funneling money from a terrorist inside a US prison to mercenaries in Cuba?


Allow it to sink in.




Michael Parmly (AP)





Amazing, the resemblance to Porter Goss.



Washington's "Terror Diplomacy" in Latin America: Destabilize Countries and Overthrow Governments, September 15, 2008




Mr. President, we have miles to go before we sleep.

[zeemike]

1. Who's woods these are I think I know.

Thanks for this great post...It is information that you will never see watching TV.
And I am sure there many more out there that Obama will have to watch out for.
This ain't going to be easy or fast.

[seafan]

2. A kick for this week's Summit of the Americas. n/t