Miami FBI: terrorism, drugs, and politics, 3/00

antiterroristas.cu

Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)

The CANF has been tied to terrorist drug traffickers responsible for acts on a scale that would have sent the US military into full scale action had they been done to Americans. Yet they continue to receive support from the Republicans and some Democrats such as Senator Lieberman.

Ricardo Mas Canosa, Cuban-American Millionaire, Arrested In Nicaragua, 9/17/01, Radio Havana

Convicted Bomber Freed, Thanks To CANF, 8/2/01 Click 10

Afro-Cuban Delegation Meets With Congressional Black Caucus, 8/1/01

Exiles try to convince Black Caucus that Cuba is racist, 8/1/01

CANF's AfroCuban page, 7/31

Requiem to a teratoma - CANF terminally ill, by Alberto Jones, 7/24

Connections of CANF’s treasurer, 1/2/01

Luis Posada's arrest in Panama: CANF supported terrorism, 11/00

CANF Praises Republican Leadership For Putting Principle Before Tainted Profit, 10/00 - sample of CANF propaganda showing their victory on the embargo

The long hand of the Cuban American National Foundation in and around the Elian Case "La mas fea no perdona..." - compendium of resources up to 4/00

CANF supports end of Affirmative Action in Florida, 4/00

The CANF, drugs, and the October 1997 plot to kill Castro, 1/99

Congressman Rangel calls for CANF investigation, 7/98

In August, 2001, the CANF found itself in the middle of a crisis that arose from the City of  Miami's refusal to host the Grammy Awards. When the falangistas heard that LA made 50 million from the ceremonies, Mas Canosa Jr. himself set up the welcoming comittee for the next Grammy. Not being given to rule by consultation and consensus, he angered the old guard who is defected, well, OK, resigned and went elsewhere: people like Perez Castellon, information officer, etc. The idea of Mas Canosa having to hug some Cuban musician awardee proved too much. Meanwhile some bright Miami boy renewed the registration for the name CANF, a task left undone by the not too efficient CANF administration. See Alberto Jones' comments: Requiem for a Teratoma

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT on JORGE MAS CANOSA 1993: "Jorge Who" by Gaeton Fonzi, Special Team Director, House Select Committee on Assassinations

(CNSNews.com) - A delegation of Afro-Cubans, four from the Miami area and two from the Washington, D.C. area, spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, hoping to convince them that Fidel Castro is bad for Cuba and should improve his human rights record there.

Omar Lopez Montenegro of the Cuban Civic National Union was among the delegation. He was told by the Castro government to leave Cuba several years ago and has lived in the United States ever since.

"We want to explain to the American people what the real situation is in Cuba," Montenegro said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

"Blacks in Cuba are unhappy with the system of government. A majority of blacks living in Cuba are dissidents. Many blacks cannot get government positions in the arts or politics because of the Castro government. The only field where blacks have excelled in Cuba is in sports," he said.

Other members of the delegation did not speak English and their remarks were translated by interpreters from the Cuban-American National Foundation, an anti-Castro group that was escorting the delegation around Capitol Hill as they called on members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The delegation was scheduled to meet with Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), chairperson of the caucus. Reps. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), Carrie Meek (D-Fla.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), Earl Hilliard (D-Ala.), and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

Selby McCash, a spokesman for Bishop, said the delegation met with the Georgia congressman but Bishop had no comment on the meeting. Spokespeople for other CBC members wouldn't confirm or deny that their bosses had met with the delegation.

The group also lunched with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a Cuban exile and one of Castro's most vociferous critics in the House.

The delegation carried a letter to caucus members from Bertha Antunez, the founder of a Cuban dissident group calling itself the "Mothers for General Amnesty."

In the letter, Antunez said, "The Cuban government tries to fool the world with siren songs depicting racial equality in our country. But it is all a farce, as I and my family can attest, having suffered from the systematic racism directed at us by Castro's followers."

Her brother, Jorge, according to the letter has "suffered the scourge of racial discrimination in every prison he has been condemned to. The beatings are always accompanied by racial epithets. They set dogs on him. They deny him medical attention. They kept him from attending his mother's funeral."

In many of its broadcasts, Radio Havana, the official voice of the Castro government has denounced the United States and its racial policies. However, Antunez thinks the Castro government shouldn't be pointing the finger at the U.S., because Castro hasn't treated blacks very well in Cuba.

"Fidel Castro has often denounced racial discrimination in U.S. penitentiaries and has decried the high percentage of blacks in the U.S. prison population. Yet in Cuba, the percentage of blacks in the prison population hovers between 80 and 89 percent, conservatively estimated," he said.

Antunez also believes the Castro government practices "racial profiling."

"The racist mentality is so ingrained among Cuba's agents of repression that when mixed race groups are stopped on the street, only the blacks are asked for their identification papers," he said.

"I've been told by the political police, 'because you're black you have to be grateful to revolution for making you equal to whites.' To which I've answered, before God we are all equal, but among men the only thing that differentiates us is our conduct, not the color of our skin," Antunez added.

"The only think I have to thank the (Cuban) revolution for is for restoring the yoke of slavery that my ancestors lived under," he concluded.

All original CNSNews.com material, copyright 1998-2001 Cybercast News Service.

WASHINGTON -- The Congressional Black Caucus and the Cuban American National Foundation have not been best of friends over the years.

After all, Black Caucus members have made frequent visits to Cuba and offered praise of President Fidel Castro, the foundation's least favorite person. Some have pushed to end the embargo against Cuba and ease travel restrictions that prevent Americans from traveling there legally.

But Tuesday, the foundation's Washington office brought a half-dozen black Cuban dissidents living in the United States to meet with several members of the Black Caucus and their staffs. The objective was to convince them that Castro's Cuba is not a paradise for blacks.

"We have to break this myth of Fidel Castro being the savior of blacks in Cuba," said Omar Lopez Montenegro, who said he moved to the United States nine years ago after being politically persecuted in Cuba.

Montenegro contends blacks and those of mixed race, who make up about 60 percent of Cuba's population, are overrepresented in the island's political prisons and underrepresented in powerful positions in the government and Communist Party.

As evidence, Montenegro and others point to jailed dissidents such as Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and Vladimiro Roca.

They think the Black Caucus can help.

For the rest of this story, see:
www.cubanet.org/CNews/y01/ago01/01e4.htm

THE Cuban American National Foundation is well-represented on the GOP’s list of presidential electors from Florida by CANF’s treasurer, Feliciano M. Foyo, who happens to be a good friend of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Foyo has another friend named Luis Posada Carriles, one of the most notorious terrorists among Cuban expatriates. In an autobiography published in Honduras in 1994, Posada names Feliciano Foyo as one of his financial backers. What does it mean to be one of Posada’s financiers?

Posada, along with three other well-known terrorists, was detained by Panamanian authorities November 17 for an alleged plan to assassinate President Fidel Castro while the Cuban leader addressed thousands of students at the University of Panama. If the plastic explosive discovered in Panama had been used, hundreds of people could have been killed or injured. But Posada does not seem bothered by "collateral damage."

Posada has previously aimed to kill Castro in several countries, including Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru. A sales representative for Firestone Tire and Rubber in Cuba, Posada started working for the CIA at least by 1960. Found out and forced to flee, for years he led raids carried out by Alpha 66, a terrorist organization that continues raids to this day–with impunity.

In June 1976, while George H. W. Bush (the elder) was head of the CIA, a CIA operative, Cuban expatriate Orlando Bosch, founded and led the Commanders of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). Posada was one of those "commanders." As revealed later in FBI and CIA documents, CORU was soon involved in more than 50 bombings and, quite likely, political assassinations. Venezuelans and U.S. authorities reported that a network of terrorists carried out a "vast" number of attacks in seven countries against Cuba and against countries and individuals considered friendly to Cuba. This reign of terror culminated in October 1976 when a Cubana passenger plane was blown up after it took off from Barbados headed for Cuba, killing all 73 people aboard, including 57 Cubans.

With overwhelming evidence against them, Posada, Bosch and two Venezuelans were arrested and held in Venezuela. Military courts in Venezuela acquitted them, not a surprising development since the CIA in 1967 had transferred Posada to Venezuela, using him as a leader of terrorist activities against Cuba in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the Interior Ministry, he ran the Intelligence and Prevention Services Division (DISIP), which persecuted, interrogated and tortured Venezuelan citizens. Awaiting retrial, in 1985 Posada walked out of the prison.

According to Posada himself, his guards were bribed with money from Miami. One of the couriers of such financing was Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, one of the terrorists now held in Panama. From Venezuela, Cuban expatriate Félix Rodríguez, another notorious terrorist, took Posada to El Salvador where Rodríguez was working with Col. Oliver North in supplying Contras against the Sandinistas government of Nicaragua. The exposure of that operation led to the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987. At those hearings before Congress, Rodríguez was asked about "Ramón Medina." He replied that Medina was an alias in El Salvador for Posada, a "good friend of mine," an "honorable man." He testified that he brought Posada to El Salvador from Venezuela, claiming that Posada "deserved to be free." Not another question was asked about Posada. Instead Rodríguez was complimented on his role by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fl), one of his questioners. Rep. Peter Rodino (D-NJ) also told him that we all appreciate his fighting against communism.

Two years later, in a speech on the Senate floor, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said the American people "deserve a full accounting of [then Vice President] Bush and the vice president’s office and its knowledge of Luis Posada’s role in the secret contra supply operation." In his testimony before Congress, Rodríguez had bragged about meeting with Vice President Bush (he showed Bush a picture of himself with captive Che Guevara in the hours before Che was executed). Senator Harkin wondered "why Bush never bothered to use his good offices to investigate charges of Posada’s links with the supply operation and Félix Rodríguez even after the press reported them in late 1986."

After El Salvador, Posada spent time in terrorist activities in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Money from Miami, said Posada, was used to finance the 1997 bombings aimed at the tourist industry in Havana—bombings that killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo, and injured several people. Posada admitted paying Salvadorans to go to Cuba to plant those bombs. After Posada and three of his cohorts were detained in Panama, Justino di Celmo, father of the dead tourist, appeared on Cuban television to appeal to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso not to release Luis Posada. The families of the 57 Cubans killed in the 1976 explosion of the passenger jet are pleading for justice. Time will tell if Posada’s financiers can pay his way out of this one.

Original article available at www.granma.cu/ingles/ener1/1canf-i.html