Posted at 6:13 a.m. EST Wednesday, March 7, 2001 in the
Miami Herald.
Admiral: Cuba hinted of attack on Brothers
By Gail Epstein Nieves . gepstein@herald.com
Two weeks before Cuba blasted two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft from the
sky, a retired U.S. Navy admiral delivered to Washington an apparent warning
from Havana: U.S. civilian airplanes might be shot down if they intruded into
Cuban airspace.
The testimony by military expert Eugene Carroll was the opening defense
salvo in the ongoing Cuban spy trial. It gave jurors the first direct evidence
that U.S. officials had forewarnings that Cuba might attack the Brothers'
aircraft.
A Federal Aviation Administration employee also testified about
Cuba-to-United States forewarnings, which have been public knowledge since 1996.
The testimony carefully elicited from the two witnesses appeared designed to
shift blame for the shootdown away from Cuba and away from Gerardo Hernández,
one of the accused spies.
Defense attorney Paul McKenna contends that the United States and Brothers
to the Rescue "provoked'' the final tragic event. McKenna's strategy,
however, was quickly challenged by the government.
Hernández is the only one of five co-defendants accused of conspiring
with Cuba to murder the four men who died in the Feb. 24, 1996, shootdown. All
five accused spies are charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents.
Carroll, a 37-year Navy veteran, now is vice president of the Center for
Defense Information, a think tank of retired senior military officers in
Washington.
He testified that he flew to Havana in early February 1996 as part of a U.S.
delegation to meet with leaders of the Cuban armed forces. He has been there
five times and said he found Cuba's military preparedness and equipment
practically nonexistent.
Carroll said that Cuban Air Force Gen. Arnaldo Tamayo, best known as Cuba's
cosmonaut, complained about "overflights by these intruders'' -- meaning
Brothers -- and said that repeated protests to the U.S. State Department had
gotten nowhere.
Particularly rankling to Tamayo was one flight in July 1995, when Brothers
founder José Basulto had flown low over the heart of Havana, dropping
leaflets. The group also made two flights in January 1996, when Brothers'
leaflets drifted over a large area of central Cuba.
Basulto has never denied the July flyover but insists that the January
flights were outside of Cuba's 12-mile territorial limit, and that a strong
northerly wind carried the leaflets to Cuba.
In his meeting, with Tamayo, Carroll said, "He asked me what would
happen if we shot these planes down. 'We can, you know,' he said, very
pointedly.''
Carroll said he related the conversation to the State Department and the
Pentagon when he returned, because he considered it "a warning we thought
was intended for us to take back to Washington.''
But prosecutor David Buckner turned the spotlight back on Cuba when he
pointed out during cross-examination that Cuba's warnings applied to violations
of its own airspace. The two Brothers planes were blasted from the skies over
international waters, according to U.S. and U.N. reports disputed by Cuba.
"Because Cuba can't just come out into international airspace and shoot
down craft that have not entered their airspace, can they?'' Buckner asked
rhetorically.
"No, they cannot,'' Carroll responded.
Cuba didn't ask what would happen if they simply forced the aircraft down
and seized the planes, did they? Buckner asked. If they wrote the pilots a
ticket? If they prosecuted them? No, Carroll answered to every question.
Cuba never tried to guide the Brothers airplanes to the ground or to warn
them over the radio, according to prosecution witnesses who said that Cuba
violated both its own and international standards when it shot down the planes.
Carroll also gave jurors a lesson on the status of Cuba's armed forces.
Without subsidies from the former Soviet Union, the island nation has dropped to
a 58,000-member army that depends on a small number of outdated planes and tanks
stored in a "tunnel defense system'' underground.
On the island, Cuba says it fears a U.S. invasion. Knowing it could not win
an air battle, the military has planned instead for a "war of the people''
who would fight guerrilla style and inflict major casualties, Carroll said.
The "pride of their service'' are six MiG-29s -- the planes that shot
down the Brothers' Cessnas -- but altogether they can operate only 20 planes at
a time with "very poorly trained pilots,'' Carroll said.
Cuban-born diplomat may fill top Latin affairs post
By Andres Oppenheimer . aoppenheimer@herald.com
WASHINGTON -- With the crucial support of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Otto J.
Reich, a former Reagan administration diplomat and strong supporter of the U.S.
embargo on Cuba, has become the leading contender for the top State Department
job in charge of Latin American affairs, according to sources close to the
selection process.
The sources said the Cuban-born former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela is
undergoing a federal background check in preparation for his nomination, which
is expected soon.
Reached in Vienna, Austria, where he is traveling, Reich said Tuesday he
could make no comment on the issue.
State Department officials would not comment either, but U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart
of Miami, an influential Republican, said he was optimistic. "I am
extremely hopeful that Otto Reich will be named to that critically important
position.''
Reich's candidacy was pushed by Gov. Bush, who spoke to his brother,
President George W. Bush, about it, as well as by Díaz-Balart and U.S.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican sources told The Herald.
Gov. Bush's spokeswoman Katie Baur confirmed Tuesday that "the governor
did speak to his brother concerning Reich, in support of his appointment as
Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American affairs.''
Shortly after taking office, Secretary of State Colin Powell had said he
would try to appoint career officers to head the State Department's regional
offices.
But influential congressmen argued that only a political appointee would
have the White House contacts to push Latin American initiatives -- a stated
priority of the Bush Administration -- through a Washington bureaucracy that has
been traditionally focused on East-West affairs.
Reich, who is 55, is a strong supporter of the 40-year-old anti-Castro
embargo and is considered by anti-embargo forces as a hard-liner on Cuban
affairs.
Reich supporters say his position on Cuba simply echoes that of President
Bush.
Some Democratic Party critics say Reich's nomination would be a gesture to
Florida's Cuban-American community, which voted overwhelmingly for President
Bush in the November elections, as well as an effort to support Gov. Bush's
re-election hopes.
They assert that Reich's appointment would not be applauded in Latin
America.
"It's going to be received badly, because Latin America has a number of
issues that need to be dealt with, most particularly Colombia,'' said a
well-placed congressional Democratic source. "It's going to be important to
make sure that the [Colombia] program gets bipartisan support, and Otto Reich is
not a consensus builder.''
But Díaz-Balart and other Reich supporters note that, both as
ambassador to Venezuela and as a consultant to U.S. companies that do business
in Latin America for the past eleven years, Reich has built bridges with key
political figures in the region.
Rejecting speculation that his appointment would not be well received in
countries such as Mexico, which favor closer trade ties with Cuba, they note
that Reich hosted a dinner in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1999 for then
Mexican opposition candidate Vicente Fox, now that country's president.
"The election of Vicente Fox is a very positive development for
U.S.-Mexican relations, and for economic development in Mexico,'' Reich told The
Herald in a recent interview. "I would hope that the United States takes
full advantage of this great opportunity to work together.''
Reich has been criticized by liberal analysts for his role between 1983 and
1986 as head of the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy's Latin
American department during the Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra scandal.
"The documentary record on Otto Reich's tenure at the Office of Public
diplomacy speaks for itself,'' says Peter Kornbluh, author of the 1993 book "The
Iran-Contra Scandal.''
"It shows an effort through misinformation and disinformation to
illicitly influence the American public, Congress and the media,'' he said.
But the final congressional report on the Iran-Contra scandal did not
include any criticism of Reich, and he was never charged with any wrongdoing.
Bernard Aronson, a moderate who served as head of the State Department's
Latin American affairs office during the Bush administration, described Reich as
a "very experienced and very capable'' diplomat.
Aronson said he doubts that Reich's stands on Cuba would create any
conflicts with U.S. allies in Latin America and Europe.
"Ultimately, his positions on Cuba will be the president's and the
secretary of state's,'' Aronson said. "The assistant secretary of state
doesn't have an independent foreign policy.''
Reich arrived in the United States in 1960, served with the U.S. Army in
Panama in the late 1960s and worked with the Florida Department of Commerce in
Miami in the mid-1970s.
He joined the State Department in 1981, was a senior official in charge of
Latin American affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development and
served as ambassador to Venezuela between 1986 and 1989.
Among other people who have been mentioned in U.S. diplomatic circles as
possible candidates for Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
affairs are U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Dona Hrinak; Cresencio Arcos, a former
ambassador to Honduras;and Alberto Mora, a Cuban-American attorney in
Washington, D.C.
If nominated, Reich's appointment would have to be approved by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Sen. Jesse Helms. Helms would most likely
support him, but Democrats may question the nomination, Senate sources say.
Attorneys clash at Cuban spying trial
Defense ready to begin today
By Gail Epstein Nieves . gepstein@herald.com. Published
Tuesday, March 6, 2001, in the Miami Herald
Lawyers squared off in the Cuban spy trial Monday as defense attorneys for
the five defendants argued that prosecutors haven't proved their case, and
prosecutors argued that they have.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard gave both sides until Monday to file written
briefs on defense motions seeking verdicts of acquittal, a routine legal
maneuver. Lenard did not say when she will rule.
The government rested its case Friday after presenting 51 witnesses over 51
trial days.
The defense is scheduled to begin today with the case of lead defendant
Gerardo Hernández. He faces the most serious charge: conspiring with Cuba
to murder four Brothers to the Rescue fliers who were shot down over the Florida
Straits on Feb. 24, 1996.
Next week, Hernández's attorney Paul McKenna will call Brothers
founder José Basulto to the witness stand. McKenna has said that Basulto,
not Cuba, is to blame for the four deaths.
On Monday, McKenna argued that prosecutors offered only unsupported
assumptions -- but no evidence -- that his client knew the planes would be shot
down.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller disagreed, arguing that the
evidence shows Hernández knew about the shootdown plan in advance.
Defense lawyers for co-defendants Ramón Labañino, René
González, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González also sought
dismissal of charges of espionage conspiracy, conspiracy to act as unregistered
foreign agents, acting as unregistered foreign agents and possession of false
identification documents.
The five defendants, who admit being Cuban agents, are accused of
infiltrating U.S. military bases and Cuban exile groups.
But they deny getting their hands on any U.S. secrets -- a key element of
the espionage conspiracy charge -- and say they turned over information about
terrorist acts by Cuban exiles to the FBI.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 