By Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, (with research support from
Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell). Center for the Study of a National Option.
Published in Directorio,
September 19, 2001.
It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the Supreme Leader and the
Comandante together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May of this year. The
statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read
in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to news reports, during
the visit Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei "assured Castro that Iran and
Cuba can defeat the US hand in hand," to which Castro agreed, adding that
America was "extremely weak today," and that "we are today
eye-witness to their weakness, as their close neighbors." At Tehran
University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty that "The
imperialist king will finally fall," (AFP, May 10th). Immediately
afterwards the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba
reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States."
(IPS, May 10th)
Some have argued that Cuba's well-documented sponsorship and instigation of
international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the
Cold War context. However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
(a) The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international
terrorists,
(b) The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with
terrorist states so as to create an 'anti-Western' international front, and
(c) The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and
espionage against Americans.
As recently as July 1999 Domingo Muchaustegui, a former Cuban government
official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote:
"For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq
and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is
troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets?
Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of
chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation
between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?"
(University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).
Evidence indicates that Cuba today continues to serve as a base for
coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. In
August 2001 Colombian authorities arrested three suspected IRA terrorists who
were providing specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of
the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA's
representative.(The Times, August 16, 2001, BBC News August 17, 2001)
It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with
both the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations,
according to the State Department's 2000 report on global terrorism, have "…maintained
a permanent presence in the island." It is further believed that the IRA
men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful
anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC 'urban offensive.'
The Castro regime has not only continued to provide support for the vicious
Basque terrorist organization ETA, known for its ghastly car bomb attacks on
civilian targets, but it has also publicly attempted to scuttle diplomatic
efforts to condemn it. In a 1995 raid by French police on ETA hideouts, computer
files were found which clearly indicated that Cuban intelligence aided members
of the group wanted for terror attacks in Spain. According to the files, Cuba's
Communist Party "considers its relations with ETA to be 'fraternal,
sustained, strategic and increasingly deep.' (The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1997)
Cuban covert support for terrorism in Spain has been accompanied by attempts
at diplomatic protection. Castro not only refused to join the other
Ibero-American heads of state in condemning ETA terrorism at the 2000
Ibero-American summit, he also "slammed Mexico for its support of a
statement against terrorism at the Ibero American Summit in Panama." (The
Miami Herald, Nov. 11,2000).
The Cuban dictatorship's continued relationship with bloody terror groups
and the use of Cuban territory and diplomacy to protect them has long been a
mainstay of Cuban foreign policy. As State Department reports indicate,
Americans sought for crimes linked to 60's radical groups have long received
sanctuary in the island. What proves even more worrisome however, has been the
recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an 'anti-Western' front with
terrorist states in the Middle Eastern region.
On September 18, 2000 in an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based
Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for
reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the
imperialist system." He further added that his government had successfully
defended Cuba against "…a Western cultural invasion," echoing one
of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region. In May 2001
Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya, and Iran. Speaking at Tehran
University, he insisted that "…people must be informed and awakened,
they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West." On July 26,
2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by
marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, now a high
ranking Iranian official.
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in
the US. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the USSR's
bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro
regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book Biohazard, Alibek quotes
his former boss, General Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an
active bacteriological arms program. Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen
stated in May 1998 that: "Cuba's current scientific facilities could
support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and
development stage." In October 2000 Cuban vice president Carlos Lage and
the Iranian vice minister of Health inaugurated a biotechnological research and
development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed
medical objectives of the installation, since Iran already produces 97% of the
medicines its population consumes.
It is feasible to both establish the links of the bin Laden network with the
Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro regime.
Both Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring down the
United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.
In its indictment of bin Laden the Justice Department stated that the
Al-Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to "…put
aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran
and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived
common enemy, the United States and its allies…"
The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "…also forged
alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of
the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah." In
February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced the creation of an "international
front" against the United States. According to a document obtained by the
PBS program 'Frontline,' bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with
Iran and China as something to be considered."
But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link.
In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported that: "A young
Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in
northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq,
Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The North Korean, he said, had brought chemical
weapons, which were stored in caves and in the dozens of sunbaked mud-and-stone
houses."
The New York Times reported in September 1998 that advisers provided
President Clinton with evidence that "bin Laden is looking to obtain
weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against US
installations." Is it that far-fetched to see that the ideological affinity
between Cuba and Al Qaeda and the allure of bin Laden's money for Castro's
cash-strapped regime could easily result in the worst of scenarios?
As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on
international terrorism it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a
step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba's
insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its
continued support and encouragement for international terrorist organizations,
or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to share it
with other terrorist states directly linked to US enemies.
Above all, Castro's continued virulent rhetoric against the US and the
Western world in general must not be overlooked. It was not too long ago that
Americans were the direct targets of Castroite terrorist attacks. On February
24, 1996 two unarmed US civilian aircraft were shot out of the sky in plain
daylight in international air space, murdering three US citizens and one
resident. A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of
conspiring to murder US citizens, seeking to penetrate US military
installations, spying on members of the US Congress and providing information on
Miami International Airport.
Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the 'first war of the 21st
century,' would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and Fascist alliance with
Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. The enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And
he does not hide his hatred for us. | 
