Published Wednesday, March 28, 2001.
Miami Herald
Militant exile tells of plot to kill Castro
Group's plan detailed at Cuban spy trial
By Gail Epstein Nieves . gepstein@herald.com. Assassination plots against
Fidel Castro moved from the realm of Cold War-era remembrances into the reality
of the Cuban spy trial Tuesday, when the leader of a Miami-based militant exile
group testified about his 1994 plan to kill Cuba's leader.
Rodolfo Frómeta, 54, commander of Commandos F-4, served three years
in federal prison for trying to buy U.S. armaments meant to kill Castro.
On the witness stand, true to his cause, Frómeta described how he had
planned to "make Fidel Castro disappear'' with the weapons, and how a
Cuban-based "clandestine cell'' of Commandos F-4 now uses different
techniques -- including setting Cuban buses or vans on fire -- to "attract
the attention of the people and bring about change.''
Frómeta steadfastly maintained that killing Castro would not have
been murder, but rather "an attempt to do justice about a person who has
killed thousands and thousands of persons.''
Frómeta said those victims included his son, father and brother, as
well as the 41 people who perished on the tugboat 13 de Marzo, the four Brothers
to Rescue fliers, the mother of Elián González and many others who
have perished in the Florida Straits.
Frómeta left Alpha 66, a paramilitary group of Cuban exiles, to help
form the more aggressive Commandos F-4 in 1994. That same year, Frómeta
and F-4 co-founder Fausto Marimon were arrested after asking an FBI agent who
posed as a U.S. Army supply sergeant to sell them $15,000 worth of explosives
and heavy armaments.
The men were found guilty of conspiracy to export heavy weapons and
explosives without a license. Frómeta received a 41-month sentence.
INTENT TO KILL
During questioning by defense attorney Joaquín Méndez, Frómeta
denied the materials were to be used to down a commercial airplane over a
tourist site or to blow up bridges. The group's intent always was to kill
Castro, Frómeta said, and "four or five'' of his top aides,
including brother Raul Castro, as they visited military installations.
"So it was your plan to kill not only Fidel Castro but the people
around him?'' Méndez asked.
"The people who go there [to the installations] are in fact responsible
for the deaths of thousands of Cubans, and if they died, it really wouldn't
matter,'' Frómeta said.
"And whether you violated the laws of this country that allowed you to
become a citizen was besides the point?'' Méndez asked.
"Well, in this case it would not matter,'' Frómeta said.
Frómeta had been stopped twice before his arrest.
Law officers stopped him and other Alpha 66 members in October 1993 near
Marathon Key and found them in possession of a high-caliber semiautomatic rifle
and seven Chinese assault rifles. They were not arrested and their weapons were
not seized, he said.
It happened again in February 1994, when U.S. Customs stopped Frómeta
and six other Alpha 66 members in a boat near Key Biscayne. They had shotguns,
assault rifles and pistols, all of which were seized.
For the second day, Méndez hammered away at the same theme: that
militant exiles who were repeatedly stopped by law officers during the last
decade in weapon-laden boats or vehicles heading south were rarely arrested or
convicted.
That's why the accused spies were here, the defense says: not to snoop
around U.S. military bases or to harm U.S. interests, but to infiltrate exile
groups and defend Cuba against violent exile plots.
Five defendants are being tried on charges of trying to infiltrate U.S.
military installations and Cuban exile groups. Lead defendant Gerardo Hernández
is accused of conspiring with the Cuban government to bring about the shoot-down
of Brothers to the Rescue fliers in 1996.
Cuba has complained for several years that U.S. authorities ignored
information it made available about who allegedly was financing and plotting
violence. A Cuban spokesman is expected to testify soon about those U.S.-Cuban
contacts.
'CLANDESTINE CELL'
Confronted with the Commandos F-4 website, which claims credit for burning a
van and a bus in Cuba in December 2000, Frómeta said no people were
inside the vehicles.
The web page, www.nocastro.com/courtesy/comandosf4, says the group's "clandestine
cell'' in Cuba blew up the van outside a compact-disc manufacturing plant.
Frómeta said Cuba props up its failing economy with tourist dollars
generated by those and other ventures. Such success threatens the safety of the
United States, he said.
"Do you or do you not support the burning of buses in Cuba?'' Méndez
asked.
"Whatever they do in Cuba, I am not the appropriate person to pass
judgment,'' Frómeta said.
The group's U.S. branch of Commandos endorses peace, he said, and since
1994, members have been required to sign a bylaw promising adherence to U.S.
laws.
Asked how the group could legally get weapons into Cuba without violating
U.S. laws, Frómeta avoided answering.
"You're talking here about a military secret that should not be spoken
about here,'' he said, adding that he would respect "U.S. territory.''
Cuban official condemns U.N. panel on rights
New critical report expected
GENEVA (AFP) -- Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque on Tuesday
condemned the U.N. Human Rights Commission as a tool of the United States and
demanded it be reformed.
The commission sharply criticized Cuba's human-rights record in 1998 and
1999, and is expected to do so again during the annual six-week session that
began last week. The Czech Republic delegation has promised to introduce a
resolution condemning Fidel Castro's government.
But Pérez, addressing the 53-member commission, said he was there to "accuse
those who lie.''
Lashing out at the group, he denounced it for "continuing to be an
instrument at the service of the interests of the United States and its allies''
and criticized what he called Washington's "pathological inability'' to
accept Cuba as an independent nation.
He demanded to know why the United States pursued allegations against Cuba
while it refused to condemn what he called "the flagrant, large-scale human
rights violations committed by the Israeli army against the Palestinian
people.''
Cuba, by contrast, has a clean human rights record, Pérez argued.
"Can anybody mention a single case of torture, murder or disappearance
in Cuba?'' he asked. "Does anyone know of a single case of journalists
assassinated in Cuba, or of the kidnapping of children, the sale of children or
child slavery? Has anyone ever heard of a death squad in Cuba?''
Pérez said the U.N. Human Rights Commission had become the last U.S.
battlefield against Cuba after 40 years of U.S. blockade and economic war
against Havana.
Cuban officials have been frantically lobbying against the Czech resolution,
particularly with other Latin American governments.
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