Cuba's Renewed Support of
Violence in Latin
America
[Special
Report No. 90, Cuba's Renewed Support of Violence in Latin
America, December
14, 1981,
United States Department of State, Bureau of Public
Affairs, Washington,
D.C.]
Following is the text of research paper presented
to the Subcommittee by the Department of State, December
11, 1981.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
SUMMARY
I. POLICIES
II. METHODS
III. CASE STUDIES
Central America
Nicaragua .. El
Salvador .. Guatemala .. Costa Rica .. Honduras
The Caribbean
Jamaica .. Guyana
.. Grenada .. Dominican Republic
South America
Colombia .. Chile
.. Argentina .. Uruguay
IV. POSTSCRIPT
[footnotes]
PREFACE
Any formulation of U.S. foreign policy for Latin America and
the
Caribbean would be incomplete without in-depth analysis of
Cuba's role
in the region. Some of Cuba's international activities have
received
publicity and attention, but much has taken place out of the
public
view. While understanding the full range of Cuba's
activities abroad is
obviously essential for governments engaged in foreign
policy planning,
the general public is often uninformed about the nature and
extent of
Cuba's involvement in other countries. This study of Cuban
activities
in Latin America and the Caribbean is being issued in the
interest of
contributing to better public understanding of U.S. foreign
policy and
developments in the region.
The focus of this study is Cuba's activities in the
Americas. It does
not attempt to give a description of conditions in the
countries in
which Cuba is active or to analyze why violent groups
develop, but
instead examines the degree to which Cuba is directly
engaged in
efforts to destabilized its neighbors by promoting armed
opposition
movements. Cuba is clearly no the sole source of violence
and
instability in the region, but Cuban activities militarize
and
internationalize what would otherwise be local conflicts. In
a region
whose primary needs are for economic development, social
equity, and
greater democracy, Cuba is compounding existing problems by
encouraging
armed insurrection.
This report describes Cuban activities that are either
publicly known
or can be revealed without jeopardizing intelligence sources
and
methods. Cuban involvement is not limited to the examples
contained in
this study.
SUMMARY
A country-by-country examination of Cuba's activities in
Latin America
and the Caribbean makes clear that Cuba has renewed its
campaign of the
1960s to promote armed insurgencies. In particular, Cuba has
stepped up
efforts to stimulate violence and destabilize its neighbors,
turning
away from its earlier policy of strengthening normal
diplomatic
relations in the hemisphere.
Since 1978, Cuba has:
· Worked to unite traditionally splintered radical groups
behind
a commitment to armed struggle with Cuban advice and
material
assistance;
· Trained ideologically committed cadres in urban and rural
guerrilla warfare;
· Supplied or arranged for the supply of weapons to support
the Cuban trained cadres' efforts to assume power by force;
· Encouraged terrorism in the hope of provoking
indiscriminate
violence and repression, in order to weaken government
legitimacy and
attract new converts to armed struggle; and
· Used military aid and advisors to gain influence over
guerrilla fronts and radical governments through armed pro
Cuban
Marxists.
Unlike Che Guevara's attempts during the 1960s, Cuban
subversion today
is backed by an extensive secret intelligence and training
apparatus,
modern military forces, and a large and sophisticated
propaganda
network. Utilizing agents and contract nurtured over more
than 20
years, the Castro government is providing ideological and
military
training and material and propaganda support to numerous
violent
groups, often several in one country.
Cuba is most active in Central America, where its immediate
goals are
to exploit and control the revolution in Nicaragua and to
induce the
overthrow of the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala.
At the same
time, Cuba is working to destabilize governments elsewhere
in the
hemisphere. Cuba provides advise, safehaven, communications,
training,
and some financial support to several violent South American
organizations. In the Caribbean, Cuban interference in the
post-election period has been blunted in Jamaica, but
Grenada has
become a virtual Cuban client.
Cuba's new drive to promote armed insurgency does not
discriminate
between democracy and dictatorships. And attempts by Cuba to
destabilize governments occur in spite of the existence of
diplomatic
ties.
This long-range campaign is directed by the Cuban Communist
Party,
which oversees far-flung operations that include secret
training camps
in Cuba, intelligence officers abroad, and propaganda
support. Cuba's
enormous investment of energy, money, and agents in the
campaign would
not be possible without Soviet help. Soviet assistance, now
totaling
over $8 million a day, enable Cuba to maintain the best
equipped and
largest per capita military forces in Latin America and to
channel
substantial resources abroad. In return, Cuba usually is
careful not to
jeopardize ongoing government relationships in Latin America
important
to the Soviet Union.
· In Nicaragua, Cuba has quietly increased its presence to
5,000
personnel, including more than 1,500 security and military
advisers.
· In El Salvador, Cuba's key role in arming the Salvadoran
guerrillas was exposed and Castro admitted supplying arms.
· In Costa Rica, a Special Legislative Commission documented
Cuba's role in establishing an arms supply network during
the
Nicaraguan civil war and found the network was later used to
supply
Salvadoran insurgents.
· In Colombia, Cuba was discovered to have trained
guerrillas attempting to establish a "people's army."
Cuba's new policies abroad and its reaction to emigration
pressures at
home have reversed the trend in Latin America toward
normalization of
relations with Cuba. During the last 2 years, Colombia,
Costa Rica, and
Jamaica suspended or broke relations with Cuba. Venezuela,
Peru, and
Ecuador withdrew their ambassadors from Havana.
Cuban intervention is, of course, not the sole source of
instability.
The origins of occasional violent conflict in Latin America
lie in
historical social and economical inequalities which have
generated
frustration among a number of people. Sustained economic
growth over
the past 20 years and resilient national institutions,
however, have
limited appeal of radical groups. But in some countries,
particularly
the small nations of Central America, dislocations resulting
from rapid
growth compounded existing tensions, leading to the
emergence in
several countries of radical movements, which often
originated with
frustrated elements of the middle class. Subsequent economic
reversals
have subjected already weak institutions to additional
stress, making
these countries more vulnerable to the appeals of radical
groups backed
by Cuba.
Cuba is quick to exploit legitimate grievances for its own
ends. But
its strategy of armed struggle is not based on appeals to
the "people."
Instead, Cuba concentrates on developing self-proclaimed
"vanguards"
committed to violent action. Revolutions, according to this
approach,
are made by armed revolutionaries.
Cuba's readiness to train, equip, and advise those who opt
for violent
solutions impose obstacles to economic progress, democratic
development, and self-determination in countries faced with
growing
economic difficulties. The spiraling cycle of violence and
counter-violence which is central to Cuba's policy only
exacerbates the
suffering of ordinary people and makes necessary adjustments
more
difficult.
Cuba's renewed campaign of violence is of great concern to
many
countries, including the United States. Cuba should not
escape
responsibility for its actions. Exposing Cuba's efforts to
promote
armed struggle will increase the costs to Cuba of its
intervention.
I. POLICIES
When it first came to power, the Castro regime had its own
theory of
how to spread revolution: to reproduce elsewhere the
rural-based
guerrilla warfare experience of Castro's 26th of July
Movement in Cuba.
In Che Guevara's words, the Andes would become the Sierra
Maestra of
South America.
Initial attempts to repeat Cuba's revolution elsewhere
failed
decisively. During the late 1960s, the Castro regime
gradually reined
in its zealots. Without abandoning its ideology or its ties
to radical
states and movements, Cuba began to pursue normal
government-to-government relations in the hemisphere. By the
mid-1970s
Cuba's isolation in the Americas eased, and full diplomatic
or consular
relations were reestablished with a number of countries.
But diplomacy proved unable to satisfy the Castro
government's
ambitions. First in Africa and now in Latin America and
the
Caribbean, Cuba's policy has again shifted to reemphasize
intervention.
On July 26, 1980, Fidel Castro declared that the experiences
of
Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, and Bolivia teach us that
there is no
other way than revolution, that there is no other "formula"
than
"revolutionary armed struggle." Castro's statement was an
attempt to
justify publicly what Cuban agents had been doing secretly
since 1978:
stepping up support for armed insurgency in neighboring
countries.
This study traces the development of this latest phase in
Cuba's foreign policy.
Early Failures. The original Cuban theory held that a
continental
Marxist revolution could be achieved by establishing armed
focal points
(focos) in several countries. Operating in rural areas,
small bands of
guerrillas could initiate struggles that would spread
throughout the
continent.
In 1959, Castro aided armed expeditions against Panama, the
Dominican
Republic, and Haiti. During the early and mid-1960s,
Guatemala,
Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia all faced serious
Cuban-baked
attempts to develop guerrilla focos.
In seeking indigenous groups with which to cooperate, the
Cubans
rejected orthodox Latin American Communist parties, which
they regarded
as ineffectual. Instead, they lent their support to more
militant
groups dedicated to armed violence even when their Marxism
was not
fully articulated.
The Soviet Union was suspicious of Cuba's policy of inciting
armed
violence, preferring to work through established Moscow-line
Communist
parties. Disagreement over this issue was a serious point of
friction
for several years. Cuba denounced the Soviet policy of
"peaceful
coexistence" as a fraud, arguing that it implicitly undercut
the
legitimacy of aiding "national liberation" struggles. At the
1966
Tricontinental Conference, Cuba sought to enlist North
Vietnam and
North Korea and create a more aggressive revolutionary
internationalism.
None of the Latin American insurgencies fomented by Havana,
however,
aroused much popular support. The most sever blow to Cuba's
policy
during this period came in Bolivia in 1967, when Che
Guevera's
guerrilla band was opposed by both the peasantry and the
Bolivian
Communist Party.
After this maverick approach failed to establish a
continental
revolution, Cuban foreign policy moved into closer
conformity with that
of the Soviet Union. Castro endorsed the 1968 Soviet
invasion of
Czechoslovakia and accepted Soviet views on East-West
relations. Within
the hemisphere, Cuba generally conformed to the Soviet
approach of
fostering state-to-state relations with several Latin
American countries.
The Turn to Africa. In the mid-1970s, Cuba renewed its
penchant for direct intervention, not in Latin America but
in Africa.(
1)
· In Angola, 20,000 Cuban troops, supported by Soviet
logistics
and materiel, assured the supremacy of the Popular Movement
for the
Liberation of Angola, which had the strongest ties to Moscow
of the
three movements competing for power after Portugal's
withdraw.
· In Ethiopia, the integration of Soviet and Cuban
operations
was even more complete, with the Soviets providing overall
command and
control, materiel, and transportation for 13-15,000 Cuban
troops
fighting against Somali forces.
The Moscow-Havana Axis. These African operations gave
evidence of
Cuba's military value to the Soviet Union. In areas of the
Third World
where the Soviets were under constraints not binding on
Cuba, Havana
could portray its actions as an outgrowth of its own foreign
policy of
support for "national liberation movements."
Cuba's extensive and costly activities overseas would have
been
impossible, however, without Soviet aid. The Cuban armed
forces, some
225,000 strong, with new sophisticated weaponry from the
Soviet Union,
became a formidable offensive military machine. Soviet aid
and
subsidies to the Cuban economy have climbed to more than $3
billion
annually of about one-fourth of Cuba's gross national
product. In
December 1979, at a time when Soviet oil deliveries to
Eastern Europe
were being cut back and prices raised, Castro announced that
the Soviet
Union had guaranteed Cuba's oil needs through 1985 [1975?]
at a price
roughly one-third that of the world market. The Soviet Union
also pays
up to four and five times the world price for Cuban sugar.(
2)
In return, Cuba champions the notion of a "natural alliance"
between
the Soviet bloc and the Third World in the nonaligned
movement. At the
Cuban Communist Party Congress in December 1980, Castro
explicitly
endorsed the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and defended
the Soviet
"right" to intervene in Poland. He also reiterated that Cuba
is
irrevocably committed to communism and to supporting
"national
liberation" struggles around the world.
Cuba's policies abroad are thus linked to its relationship
to the
Soviet Union. By intervening in Latin America, Cuba injects
East-West
dimensions into local conflicts.
II. METHODS
Even when pursuing an open policy in the 1970s of
establishing normal
diplomatic relations with a number of Latin American
countries, Cuba
retained its clandestine ties with remnants of the
insurgents and other
pro-Cuban elements in Latin America, providing asylum,
propaganda, some
training, and other support. Between 1970 and 1973, Cuba's
security
services moved arms and agents into Chile. At the same time,
Cubans
helped organize President Allende's personal security and
trained many
leaders of the Chilean Movement of the Revolutionary Left.
Cuba's renewed campaign to promote insurgencies draws on
these contacts and experiences and combines several
different elements.
Sophisticated Strategy. Learning from Che Guevara's failure
in Bolivia,
Cuban doctrine now emphasizes the need to enlist support for
armed
struggle through advanced training of local guerrilla
cadres, sustained
aid and advice, and extensive propaganda activities. The
foco approach
of the 1960s -- when a Cuban-sponsored team in the field was
considered
enough to spark insurrection -- has given way to a more
sophisticated
strategy involving extensive commitments and risks.
Soviet Support. A major difference from the 1960s is that,
instead of
throwing up obstacles, the Soviet Union generally has backed
Cuban
efforts to incorporate nondoctrinaire groups into broad
political-military fronts dedicated to armed struggle.
Particularly in
Central America, Soviet ties to local Communist parties and
bloc
relationships have been used to favor insurrectionary
violence. For
example, a senior Soviet Communist Party functionary
traveled to Panama
in August 1981 to discuss strategy for Central America with
Cuban
officials and leaders of Central American Communist parties.
The Soviet
Union has also used its extensive propaganda network to
discredit
governments and build support for armed opposition groups.
Allowing Havana to take the lead in the hemisphere enables
Moscow to
maintain a low profile and cultivate state-to-state
relations and
economic ties with major countries like Brazil and
Argentina.
Cuba, in turn, is generally cautious not to undercut the
Soviet Union
where the Soviets have established valued relationships. In
Peru, for
example, Cuba has been careful to exercise restraint to
avoid
prejudicing the status of the 300 Soviet officials there of
jeopardizing the Soviet Union's arms supply arrangement.
Central Control. Most of the covert operations in support of
this
strategy are planned and coordinated by the America
Department of the
Cuban Communist Party, headed by Manuel Piņeiro Losada. The
American Department emerged in 1974 to centralized
operational control
of Cuba's covert activities. The department brings together
the
expertise of the Cuban military and the General Directorate
of
Intelligence into a far flung operation that includes secret
training
camps in Cuba, networks for covert movement of personnel and
materiel
between Cuba and abroad, and sophisticated propaganda
support.
Agents of the America Department are present in every Cuban
diplomatic
mission in Latin America and the Caribbean -- in at least
five recent
instances in the person of the ambassador or charge
d'affaires.
American Department officials frequently serve as employees
of Cuba's
official press agency, Prensa Latina, of Cuban Airlines, the
Cuban
Institute of Friendship with People, and other apparently
benign
organizations. When too great an identification with Cuba
proves
counterproductive, Cuban intelligence officers work through
front
groups, preferably those with non-Cuban leadership.(
3)
Cuban military intelligence personnel selected for
clandestine
operations in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East go
through an
elaborate training program conducted by Cuban, Soviet, East
German, and
Czech instructors in Havana, with special sessions in
surrounding
cities. In addition to the language and customs of the area
to which
they are assigned, and typical intelligence operation such
as
infiltration procedures and photograph techniques, the
Cubans are
instructed in handling explosives. To disguise their true
occupation,
the intelligence agents are also instructed in civilian
skills such as
automotive mechanics, carpentry, and heavy equipment
operation.
Armed Struggle. The new Cuban offensive relies heavily on
violence. In outline, Cuba's strategy is to:
· Unite traditionally splintered radical groups behind a
commitment to armed struggle with Cuban advice and material
assistance;
· Train idelogically committed cadres in urban and rural
guerrilla warfare;
· Supply or arrange for the supply of weapons to support the
Cuban-trained cadres' efforts to assume power by force;
· Encourage terrorism in the hope of provoking
indiscriminate
violence and repression and generalized legitimacy and
attract new
converts to armed struggle; and
· Use military aid and advisers to gain influence over
guerrilla
fronts and radical governments through armed pro-Cuban
Marxists.
The application of this strategy is demonstrated in detail
in the case
studies that follow. It should be noted, however, that Cuba
sometimes
emphasizes certain tactics over others. In pursuing its
long-term
strategy, Cuba concentrates initially on building a network
of loyal
cadres. When local extremist groups are not capable of or
committed to
armed struggle, Cuba generally draws on them in support of
active
insurgencies elsewhere while developing their capacity and
willingness
for agitation in their homeland. In addition, foreign policy
concerns
may deter Cuba from promoting armed struggle in a particular
country.
For example, Cuba attempts to avoid activities which could
jeopardize
its relations with the Mexican Government since Castro seeks
Mexico's
support to avoid isolation in the hemisphere.(
4)
Propaganda. Cuba's extensive cultural exchange and
propaganda
activities are tailored to support covert operation and
elicit support
for armed struggle.(
5) For example, during
the past
year, Cuban have used Mexico as a base of insurgents in El
Salvador,
Guatemala, and Colombia. Radio Havana and other Cuban media
recently
have publicized statements by Chilean Communist Party
leaders urging
unity of the Chilean left and calling for armed action to
topple
Chile's government. Radio Havana has directed broadcasts to
Paraguay
urging the overthrow of the Paraguayan Government.
Sports competitions, youth and culture festivals, and
special
scholarships to Cuba provide channels to identify potential
agents for
intelligence and propaganda operations. In Ecuador, Cuban
Embassy
officers in Quito used their ties with Ecuadoran students to
try to
orchestrate pro-Cuba demonstrations when the Government of
Ecuador
threatened to suspend relations after Cuba's forcible and
unauthorized
occupation in February 1981 of the Ecuadoran Embassy in
Havana,
following its seizure by a group of Cubans seeking to leave
Cuba.
Military Training. Witnesses and former trainees have
described several
camps in Cuba dedicated specifically to military training,
including
one in Pinar del Rio Province and another near Guanabo, east
of Havana.
The camps can accommodate several hundred trainees. Groups
from El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras,
Colombia,
Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Chile, and
Uruguay
have been trained in these facilities during the past 2
years.(
6)
Recruits are normally provided false documentation
(sometimes Cuban
passports) by Cuban agents in third countries and are flown
to Cuba on
civil aircraft under cover as "students" or other
occupations. Panama
has been used as a regular transit point for Central and
South
Americans to and from military training in Cuba.(
7)
Once in Cuba, trainees generally are taken immediately to
the guerrilla
training camps where they usually are grouped according to
nationality
and the organization for which they are being trained in
order to
promote a sense of cohesiveness and esprit de corps.
Training normally last 3-6 months and consists of
instruction by Cuban
cadres in sabotage, explosives, military tactics, and weapon
use.
Although military training is frequently tied closely to
operational
requirements -- the M-19 guerrillas who landed in Colombia
in early
1981 did so immediately upon completion of their military
instruction
in Cuba -- witnesses report that political indoctrination is
also included in the curriculum.
Many Cuban instructors are active military officers and
veterans of
Cuban expeditionary forces in Africa. Soviet personnel have
been
reported at these camps, but they apparently do not
participate
directly in the guerrilla training.
Political Training. Each year Cuba offers hundreds of
scholarships to
foreign students. All Cuban mass organizations operate
schools in
organizational work and indoctrination open to carefully
selected
foreign students.(
8) In addition, some
11,000
non-Cuban secondary school students, mostly teenagers, were
enrolled in
1980 in 15 schools on the Isle of Youth alone. Cuba does not
publicize
complete foreign enrollment statistics nor does it release
the names of
those trained. From the eastern Caribbean alone, close to
300 students
are currently in Cuba studying technical and academic
subjects. The
study of Marxism-Leninism is compulsory in many courses, and
military
affairs is compulsory in some. When governments have turned
down Cuban
scholarship offers, as occurred recently in Belize and
Dominica, Cuba
has gone ahead and concluded private agreements. Local
Marxist-Leninist
groups with ties to Cuba play a major role in selecting
those students
who receive scholarships.
In sum, the infrastructure for Cuba's intensified
revolutionary
agitation in Latin America is a multifaceted yet carefully
coordinated
mechanism. The Cuban Communist Party, through its American
Department,
provides cohesion and direction to a complex network that
consists of
intelligence officers, elements of Cuba's foreign ministry,
armed
forces, mass organizations, commercial and cultural
entities, and front
groups.
This extensive apparatus is designed to support one
objective: a systematic, long-range campaign to destabilize
governments.
III. CASE STUDIES
The Cuban activities described in the case studies which
follow must be
considered to understand developments within the countries
in question.
However, the focus of the case studies is Cuban involvement
in each
country. Readers should, therefore, guard against assuming
that the
cases below provide a comprehensive picture of the general
situation in
the country where the events described have
taken place.
Central America
Nicaragua.
In July 1979, internal and external factors converged to
bring about
the triumph of the anti-Somoza insurrection and the
subsequent
domination of the new Nicaraguan Government by the
Cuban-trained
leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front
(FSLN). These
events provided a key test for Cuba's new mechanism and
strategy for
promoting armed pro-Cuban movements in this hemisphere.
Opposition to Somoza's authoritarian rule in the late 1970s
was
widespread. The 1978 killing of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro,
publisher of
Nicaragua's most respected newspaper, La Prensa, converted
many
Nicaraguans to the armed opposition of which the FSLN was
the core;
FSLN assurances on democracy and pluralism were accepted by
newly albed
political moderates and private businessmen. International,
sympathy
for the struggle against Somoza led Venezuela, Panama, and
Costa Rica
to aid the insurgents, while Somoza stood practically
without friends.
This environment enabled Cuba to disguise the extent of its
support for
the FSLN and avoid disrupting the fragile alliances between
FSLN and
other opponents of Somoza. Behind the scenes, Cuba played an
active
role in organizing the FSLN and in training and equipping
its military.
Cuba had provided some training and arms to the FSLN in the
early
1960s. Until late 1977, however, Cuban support consisted
mainly of
propaganda and safehaven.
In 1977 and early 1978, a high-ranking America Department
official, Armando Ulises Estrada,(
9)
made numerous secret trips to facilitate the uprising by
working to
unify the three major factions of the FSLN. Stepped-up Cuban
support to
the Sandinistas was conditional on effective unity. During
the XI World
Youth Festival in Havana in late July 1978, the Cubans
announced that
the unification of the three factions had been achieved and
urged Latin
American radicals present at the meeting to demonstrate
solidarity with
the FSLN by staging operations in their own countries.
At the same time, Estrada concentrated on building a supply
network for
channeling arms and other supplies to guerrilla forces.
International
sympathy for the struggle against Somoza provided a
convenient facade
for Cuban operations. In preparation for the first FSLN
offensive in
the fall 1978, arms were flown from Cuba to Panama,
transshipped to
Costa Rica on smaller planes, and supplied to
Nicaraguan guerrillas based in northern Costa Rica. To
monitor and
assist the flow, the America Department established a secret
operations
center in San Jose. By the End of 1978, Cuban advisers were
dispatched
to northern Costa Rica to train and equip the FSLN forces
with arms
which began to arrive direct from Cuba. FSLN guerrillas
trained in
Cuba, however, continued to return to Nicaragua via Panama.
In early 1979, Cuba helped organize, arm, and transport an
"internationalist brigade" to fight alongside FSLN
guerrillas. Members
were drawn from several Central and South American extremist
groups,
many of them experienced in terrorist activities. Castro
also
dispatched Cuban military specialist to the field to help
coordinate
the war efforts. Factionalism threatened Sandinista unity
agin in early
1979, and Castro met personally with leaders of three FSLN
factions to
hammer out a renewed unity pact.
When the insurgents' final offensive was launched in
mid-1979, Cuban
military advisers from the Department of Special Operations,
a special
military unit, were with FSLN columns and maintained direct
radio
communications to Havana. A number of Cuban advisers were
wounded in
combat and were evacuated to Cuba via Panama.
The operations center run by the America Department in San
Jose was the
focal point for coordination of Cuba's support. After the
triumph of
the anti-Somoza forces in July 1979, the chief of the
center, Julian
Lopez Diaz, became Cuban Ambassador to Nicaragua. One of
this America
Department assistants in San Jose, Andres Barahona, was
redocumented as
a Nicaraguan citizen and became a top official of the
Nicaraguan
intelligence service.
Castro has counseled the Sandinistas to protect their
Western ties to
keep the country afloat economically. But to insure that the
FSLN could
move to dominate the Nicaraguan Government, Cuba acted
quickly to build
up Sandinista military and security forces.
Since July 1979, Cuba has provided substantial military,
technical, and
political assistance. Some 5,000 Cuban advisers, teachers,
and medical personnel work at all levels of the
military
and civilian infrastructures.(
10) Of this
number,
more than 1,500 military and security advisers are actively
providing
military instruction and combat training; instruction in
intelligence
and counterintelligence
activities; instruction on security protection for the FSLN
leadership;
and advice on organization of a Nicaraguan police force. In
addition,
Nicaragua has received within the past year approximately
$28 million
worth of military equipment from the U.S.S.R., Eastern
Europe, and
Cuba. This has included tanks, light aircraft, helicopters,
heavy
artillery, surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft weapons,
hundreds of
military transport vehicles, as well as tons of small arms
and
ammunition.
Cuba presently is using Nicaraguan territory to provide
training and
other facilities to guerrillas active in neighboring
countries. The
Cuban Ambassador to Nicaragua and other America Department
officials
frequently meet with Central American guerrillas in Managua
to advise
them on tactics and strategy. Individual Sandinista leaders
have
participated in such meetings and have met independently
with
Guatemalan and Salvadoran insurgents. The FSLN also has
cooperated in a
joint effort by Cuba and Palestine groups to provide
military training
in the Mideast to selected Latin American extremists. Some
Sandinistas
were themselves trained by the Palestine Liberation
Organization, which
maintains an embassy in Nicaragua.
Between October 1980 and February 1981, Nicaragua was the
staging site
for a massive Cuban-directed flow of arms to Salvadoran
guerrillas.
Arms destined for Salvadoran and Guatemalan guerrillas
continue to pass
through Nicaragua.
El Salvador. Before 1979,
Cuban support to
Salvadoran radicals involved training small numbers of
guerrillas,
providing modest financial aid, and serving as a political
conduit
between Salvadoran extremists and Communists outside the
hemisphere.
During the Nicaraguan civil war, Cuba concentrated on
support for the
FSLN. After the fall of Somoza, Cuba began intense efforts
to help
pro-Cuban guerrillas come to power in El Salvador. When a
reform-minded, civil-military government was established in
October
1979, Cuba's first priority was to tighten the political
organization
and unity of El Salvador's fragments violent left. At first,
arms
shipments and other aid from Cuba were kept low as the
Cubans insisted
on a unified strategy as the price of increased material
support. To
forge unity, Cuba sponsored a December 1979 meeting in
Havana that
resulted in an initial unity agreement among the Armed
Forces of
National Resistence (FARN), the Popular Liberation Forces
(FPL), and
the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES),
which had itself formed an armed wing at Cuban and Soviet
insistence.
In late May 1980, after more negotiations in Havana, the
Popular
Revolutionary Army (ERP) was admitted into the guerrilla
coalition.
The new combined military command assumed the named of the
Unified
Revolutionary Directorate (DRU). During this period, Cuba
also
coordinated the development of clandestine support networks
in
Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, sometimes using arms
supply
mechanisms established during the Nicaraguan civil war.
With unified tactics and operations now possible, Cuba began
to assist
the guerrillas in formulating military strategy. Cuban
specialists
helped the DRU devise initial war plans in the summer of
1980. The
Cubans influenced the guerrillas to launch a general
offensive in
January 1981. After the offensive failed, guerrilla leaders
traveled to
Havana in February 1981 to finalize a strategy to "improve
our internal
military situation" by engaging in a "negotiating maneuver"
to gain
time to regroup.(
11)
Cuba provided few weapons and ammunition to Salvadoran
guerrillas from
its own resources but played a key role in coordinating the
acquisition
and delivery of arms from Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Eastern
Europe through
Nicaragua.(
12) After the unmasking of this
network,
Cuba and Nicaragua reduced the flow in March and early
April. Prior to
a guerrilla offensive in August an upswing in deliveries
occurred. The
arms flow continues via clandestine surface and air routes.
In
addition, the Cubans over the past year have established a
network of
small ships to deliver arms to Salvadoran insurgent groups.
Cuba also assists the Salvadoran guerrillas in contacts with
Arab
radical states and movements to arrange military training
and financing
for arms acquisition. In September 1980, Cuba laundered
$500,000 in
Iraqi funds for the Salvadoran insurgents. In March 1981,
the
Salvadoran Communist Party Secretary General, Shafik Handal,
visited
Lebanon and Syria to meet with Palestine leaders. Cuba also
coordinated
the training of a relatively small number of Salvadoran
guerrillas in
Palestinian camps in the Mideast.
Cuban training of Salvadoran guerrillas increased sharply in
1980 as
Cuba concentrated on building a trained army able to mount
major
offensives. A typical 3-month training program included
guerrilla
tactics; marksmanship and weapons use; field engineering;
demolition;
fortification construction; land navigation; use of
artillery and
mines. One observer reported seeing groups up to battalion
size
(250-500 men) under instruction, suggesting that some
guerrillas
trained as integral units.(
13)
Cuba has provided selected guerrillas more intensive
training on
specialized subjects. A former FPL guerrilla who defected in
fall 1981
reported that during 1980 he had received 7 months of
military training
in Cuba, including instruction in scuba diving and
underwater
demolition. Soviet scuba equipment was used. The group
trained as
frogmen called themselves "combat swimmers" and were told
that their
mission was to destroy dams, bridges, port facilities, and
boats.
Cuba also gives political, organizational, and propaganda
support to
the guerrillas. Cuban diplomatic facilities worldwide help
guerrilla
front groups with travel arrangements and contacts. The
Cuban press
agency, Prensa Latina, has handled communications for
guerrilla
representatives abroad. Cuba and the Soviet Union have
pressed
Communist parties and radical groups to support insurgency
directly,
and through solidarity organizations with propaganda and
facilities (office space, equipment, etc.).
The Salvadoran insurgents have publicly stressed the
importance of
solidarity groups. A member of the FPL, Oscar Bonilla, who
attended the
Fourth Consultative Meeting in Havana of the Continental
Organization
of Latin American Students (OCLAE), a Cuban front group,
told Radio
Havana in August 1981 that OCLAE "has been the most
important means of
solidarity of all the peoples and has gotten us ready to
form an
anti-interventionist student front in El Salvador, Central
America and
the Caribbean.... We believe that it is good to carry out
immediate
plans for actions which will permit us to stop an
imperialist
intervention in El Salvador. In this respect, the students
of Latin
America will have to confront and attack U.S. interests so
that the
United States will see how the Latin American and Caribbean
student
movement responds to an aggression by imperialism in El
Salvador."
With Soviet assistance, Cuba has orchestrated propaganda to
distort the
realities of the Salvadoran conflict. Unattributed foreign
media
placements and efforts to organize protest against the
Salvadoran
Government and the U.S. policy, which have accompanied
official
propaganda, stress the theme of U.S. intent to intervene
militarily in
El Salvador.
Unfounded claims and accusations originated by the
Salvadoran
guerrillas are routinely replayed to a regional and world
audience by
Cuba's Radio Havana or Prensa Latina, then echoed by the
official
Soviet Press Agency TASS, Radio Moscow, and the Eastern
European media.
For example, a false report of a U.S. soldier killed in El
Salvador
that resounded widely in Cuban/Soviet propaganda during 1980
was traced
finally to the Salvadoran Communist Party. This rumor was to
support an
even bigger lie: that hundreds of U.S. soldier were in El
Salvador,
building U.S. bases, and herding peasants into Vietnam-style
strategic
hamlets.(
14)
Guatemala.
Castro has stepped up Cuba's support to Guatemalan
guerrillas whom he has aided with arms and training since he
came to power.
As elsewhere, Cuba has influenced divided extremist groups
to unite and
has conditioned increased Cuban aid on a commitment to armed
struggle
and a unified strategy. During 1980, discussions about a
unity
agreement were held among leaders of the Guerrilla Army of
the Poor
(EGP), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), the Organization of
People in Arms
(ORPA), and the dissident faction of the Guatemalan
Communist Party
(PGT/D). At the invitation of Sandinista leaders,
representatives of
the four groups met in Managua under strict security to
continue
discussions. In November 1980, the four organizations signed
a unity
agreement in Managua to establish the National Revolutionary
Union
(with a revolutionary directorate called the General
Revolutionary
Command - CGR). Manuel Piņeiro Losada, Chief of the America
Department, represented Fidel Castro at the signing
ceremony. Following
the signing of the unity agreement, representatives of the
CGR traveled
to Havana to present the document to Castro. ORPA publicized
the
agreement in a communique issued November 18, 1980. All
parties agreed
it was significant that the unity agreement was the first
such document
signed on Central American soil.
After this unity agreement was concluded, Cuba agreed to
increased
military training and assistance. A large number of the
2,000 or more
guerrillas now active have trained in Cuba. Recent military
training
programs have included instruction in the use of heavy
weapons.
During the past year, arms have been smuggled to Guatemala
from
Nicaragua passing over land through Honduras. The guerrilla
arsenal now
includes 50mm mortars, submachine guns, rocket launchers,
and other
weapons. Captured M-16 rifles have been traced to U.S.
forces in
Vietnam. On June 26, 1981, Paulino Castillo, a 28-year-old
guerrilla
with ORPA, told newsmen in Guatemala that he was part of a
23-man group
of Guatemalans that underwent 7 months of training in Cuba,
beginning
around February 1980. His group was divided into sections
for urban and
rural combat training in explosives and firearms use. To get
to Cuba,
Castillo traveled to Costa Rica from Guatemala by public
bus. In Costa
Rica, a go-between obtained a Panamanian passport for
Castillo to enter
Panama. In Panama, other contacts equipped him with a Cuban
passport
and he continued on to Cuba. Castillo returned to Guatemala
via
Nicaragua to rejoin the guerrillas. He later surrendered to
a Guatemalan army patrol.
Guatemalan guerrillas have collaborated with Salvadoran
guerrillas. In
January 1981, the EGP, ORPA, FAR, and PGT/D circulated a
joint bulletin
announcing the intensification of their activities in
support of the
general offensive in El Salvador. The Salvadorans in turn
have provided
the Guatemalans with small quantities of arms.
Unity has not been fully achieved, as the four groups have
not yet
carried out plans to establish a political front group. The
joint
military strategy, however, is being implemented. The
guerrillas have
stepped up terrorist actions to provoke repression and
destabilize the
government. For example, the EGP took responsibility for
placing a bomb
in one of the pieces of luggage that was to have been loaded
onto a
U.S. Eastern Airlines plane on July 2. The bomb exploded
before being
loaded, killing a Guatemalan airport employee.
Costa
Rica.
Cuba took advantage of Costa Rica's strong popular and
governmental
opposition to Somoza's authoritarian government and of Costa
Rica's
open democratic system to establish and coordinate a covert
support
network for guerrilla operations elsewhere in Central
America. The
apparatus was established during the course of the
Nicaraguan civil was
and maintained clandestinely thereafter. Costa Rica was well
disposed
toward groups that opposed Somoza, including the Sandinista
guerrillas.
Aid provided by Panama and Venezuela was openly funneled
through Costa
Rica to the Nicaragua rebels. Cuba, however, kept its role
largely
hidden.
A Special Legislative Commission established in June 1980 by
the Costa
Rican legislature revealed Cuba's extensive role in arming
the
Nicaraguan guerrillas. The commission determined that there
were at
least 21 flights carrying war materiel between Cuba And
Llano Grande
and Juan Santamaria Airports in Costa Rica.(
15)
Costa Rican pilots who made these flights reported the
Cubans
frequently accompanied the shipments. Although Cubans were
stationed at
Llano Grande, their main operations center for coordinating
logistics
and contacts with the Sandinistas was set up secretly in San
Jose and
run by America Department official Lopez Diaz. The Special
Legislative
Commission estimated that a minimum of 1 million pounds of
arms moved
to Costa Rica from Cuba and elsewhere during the Nicaraguan
civil war,
including anti-aircraft machine-guns, rocket
launchers, bazookas,
and mortars. The commission also estimated that a
substantial quantity
of these weapons remained in Costa Rica after the fall of
Somoza in
July 1979.
The Special Legislative Commission concluded that after the
Nicaraguan
civil war had ended, "arms trafficking [began], originating
in Costa
Rica, of through Costa Rican territory, toward El Salvador,
indirectly
of using Honduras as a bridge." Through 1980 and in to 1981
traffic
flowed intermittently through Costa Rica to El Salvador,
directed
clandestinely by the Cubans.
In the summer of 1979, the Cubans and their paid agent,
Fernando
Carrasco Illanes, a Chilean national residing in Costa Rica,
along with
several Costa Ricans previously involved in the logistics
effort for
the FSLN, agreed to continue smuggling arms to Salvadoran
guerrillas.
The Cuban arranged for acquisition of some of the arms and
ammunition
remaining in Costa Rica from the Nicaraguan airlift to
supply the
Salvadoran insurgents.
This new Cuban operation was coordinated from San Jose,
first from
their secret operations center, then later directly from the
Cuban
Consulate. The major coordinator, until his expulsion from
Costa Rica
in May 1981 following the break in consular relations
between Costa
Rica and Cuba, was Fernando Pascual Comas Perez of the
America
Department. Comas worked directly for Manuel Piņeiro and had
the
cover title of Cuban Vise Consul in San Jose. Cuban agents
made
arrangements to store arms for transshipment to El Salvador
and to help
hundreds of Salvadoran guerrillas pass through Costa Rica in
small
groups on their way to training in Cuba. Cuban operations
have been
facilitated by Costa Rica's three Marxist-Leninist partied,
which have
provided funds, safehaven, transportation,
and false documents.(
16)
Terrorism had been virtually unknown in Costa Rica until
March 1981
except for scattered incidents of largely foreign origin.
The first
Costa Rican terrorist made their appearance in March when
they blew up
a vehicle carrying a Costa Rican chauffeur and three Marine
security
guards from the U.S. embassy in San Jose. In April, four
terrorists
from the same group were captured after machine-gunning a
police
vehicle. In June, the group murdered three policemen and a
taxi driver.
Costa Rican authorities have arrested some 20 accused
terrorists and
are continuing to investigate lead linking them to South
American
terrorist groups such as the Argentine Montoneros, the
Uruguayan
Tupamaros, and Colombia's M-19, and to Cuba itself. Two of
the accused
terrorists are known to have received training in the Soviet
Union.
Director of the Judicial Investigation Organization Eduardo
Aguilar
Bloise told a press conference August 12 that captured
terrorist
documents indicated that two Costa Rican peasants had been
given
"ideological/military training" in Cuba and returned to work
in the
Atlantic coastal zone of Costa Rica. The documents indicate
that the
two were in Cuba from 8 to 12 months - possibly in 1978 -
and
were financed by the terrorist group known popularly in
Costa Rica as
"the family." Aguilar said he did not discount the
possibility that
other had been trained in Cuba.
Although most of Costa Rica's Marxist-Leninist parties have
advocated a
peaceful line in respect to Costa Rica, one group with close
ties to
Cuba - the Revolutionary Movement of the People (MRP) -
while
disavowing responsibility for terrorist acts, has spoken of
them as
"well intentioned." Some of the arrested terrorists are
known to have
belonged to the MRP at one time. On November 5, the Office
of National
Security announced the discovery of a terrorist cell clearly
connected
with the MRP. Among the Arms and terrorist paraphernalia
confiscated
was an Uzi submachinegun with silencer. Earlier, the
authorities had
confiscated a "plan for Guanacaste" from an MRP official
which noted
such objectives as "prevent the electoral process from
developing in a
festive atmosphere" and "the taking of power by the armed
people." The
head of the MRP has traveled many times to Cuba, and Cuba
has given
training to other MRP leaders.
Honduras.
Cuba provided para-military training to a small number of
Hondurans in
the early 1960s, but relations with Honduran radicals were
strained
until the late 1970s. Cuba then resumed military training
for members
of the Honduran Communist Party (PCH) and integrated them
into the
"internationalist brigade" fighting in the Nicaraguan civil
war. After
the war, PCH members returned to
Cuba for additional training.
Since then Cuba has concentrated primarily on developing
Honduras as a
conduit for arms and other aid to guerrillas active
elsewhere in
Central American. In January 1981, Honduran officials
discovered a
large cache of concealed arms intended for Salvadoran
guerrillas, which
included M-16 rifles traced to Vietnam. Smuggled arms have
continued to
be intercepted.
While considering Honduras a useful support base for
insurgencies
elsewhere, Cuba is also working to develop the capacity for
insurrection within Honduras. In the normal pattern, Havana
has urged
splintered extremist groups in Honduras to unify and embrace
armed
struggle. While holding back from levels of support given to
Salvadoran
and Guatemalan guerrillas, Cuba has increased its training
of Honduran
extremists in political organizations and military
operations. Cuba has
also promised to provide Honduran guerillas their own arms,
including
submachineguns and rifles.
On November 27, Honduran authorities discovered a guerrilla
safehouse
on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa. Two guerrillas were killed
in the
resulting shootout, including an Uruguayan citizen.
Nicaraguans as well
as Honduran were captured at the house, where a substantial
arsenal of
automatic weapons and explosives was seized. Incriminating
documents,
including notebooks which indicate recent attendance in
training course
in Cuba, were also confiscated. One of those arrested, Jorge
Pinel
Betancourt, a 22-year-old Honduran, told reporters the group
was headed
for El Salvador to join El Salvadoran guerrillas. Two
additional
guerrilla safehouses located in La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula
were raided
on November 29, and authorities seized sizable arms caches,
explosives,
and communications equipment. These arms may have been
destined for use
within Honduras.
The Caribbean
Jamaica.
In the late 1970s, Jamaica became a special target for Cuba.
Fidel
Castro and other Cuban officials developed close relations
with
important members of the People's National Party, which
governed
Jamaica from 1973 until 1980. Cuban security personnel
trained Jamaican
security officers in Cuba and Jamaica, including members of
the
security force of the office of the Prime Minister. Cuba
also trained
about 1,400 Jamaican youths in Cuba as construction workers
through a
"brigadista" program. Political indoctrination in Cuba
formed part of
this group's curriculum. A considerable number of these
Jamaican youths
received military training while in Cuba, including
instruction in
revolutionary tactics and use of arms.
During this same period, the Cuban diplomatic mission in
Jamaica grew.
Most of the embassy staff, including former Ambassador
Ulises Estrada,
were Cuban intelligence agents. Ulises Estrada, who served
as a deputy
head of the America Department for 5 years, had a long
history of
involvement in political action activities and intelligence
operations
and went to Jamaica in July 1979, after playing a major role
in Cuba's
involvement in the Nicaraguan civil war.
Cuba was instrumental in smuggling arms and ammunition into
Jamaica. A
Cuban front corporation (Moonex International, registered in
Lichenstein, with subsidiaries in Panama and Jamaica) was
discovered in
May 1980 to be the designated recipient of a shipment of
200,000
shotgun shells and .38 caliber pistol ammunition shipped
illegally to
Jamaica from Miami. Jamaican authorities apprehended
the local manager of the corporation, accompanied by the
Jamaican
Minister of National Security and Cuban Ambassador Estrada,
as the
manager was attempting to leave the country, in defiance of
police
instructions, on a private plane. The manager subsequently
paid a fine
of U.S. $300,000 set by a Jamaican court.
In 1980, weapons were reported stockpiled in the Cuban
embassy for
possible use during the election campaign. M-16 rifles than
appeared in
Jamaica for the first time and were used in attacks against
supporters
of the opposition Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) and the
security forces.
Over 70 of these weapons have been found by Jamaican
authorities. Some
of the M-16s found in Jamaica have serial numbers in the
same numerical
series as captured M-16s shipped to Salvadoran guerrillas
from Vietnam.
Ambassador Ulises Estrada was withdrawn from his post in
November 1980,
at the request of the newly elected JLP government. In
January 1981,
the Jamaican Government terminated the "brigadista" program
and
recalled Jamaican students remaining in Cuba under this
program. The
government decided to maintain diplomatic relations but
warned Cuba to
stop its interferences in Jamaican affairs. Cuba continued
to maintain
diplomatic relations but warned Cuba to stop its
interference in
Jamaican affairs. Cuba continued to maintain some 15
intelligence
agents at the Cuban Embassy in Kingston. On October 29, the
government
broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, citing Cuba's failure
to return
three Jamaican fugitive criminals as the immediate cause for
this
action. On November 17, the government publicly detailed
Cuba's role in
providing covert military training under the curtailed
"brigadista"
program.
Guyana.
In 1978, as many as 200 Cuban technicians, advisers, and
medical
personnel were stationed in Guyana. However, while claiming
fraternal
relations with Guyana's Government, Cuba maintained contact
with
radical opposition groups. Guyanese authorities suspected
the Cubans of
involvement in a crippling sugar strike. In August 1978,
five Cuban
diplomats were expelled for involvement in illegal
activities.
Cuban military advisers have provided guerrilla training
outside Guyana
to members of a small radical Guyanese opposition group, the
Working
People's Alliance. Five of the seven members of the Cuban
Embassy are
known or suspected intelligence agents.
Grenada. Cuban influence in Grenada mushroomed
almost immediately
after the March 1979 coup led by the New Jewel Movement of
Maurice
Bishop. Bishop and his closest colleagues were
Western-educated Marxist
radicals, and they turned for help to Fidel Castro, who
proved willing
to provide assistance.
To allow close Cuban supervision of Grenadian programs, a
senior
intelligence officer from the America Department, Julian
Torres Rizo,
was sent to Grenada as ambassador. Torres Rizo has
maintained intimate
relations with Bishop and other People's Revolutionary
Government
ministers, such as Bernard Coard.
The Grenadian Government has followed a pro-Soviet foreign
policy line.
Cuban and Grenadian voting records in international
organizations have
been nearly identical, so much so that they alone of all
Western
Hemisphere nations have voted against U.N. resolutions
condemning the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Cuban aid to Grenada has been most extensive in those areas
which
affect the security of its client government and the
island's strategic
usefulness to Cuba. Cuba has advisers on the island offering
military,
technical, security, and propaganda assistance to the Bishop
government. Many Grenadians have been sent to Cuba for
training in
these areas. Last year journalists observed Cuban officials
directing and giving orders to Grenadian soldiers marching
in ceremonies in St. George's.
Cuba is aiding the construction of a 75-kilowatt transmitter
for Radio
Free Granada. Grenada's state-controlled press, enjoying a
government
enforced monopoly, currently hews to a strict
"revolutionary" line.
Indications are that the new transmitter will continue this
emphasis
while providing facilities for beaming Cuban and
Soviet-supplied
propaganda into the Caribbean and South America.
Cuba's largest project in Grenada is the construction of a
major
airfield at Point Salines on the southern tip of the island.
Cuba has
provided hundreds of construction workers and Soviet
equipment to build
the airfield. This airfield, according to Grenadian
Government
statements, is required to bring tourism to its full
economic potential
and will be used as a civilian airport only. Many questions
have been
raised, however, about the economic justification for the
project. The
Grenadian Government has ignored requests for a standard
project
analysis of economic benefits. The planned 9,800-foot Point
Salines
runway, moreover, has clear military potential. Such an
airfield will
allow operations of every aircraft in the Soviet/Cuban
inventory.
Cuba's MiG aircraft and troop transports will enjoy a
greater radius of
operation. The airport will give Cuba a guaranteed refueling
stop for
military flights to Africa.
Bishop himself has given an implicit endorsement of future
military use
of the airfield. A March 31, 1980 Newsweek report quoted
Bishop's
comments to a U.S. reporter: "Suppose there's a war next
door in
Trinidad, where the forces of Fascism are about to take
control, and
the Trinidadians need external assistance, why should we
oppose anybody
passing through Grenada to assist them?"
Dominican Republic.
With its renewed commitment to armed struggle, Cuba's
interest in the
Dominican Republic has revived. Since early 1980, the Cubans
have been
encouraging radicals in the Dominican Republic to unite and
prepare for
armed actions. Cuban intelligence officials, like Omar
Cordoba Rivas,
chief of the Dominican Republic desk of the America
Department, make
periodic visits
to the island.
The Soviet Union, Cuba, and other Communist countries have
mounted
extensive training programs for Dominican students. In July
1981, the
Moscow-line Dominican Communist Party (PCD) for the first
time
publicized the Soviet scholarship program. Some 700
Dominican students
are currently studying at Soviet universities, principally
Patrice
Lumumba university, with 75 other in five other Communist
states
(Bulgaria, Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary,
and Romania).
The PCD itself selects the more than 100 students who begin
the Soviet
program each year.
At the same time, the Soviet Union has been pressuring the
PCD to unite
with other extreme left organizations. The PCD and the
pro-Cuban
Dominican Liberation Party receive funds from both Cuba ns
the Soviet
union and send significant numbers of their members and
potential
sympathizers for academic and political schooling as well as
military
training in the Communist countries. Cuba also has given
military
instruction to many members of small extremist splinter
groups like the
Social Workers Movement and the Socialist Party.
South America
Colombia.
Since the 1960s, Cuba has nurtured contacts with violent
extremist
groups in democratic Colombia. During the 1970s, Cuba
established full
diplomatic relations with Colombia; Cuban involvement with
Colombian
revolutionaries was fairly limited, although Cuban provided
some
training to guerrilla leadership. Many leaders of the April
19 Movement
(M-19), including the founder, Jamie Bateman - who also
attended a
Communist cadre school in Moscow - were trained in Cuba.
Leaders of the
National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Moscow-oriented
Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) also received Cuban
instruction.
Cuban assistance to Colombian guerrillas was stepped up
after the
February 1980 seizure of the Dominican Republic Embassy in
Bogota. A
number of diplomats, including the U.S. Ambassador, were
taken hostage
by M-19 terrorists. As part of a negotiated settlement, the
terrorist
were flown on April 17, 1980 to Cuba, where the remaining
hostages were
released and the terrorists were given asylum.
During mid-1980, Cuban intelligence officers arranged a
meeting of
Colombian extremists, attended by representatives from the
M-19, FARC,
ELN, and other Colombian radical groups, to discuss a common
strategy
and tactics. The M-19 had previously held talks with the
Nicaraguan
FSLN on ways to achieve unity of action among guerrilla
groups in Latin
America. Although the meeting did not result in agreement by
Colombian
guerrillas on a unified strategy, practical cooperation
among the
guerrilla organizations increased.
In late 1980, the M-19 set in motion a large-scale operation
in
Colombia with Cuban help. In November, the M-19 sent
guerrillas to Cuba
via Panama to begin training for the operation. The group
included new
recruits as well as members who had received no prior
political or
military training. In Cuba the guerrillas were given 3
months of
military instruction from Cuban army instructors, including
training in
the use of explosives, automatic weapons, hand-to-hand
combat, military
tactics, and communication. A course in politics and
ideology was
taught as well. Members of the M-19 group given asylum in
Cuba after
the takeover of the Dominican Republic Embassy also
participated in the
training program.
In February 1981, some 100-200 armed M-19 guerrillas
reinfiltrated into
Colombia from Panama by boat along the Pacific coast. The
guerrillas'
mission to establish a "people's army" failed. The M-19
members proved
to be poorly equipped for the difficult countryside, and the
Cuba-organized operation was soon dismantled by Colombian
authorities.
Among those captured was Rosenberg Pabon Pabon, the M-19
leader who had
directed the Dominican Republic Embassy takeover and then
fled to Cuba.
Cuba denied any involvement with the M-19 landings but did
not deny
training the guerrillas.(
17)
Cuba's propaganda support for Colombian terrorist was
impossible to deny. When a group of
dissidents kidnaped an American working for a private
religious
institute, Cuba implicitly supported the terrorists' action
through
Radio Havana broadcasts beamed to Colombia in February 1981,
which
denounced the institute workers as "U.S. spies." Radio
Moscow picked up
the unfounded accusation to use in its Spanish broadcasts to
Latin
America. The American was later murdered by the kidnappers.(
18)
Colombia suspended relations with Cuba on March 23, in view
of the
clear evidence of Cuba's role in training M-19 guerrillas.
President
Turbay commented in an August 13 New York Times interview:
"...When we
found that Cuba, a country with which we had diplomatic
relations, was
using those diplomatic relations to prepare a group of
guerrillas to
come and fight against the government, it
was a kind of Pearl Harbor of us. It was like sending
ministers to
Washington at the same time you are about to bomb ships in
Hawaii."
Chile.
After Allende's fall in 1973, Castro promised Chilean
radicals "all the
aid in Cuba's power to provide." Although Cuban officials
maintained
regular contact with many Chilean exiles, divisions among
the exiles
inhibited major operations. The Moscow-line Chilean
Communist Party
(PCCH), holding the position that revolutionary change could
be
accomplished by non-violent means, was critical of
"left-wing forces" like the Movement of the Revolutionary
Left (MIR) with which Cuba had close relations.
Throughout the 1970s, members of the MIR received training
in Cuba and
in some cases instructed other Latin American
revolutionaries. This
training ranged from political indoctrination and
instruction in small
arms use to sophisticated courses in document fabrication,
explosives,
code writing, photography, and disguise. In addition, Cuban
instruction
trained MIR activists in the Mideast and Africa.
With its renewed commitment to armed struggle, Cuba
increased its
training of Chileans beginning in 1979. By mid-1979, the MIR
had
recruited several hundred Chilean exiles and sent them to
Cuba for
training and eventual infiltration into Chile. At the same
time,
members of the MIR who had been living and working in Cuba
since
Allende's overthrown began to receive training in urban
guerrilla
warfare techniques. The training in some cases lasted as
long as 7
months and included organization and political strategy,
small unit
tactics, security, and communications.
Once training was completed, Cuba helped the terrorist
return to Chile,
providing false passports and false identification
documents. By late
1980, at least 100 highly trained MIR terrorists had
reentered Chile
and the MIR had claimed responsibility for a number of
bombings and
bank robberies. Cuba's official newspaper, Granma, wrote in
February
1981 that the "Chilean Resistance:" forces had successfully
conducted
more than 100 "armed actions" in Chile in 1980.
By late 1979, the PCCH was reevaluating its position in
light of events
in Nicaragua, where the fragmented Nicaraguan Communist
Party emerged
from the civil war subservient to the FSLN. In December
1980, PCCH
leader Luis Corvalan held talks in Cuba with Fidel Castro,
who urged
Corvalan to establish a unified Chilean opposition. During
the Cuban
Party Congress that month, Corvalan delivered a speech which
sketched a
new party line calling for armed struggle to overthrown the
Chilean
Government and for coordination of efforts by all parties,
including
the violent left. In January 1981, Corvalan commended MIR
terrorist
acts as "helpful" and stated that the PCCH was willing not
only to talk
with MIR representatives but also to sign agreements with
the group.
Several days after this offer, Corvalan signed a unity
agreement with
several Chilean extremist groups, including MIR.
Until January 1981, when the new PCCH policy evidently had
been ironed
out and validated by the agreement for a broad opposition
coalition,
Corvalan's statements were issued from such places as
Czechoslovakia,
East Germany, Cuba, and Peru - but never from Moscow. Within
two weeks
of the agreement, however, Moscow showed its implicit
approval of the
policy change and began broadcasting in Spanish to Latin
America - and
to Chile in particular - PCCH explanations of the new policy
and calls
for mass resistance and acts of terrorism to overthrow the
Chilean
Government
Terrorist activities by MIR commandos operating in Chile
have increase
substantially during the past year. These have included
increased
efforts by MIR activities to establish clandestine bases for
rural
insurgency, killings of policemen, and a number of
assassination
attempts against high government officials.
Argentina.
The Cubans have a long history of association with,
encouragement of,
and active backing for terrorism in Argentina. The Cubans
were linked
to the two groups responsible for unleashing the wave of
leftist
terrorism that swept Argentina in the early and mid-1970s,
the
Montoneros and the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP). Cuba
backed these
organizations with advice on tactics and
instructions on recruiting operations and with training in
Cuba in
urban and rural guerrilla techniques. During the height of
Argentine
terrorism, the Cubans used their embassy in Buenos Aires to
maintain
direct liaison with Argentine terrorists.
The Argentine terrorists were virtually defeated by 1978. In
that year,
Castro permitted the Montonero national leadership to
relocate its
headquarters to Cuba. Today, the Montonero top command, its
labor
organization, and its intelligence organization, among other
units, are
all located in Cuba. The Cuban facilitate the travel and
communications
of Montoneros, supplying them with false documentation and
access to
Cuban diplomatic pouches. Montoneros have been among the
Latin American
guerrillas trained in guerrilla warfare over the past year
in the
Mideast as part of a cooperative effort between Palestinian
groups and
Cuba.
Following the move of their high command to Havana, the
Montoneros made
repeated attempts to reinfiltrate Argentina. In late 1979,
small groups
of infiltrators eluded detection and were able to carry out
several
terrorist actions, including four murders. Subsequent
attempts by the
Montoneros to infiltrate terrorists in early 1980 proved
unsuccessful.
With Cuban support, Montoneros are active outside Argentina.
Cuban-trained Montoneros were among members of the
"internationalist
brigade" that Cuba supported in Nicaragua in 1979. This
connection was
highlighted when Montonero leader Mario Firmenich attended
the first
anniversary of the July 1979 victory, wearing the uniform of
a
Sandinista commander. Montoneros have been active elsewhere
as well.
Montoneros largely staffed and administrated Radio Noticias
del
Continente, which broadcast Cuban propaganda to Central and
South
America from San Jose until it was closed by the Costa Rican
Government
in 1981, after war material was discovered on its
installations.
Uruguay.
After the failure of the urban insurgent organized in the
early 1970s
by the National Liberation Movement (MLN-Tupamaros), several
hundred
Tupamaros went to Cuba. During the mid-1970s, Cuba provided
some of
them with training in military and terrorist tactics,
weapons, and
intelligence. Several of these former Tupamaros subsequently
assisted
Cuba in running intelligence operations in Europe and Latin
America.
Some participated in the Cuban-organized "internationalist
brigade"
that fought in the Nicaraguan civil war.
Cuba continues to provide propaganda support for the
Tupamaros and the
Uruguayan Communist Party. Radio Havana reported on June 30,
1981 that
the leader of the Communist Party of Uruguay attended a
ceremony "in
solidarity with the Uruguayan people's struggle" at the
headquarters of
the Cuban State Committee for Material and Technical Supply
in Havana.
Pro-Cuban Uruguayan leaders are given red carpet treatment
when the
visit Havana and are usually received by at least a member
of the Cuban
Poliburo.
IV. POSTSCRIPT
Cuba's renewed campaign of violence has had a negative
impact on Cuba's
relations with its neighbors. Cuba's policies abroad and its
reaction
to emigration pressures at home have reversed the trend in
Latin
America toward normalization of relations. Although the
Castro
government has developed close ties to Nicaragua and
Grenada, Cuba
finds itself increasingly isolated throughout the Americas.
Peru nearly broke relations and removed its ambassador in
April 1980, when the Cuban Government encouraged Cubans
eager to leave
the island to occupy the Peruvian Embassy. After more than
10,000
Cubans crowded into the embassy compound, Castro thwarted
efforts by
concerned governments to develop an orderly departure
program and
opened the port of Mariel to emigration, also expelling many
criminals
and the mentally ill, and ultimately allowing more than
125,000 people
to leave under perilous conditions. But Cuba still refuses
to still
refuses to issue safe conduct passes to the 14 Cubans who
remain
cloistered in the Peruvian Embassy in Havana today.
Cuba's neighbors were further shocked when Cuban MiG 21s
sank the
Bahamian patrol boat "Flamingo" on May 10, 1980 in an
unprovoked attack
in Bahamian costal waters. Subsequently four Bahamian seamen
were
machinegunned while trying to save themselves after their
vessel sank.
Their bodies were never recovered. U.S. Coast Guard aircraft
were
harassed by Cuban MiGs while searching for the survivors at
the request
of the Bahamian Government.
Relations between Venezuela and Cuba deteriorated badly in
1980,
principally over the asylum issue, to the degree that
Venezuela removed
its ambassador from Havana. In November 1980, Jamaica
expelled the
Cuban Ambassador for interference in Jamaica's internal
affairs and in
October 1981 broke diplomatic relations. Colombia suspended
relations
in March 1981over Cuba's training of M-19 guerrillas. Cuba's
handling
of an incident in which a group of Cubans demanding asylum
forcibly
occupied Ecuador's Embassy in Havana prompted Ecuador to
remove its
ambassador from Cuba in May 1981. Also in May, Costa Rica
severed its
existing consular ties with Cuba, expelling Cuban officials
active in
coordinating support networks for Central American
insurgents.
Today, outside the English-speaking Caribbean, only
Argentina, Panama,
Mexico and Nicaragua conduct relatively normal relations
through
resident ambassadors in Havana. Use of Panama as a transit
point for
Colombian guerrillas, however, led Panama to reassess its
relations
with Cuba and resulted in sharp public criticism of Cuba's
"manifest
disregard for international standards of political
co-existence" by a
high Panamanian Government official.
1. Cuba's military and political activities
in
Africa are intense and wide ranging. Cuba still maintains
expeditionary
forces of at least 15-19,000 in Angola and 11-15,000 in
Ethiopia. Cuba
has military and security advisers contingents in a number
of other
African countries and South Yemen.
2. According to the World Bank, Cuba's per
capita
annual growth rate averaged minus 1.2% during the period
1960-78. Cuban
economic performance ranked in the lowest 5% worldwide and
was the
worst of all socialist countries. Only massive infusions of
Soviet aid
have kept consumption levels from plummeting. Cuba today
depends more
heavily on sugar than before 1959. The industrial sector has
been
plagued by mismanagement, absenteeism, and serious shortages
in capital
goods and foreign exchange. The economic picture is so bleak
that in
1979, and again in October 1981, the Cuban leadership had to
warn that
10-20 more years of sacrifice lie ahead.
3. Cuba maintain some front organizations
set up in
the 1960s. One of these, the Continental Organization of
Latin American
Students, still holds irregular congresses of student
leaders from
Latin America to the Caribbean (the most recent in Havana in
August
1981) and publishes a monthly journal distributed by the
Cuban
Government.
4. Although Cuba is not involved in action
directly
threatening to Mexican internal stability, Cuba has taken
advantage of
Mexico's open society and its extensive presence there --
Cuba's
Embassy in Mexico City is its largest diplomatic mission in
the
hemisphere -- to carry out support activities for
insurgencies in other
countries. Mexico is a principal base for Cuban contacts
with
represntatives of several armed Latin American groups on
guerrilla
strategy, logistical support, and international activities.
5. Prensa Latina, the press agency of the
Cuban
Government, had field offices in 35 countries, including 11
Latin
American and Caribbean countries, and combines news
gathering and
propaganda dissemination with intelligence operations. Radio
Havana,
Cuba's shortwave broadcasting service, transmits more than
350 program
hours per week in eight languages to all points of the
world. Cuba also
transmits nightly medium wave Spanish-language broadcasts
over "La Voz
de Cuba," a network of high-powered transmitters located in
different
parts of Cuba. In the Caribbean alone, Radio Havana's weekly
broadcasts
include 14 hours in Creole to Haiti; 60 hours in English; 3
hours in
French; and 125 hours in Spanish. Prensa Latina and Radio
Havana, in
close coordination with TASS and Radio Moscow, regularly use
disinformation to distort news reports transmitted to the
region,
especially those concerning places
where Cuban covert activities are most intense.
6. Latin Americans are not the only
trainees. In a
May 1978 Reuters interview published in Beruit, Abu Khalaf,
a leader of
the military branch of Al Fatah, confirmed that Palestine
agents have
received training in Cuba since the late 1960s. Palestine
organizations, with Cuban assistance, have reciprocated by
training
various Latin American groups in the Middle East. Libya,
which boasted
a meeting of Latin American "liberation movements" January
25 -
February 1, 1979, also has trained some Latin American
extremists.
7. Public exposure in March 1981 of the use
of
Panama as a transit point for Colombian guerrillas trained
in Cuba led
to sharp criticism of Cuba by the Panamanian Government.
Panama imposed
greater controls on activities of exiled Central and South
Americans,
and the transit of guerrillas through Panama appears to have
ceased, at
least temporarily.
8. Courses in agitation and propaganda open
to
foreigners include the Central Union of Cuban Workers'
Lazaro Pena
Trade Union Cadre School and similar courses run by the
Union of Young
Communists, the Cuban Women's Federation, the National
Association of
Small Farmers, and the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution.
Even the Cuban Communist Party offers special courses for
non-Cubans in
party provincial schools and in the Ņico Lopez National
Training
School, its highest educational institution. The Cuban press
reported
graduation ceremonies July 17, 1981, for this year's 70
Cuban graduates
and announced that 69 foreigners had also attended advanced
courses at
the Ņico Lopez school. Foreign students represented
political
organizations from Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru,
Colombia,
Ecuador, Nicaragua, Chile, Grenada, Angola, Namibia, South
Africa, Sao
Tome y Principe, and South Yemen. Official Cuban Communist
Party
newspaper Granma labeled their presence "a beautiful example
of
proletarian internationalism." Courses of instruction at the
Ņico Lopez school, which is chaired by senior party leaders,
include "political training for journalists," "political
training for
propagandists," economics, and ideology.
9. Ulises Estrada was given his first
ambassadorial
post in Jamaica following the July 1979 victory of
anti-Somoza forces
(see Jamaica case study). He is currently Cuba's ambassador
to South
Yemen.
10. The very quantity of Cuban advisers has
caused
resentment among nationalist Nicaraguans, leading to
sporadic outbursts
of anti-Cuban feelings. On June 3, 1981, the FSLN announced
that 2,000
Cuban primary school teachers presently in Cuba would return
to Cuba in
July, at the mid-point of Nicaragua's academic year. The
Nicaraguan
Education Minister announced on June 18 that 800 of those
departing
would return in September after vacations in Cuba, while
Cuba would
replace the other 1,200 teachers in February. By November
1981,
however, all 2,000 Cuban teachers had returned to Nicaragua.
11. A guerrilla document outlining this
strategy
was found in Nicaragua in February 1981. Guerrilla
representatives
later confirmed its authenticity to Western Europeans with
the
disclaimer that the strategy elaborately in the paper had
been rejected.
12. The Cuban role as arms broker to the
DRU since
1979 has been documented in the Department of State's
Special Report
No. 80, Communist Inferences in El Salvador, February 23,
1981. In
April 1981, when Socialist International representative
Wischnewski
confronted Castro with the evidence in the report, Castro
admitted to
him that Cuba had shipped arms to the guerrillas. In
discussions with
several Inter-Parliamentary Union delegations at the
September 1981 IPU
conference in Havana, Castro again conceded that Cuba had
supplied arms.
13. Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael
Rodriguez
tactically admitted that Cuba was providing military
training to
Salvadoran guerillas
in an interview published in Der Spiegal on September 28,
1981.
14. At the time these reports first
appeared, the
United States was providing neither arms nor ammunition to
El Salvador.
In January 1981, the United States responded to the
Cuban-orchestrated
general offensive by sending some military assistance and
later sent
American military trainers, whose number never exceeded 55.
There are
no U.S. combatants, bases, or strategic hamlets in El
Salvador. TASS
continues to report falsely that "hundreds" of U.S. military
personnel
are in El Salvador and participate in combat.
15. The commission's report was issued May
14, 1981.
16. In a recorded interview broadcast by
Radio
Havana on June 16, 1981, Eduardo Mora, Deputy Secretary
General of
Costa Rica's Popular Vanguard Party (the Moscow-line
traditional
Communist party, the least disposed to violence of the
country's
several Marxist partied and splinter groups) explained his
party's
position: "We establish ties with all revolutionary
organizations in
Central America. We have close ties and are willing to give
all the aid
we possibly can in accordance with the principles of
proletarian
internationalism because we believe that the struggle of the
Central
American people is the struggle of our own people."
17. Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael
Rodriguez
explained in an interview published in Der Spiegel on
September 28,
1981 why Cuba had not denied training the M-19 guerillas:
"We did not
deny this because in the past few years many people came to
our country
for various reasons to ask for training. We did not deny
this desire.
If a revolutionary for Latin America wished to learn
the
technique of resistance for his own self-defense, we cannot
refuse in
view of the brutal oppression. This also holds true for
Salvadorans."
18. The U.S. citizen killed, Chester Allen
Bitterman, was working for the Summer Institute of
Linguistics, a
religious group which develops written forms of indigenous
languages.
End of Page
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