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AfroCubaWeb
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Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)
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USAID reveals its plans for subversion in Cuba 5/29/2008 Granma: "getting a
slice of the cake, were: The pseudo Czech NGO People in Need; Global Partners,
IBMC, Loyola University, the Center for Democracy in the Americas, Jackson State
University, the Mississippi Consortium for International Development, the
International Resources Group, the Panamerican Development Foundation, Partners
of America, the Alliance for Family, the Trade Council of Hungary and the
millionaire TV Martí. No diplomat – not even the Czech agent Kolar – was
present. In what is equivalent to confessing authentic espionage operations
against Cuba and in Cuban territory, "Pepe" Cárdenas, the former CANF director
who replaced the supremely corrupt Adolfo Franco, insisted on the need to
identify NGOS in third countries that can channel USAID’s resources for
subversion. He stressed the need to dispatch to Cuba, via such intermediaries,
"propaganda pamphlets, cell phones and modern communications equipment," as well
as "to train Cubans resident in third countries." Highlighting the philosophy
behind the significant expansion of the USAID’s Cuba Program, Cárdenas announced
that its budget of $13 million in 2007, "shot up" to $45 million in 2008. He
then moved on to the new geography of this monumental squandering, noting Chile,
Peru, Argentina, Colombia and Puerto Rico as countries most inclined to develop
this clandestine operation."
Bacardi: from C-4 to flamethrowers 9/28/2006 Granma: "IT is pretty ironic
that the Bacardi company, which for 50 years has financed the Cuban-American
National Foundation (CANF) and the C-4 of Posada Carriles, would be victims of a
consumer demand, victims of a bottle of the controversial rum converted into a
flamethrower. Three women in South Florida suffered burns in 2002, when a client
of the adult Secrets club converted a bottle of Bacardi into a flamethrower
during a drinks promotion. Drunk, the client set fire to a menu in order to
light the rum that he was drinking in a cup. The flames spread to a bottle of
75.5-proof Bacardi rum, which then exploded."
CANF responsible for attack on Por Esto 9/4/2006 Granma: "This Sunday,
Mario Menéndez, proprietor of the opposition daily Por Esto, charged the
Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) of Miami and Mexican state officials
with responsibility for the grenade attacks on the newspaper offices in the last
few days. Por Esto exposed Luis Posada Carriles’ transit via Mexican waters and
territory, as well as the person and drug smuggling operations in which the CANF
is involved. In an editorial titled “Two grenades that say a lot,” Menéndez
noted that the brother of the governor of the state of Yucatan and a commander
of the national police special forces were involved in planning the attacks, PL
reports."''
The Center for Pan-African Development and Miami CopWatch Statement on Liberty
City "Terror" Arrests 7/1/2006 Marguertite Laurent: "On the day of the
Liberty City raids, the story of a former director of the right wing Cuban
American National Foundation (CANF), a federally recognized not-for-profit
organization based in Miami, admitting to planning terrorist acts against a
sovereign state, failed either to draw national attention or merit "above the
fold" coverage on the front page of Miami's newspaper of record. A sub-committee
of the CANF board of directors moved beyond the "discussion stage,"
demonstrating their capacity to carry out terrorist plots by purchasing boats, a
helicopter and caches of weapons and ammunition for the purpose of executing the
plot. The admission only confirmed commonly held suspicions about the CANF's
violent intentions and the government's indifference towards those intentions."
SOON TO BE LAUNCHED IN PARIS • A book revealing the FBI’s terrorist Miami
connection 9/7/2005 Granma: ""The hopes of the agents and police officers
were quickly extinguished. Pesquera, they said, began to fraternize with key
members of the exile leadership, such as Alberto Hernández (formerly of the
CANF); Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; Domingo Otero (another former CANF hardliner) and
Roberto Martín Pérez (...) Pesquera, according to an agent in his office,
quickly made a brusque turn toward the right, and all investigations related to
terrorism were abandoned.""
THE MIAMI MAFIA IN CANADA - A drug trafficking “right-hand man” 4/16/2004 Granma: "THE
“right-hand man” of Ismael Sambra, current leader of the Cuban Canadian
Foundation, was arrested in December 1990 as chief of a drug trafficking gang,
resulting in the most important seizure of cocaine in Montreal’s history. On May
7, 1993, Máximo Morales, aged 57 and of Cuban origin, pleaded guilty to charges
of conspiracy and importing 115 kilograms of the drug; just a small quantity of
the huge volume of drugs that his organization had trafficked. At that time,
Morales represented the French-speaking province of Quebec on the executive of a
“human rights” faction founded by Sambra, whose was located in Toronto. However,
according to various sources, the drug trafficker was aspiring to take over the
presidency of the small organization… According to statements by police officers
at the time of the arrest, detectives assessed that Morales’ organization – a
mafioso group led by César Riviera from Toronto – had imported 1,500 kilograms
of cocaine the year before the “businessman’s” arrest and earnings worth $3.4
million during the six weeks prior to that event. In that period, the
Rivera-Morales network controlled half the cocaine market for the Canadian
province of Ontario, according to information circulated at the time of the
police operation… Granma International revealed in 2003 how Sambra’s arrival in
Canada was sponsored by a mysterious “anonymous donor” who had urged the head of
York University to “provide him with a cover,” and how he went on to create his
organization with the support of Miami’s Cuban-American National Foundation
(CANF)."
Frank
Calzon 4/16/2004 Cuba Socialista: "Another ex CIA agent and former director
of the terrorist groups ABDALA and the National Liberation Front of Cuba. He
also was one of the first directors of the CANF. Presently he is one of the
directors of Freedom House and Cuban Committee of Human rights. Both of these
organizations amply financed by the US government. He also receives substantial
amounts of money from the International Development Agency in Washington. He is
also the director of Free Cuba Center; a center financed by Washington. Calzon
finances the activities of Gustavo Arcos and other counterrevolutionaries in
Cuba."
Mas
Santos makes offer to talk with Cuba leaders 1/31/2003 Miami
Herald: "Though Mas Santos excluded Fidel and Raul Castro from the list and has
not made an official move to open a dialogue, it was the first time the Cuban
American National Foundation chairman has publicly named Cuban officials with
whom he is willing to talk -- a very public signal that Cuban exiles are staking
a claim in a future political transition… Exiles blasted Mas Santos on radio
shows while Cuban opposition leaders from Havana telephoned the foundation with
praise, according to CANF… José Vasquez, a welder who came in the Mariel
boatlift, said he wasn't moved by any efforts on the part of exile leaders.
''These people should just forget about Cuba already. Let them worry about
things in this country, lowering taxes and the cost of living,'' said Vasquez,
36. ``Fidel is just laughing at them.''
‘Spy scandal’ to save the CANF 4/26/2002 Granma: for more on this extended
tale about La Mas Fea, see The CANF, drugs, and the October 1997 plot to kill
Castro.
Cuba Announces Capture of 3 CANF Terrorists 6/20/2001 Reuters
CONNECTIONS OF CANF'S TREASURER 12/15/2000 Zmag: "The Cuban American
National Foundation is well-represented on the GOP's list of presidential
electors from Florida by CANF's treasurer, Feliciano M. Foyo, who happens to be
a good friend of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Foyo has another friend named Luis
Posada Carriles, one of the most notorious terrorists among Cuban expatriots. In
an autobiography published in Honduras in 1994, Posada names Feliciano Foyo as
one of his financial backers."
| *RICARDO MAS CANOSA, CUBAN-AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE, ARRESTED IN NICARAGUA Managua, September 17 (RHC)--Cuban-American millionaire Ricardo Mas Canosa has been arrested in Nicaragua after publicly accusing Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman of corruption. The brother of the late leader of Miami's ultra-rightwing Cuban-American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, was arrested on Aleman's orders as he was about to board an airplane to Honduras. Publicly calling Aleman a thief, Mas Canosa accused the Nicaraguan President of embezzling two and a half million dollars that Mas Canosa had donated to his 1996 election campaign. He had presented to Nicaraguan courts documents from the Panamanian firm Robles & Associates, Management Investigative Services Corporation, numerous bank accounts and the names of persons used by Aleman to deposit the money in his name. According to Mas Canosa, the money was contributed in exchange for an unkept promise to favor his family in the privatization of Nicaragua's state telecommunications firm. The Mas Canosa family, which built a legally questionable empire after arriving penniless in Miami following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, had maintained close ties with the Nicaraguan President until now. Cuban authorities have linked Ricardo Mas Canosa to the 1976 terrorist bomb in a Cuban civilian airliner that killed all 73 passengers aboard after taking off from Barbados. |
/01|
Group Says It Wanted To Right A Wrong, Set Precedent
click10.com MIAMI, 2:36 p.m. EDT August 2, 2001 -- It was the first act of political terrorism on American soil. More than a quarter of a century ago, a bomb was planted in the car of Orlando Letelier -- killing him and an aide. Letelier was a former cabinet minister in Chile's socialist government and a former ambassador to the U.S. Now, one of those responsible for that bomb blast But will the organization's help cause any controversy? For the rest of this story, see |
Afro-Cuban
Delegation Meets With Congressional Black Caucus, 8/1/01
| By Jim Burns. CNSNews.com Senior Staff
Writer. August 01, 2001.CNS News
(CNSNews.com) - A delegation of Afro-Cubans, four from the Miami area and two from the Washington, D.C. area, spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, hoping to convince them that Fidel Castro is bad for Cuba and should improve his human rights record there. Omar Lopez Montenegro of the Cuban Civic National Union was among the delegation. He was told by the Castro government to leave Cuba several years ago and has lived in the United States ever since. "We want to explain to the American people what the real situation is in Cuba," Montenegro said at a Capitol Hill news conference. "Blacks in Cuba are unhappy with the system of government. A majority of blacks living in Cuba are dissidents. Many blacks cannot get government positions in the arts or politics because of the Castro government. The only field where blacks have excelled in Cuba is in sports," he said. Other members of the delegation did not speak English and their remarks were translated by interpreters from the Cuban-American National Foundation, an anti-Castro group that was escorting the delegation around Capitol Hill as they called on members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The delegation was scheduled to meet with Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), chairperson of the caucus. Reps. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), Carrie Meek (D-Fla.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), Earl Hilliard (D-Ala.), and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). Selby McCash, a spokesman for Bishop, said the delegation met with the Georgia congressman but Bishop had no comment on the meeting. Spokespeople for other CBC members wouldn't confirm or deny that their bosses had met with the delegation. The group also lunched with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a Cuban exile and one of Castro's most vociferous critics in the House. The delegation carried a letter to caucus members from Bertha Antunez, the founder of a Cuban dissident group calling itself the "Mothers for General Amnesty." In the letter, Antunez said, "The Cuban government tries to fool the world with siren songs depicting racial equality in our country. But it is all a farce, as I and my family can attest, having suffered from the systematic racism directed at us by Castro's followers." Her brother, Jorge, according to the letter has "suffered the scourge of racial discrimination in every prison he has been condemned to. The beatings are always accompanied by racial epithets. They set dogs on him. They deny him medical attention. They kept him from attending his mother's funeral." In many of its broadcasts, Radio Havana, the official voice of the Castro government has denounced the United States and its racial policies. However, Antunez thinks the Castro government shouldn't be pointing the finger at the U.S., because Castro hasn't treated blacks very well in Cuba. "Fidel Castro has often denounced racial discrimination in U.S. penitentiaries and has decried the high percentage of blacks in the U.S. prison population. Yet in Cuba, the percentage of blacks in the prison population hovers between 80 and 89 percent, conservatively estimated," he said. Antunez also believes the Castro government practices "racial profiling." "The racist mentality is so ingrained among Cuba's agents of repression that when mixed race groups are stopped on the street, only the blacks are asked for their identification papers," he said. "I've been told by the political police, 'because you're black you have to be grateful to revolution for making you equal to whites.' To which I've answered, before God we are all equal, but among men the only thing that differentiates us is our conduct, not the color of our skin," Antunez added. "The only think I have to thank the (Cuban) revolution for is for restoring the yoke of slavery that my ancestors lived under," he concluded. All original CNSNews.com material, copyright 1998-2001 Cybercast News Service. |
| By Rafael Lorente, Special to the
Tribune. Published August 1, 2001. Chicago
Tribune
WASHINGTON -- The Congressional Black Caucus and the Cuban American National Foundation have not been best of friends over the years. After all, Black Caucus members have made frequent visits to Cuba and offered praise of President Fidel Castro, the foundation's least favorite person. Some have pushed to end the embargo against Cuba and ease travel restrictions that prevent Americans from traveling there legally. But Tuesday, the foundation's Washington office brought a half-dozen black Cuban dissidents living in the United States to meet with several members of the Black Caucus and their staffs. The objective was to convince them that Castro's Cuba is not a paradise for blacks. "We have to break this myth of Fidel Castro being the savior of blacks in Cuba," said Omar Lopez Montenegro, who said he moved to the United States nine years ago after being politically persecuted in Cuba. Montenegro contends blacks and those of mixed race, who make up about 60 percent of Cuba's population, are overrepresented in the island's political prisons and underrepresented in powerful positions in the government and Communist Party. As evidence, Montenegro and others point to jailed dissidents such as Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and Vladimiro Roca. They think the Black Caucus can help. For the rest of this story, see: |
| January 2, 2001 BY JANE FRANKLIN (Special for Granma International) THE Cuban American National Foundation is well-represented on the GOP’s list of presidential electors from Florida by CANF’s treasurer, Feliciano M. Foyo, who happens to be a good friend of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Foyo has another friend named Luis Posada Carriles, one of the most notorious terrorists among Cuban expatriates. In an autobiography published in Honduras in 1994, Posada names Feliciano Foyo as one of his financial backers. What does it mean to be one of Posada’s financiers? Posada, along with three other well-known terrorists, was detained by Panamanian authorities November 17 for an alleged plan to assassinate President Fidel Castro while the Cuban leader addressed thousands of students at the University of Panama. If the plastic explosive discovered in Panama had been used, hundreds of people could have been killed or injured. But Posada does not seem bothered by "collateral damage." Posada has previously aimed to kill Castro in several countries, including Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru. A sales representative for Firestone Tire and Rubber in Cuba, Posada started working for the CIA at least by 1960. Found out and forced to flee, for years he led raids carried out by Alpha 66, a terrorist organization that continues raids to this day–with impunity. In June 1976, while George H. W. Bush (the elder) was head of the CIA, a CIA operative, Cuban expatriate Orlando Bosch, founded and led the Commanders of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). Posada was one of those "commanders." As revealed later in FBI and CIA documents, CORU was soon involved in more than 50 bombings and, quite likely, political assassinations. Venezuelans and U.S. authorities reported that a network of terrorists carried out a "vast" number of attacks in seven countries against Cuba and against countries and individuals considered friendly to Cuba. This reign of terror culminated in October 1976 when a Cubana passenger plane was blown up after it took off from Barbados headed for Cuba, killing all 73 people aboard, including 57 Cubans. With overwhelming evidence against them, Posada, Bosch and two Venezuelans were arrested and held in Venezuela. Military courts in Venezuela acquitted them, not a surprising development since the CIA in 1967 had transferred Posada to Venezuela, using him as a leader of terrorist activities against Cuba in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the Interior Ministry, he ran the Intelligence and Prevention Services Division (DISIP), which persecuted, interrogated and tortured Venezuelan citizens. Awaiting retrial, in 1985 Posada walked out of the prison. According to Posada himself, his guards were bribed with money from Miami. One of the couriers of such financing was Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, one of the terrorists now held in Panama. From Venezuela, Cuban expatriate Félix Rodríguez, another notorious terrorist, took Posada to El Salvador where Rodríguez was working with Col. Oliver North in supplying Contras against the Sandinistas government of Nicaragua. The exposure of that operation led to the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987. At those hearings before Congress, Rodríguez was asked about "Ramón Medina." He replied that Medina was an alias in El Salvador for Posada, a "good friend of mine," an "honorable man." He testified that he brought Posada to El Salvador from Venezuela, claiming that Posada "deserved to be free." Not another question was asked about Posada. Instead Rodríguez was complimented on his role by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fl), one of his questioners. Rep. Peter Rodino (D-NJ) also told him that we all appreciate his fighting against communism. Two years later, in a speech on the Senate floor, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said the American people "deserve a full accounting of [then Vice President] Bush and the vice president’s office and its knowledge of Luis Posada’s role in the secret contra supply operation." In his testimony before Congress, Rodríguez had bragged about meeting with Vice President Bush (he showed Bush a picture of himself with captive Che Guevara in the hours before Che was executed). Senator Harkin wondered "why Bush never bothered to use his good offices to investigate charges of Posada’s links with the supply operation and Félix Rodríguez even after the press reported them in late 1986." After El Salvador, Posada
spent time in terrorist activities in Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador. Money from Miami, said Posada, was used to finance the 1997
bombings aimed at the tourist industry in Havana—bombings that killed
an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo, and injured several people. Posada
admitted paying Salvadorans to go to Cuba to plant those bombs. After
Posada and three of his cohorts were detained in Panama, Justino di
Celmo, father of the dead tourist, appeared on Cuban television to
appeal to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso not to release Luis
Posada. The families of the 57 Cubans killed in the 1976 explosion of
the passenger jet are pleading for justice. Time will tell if Posada’s
financiers can pay his way out of this one. Original article available at www.granma.cu/ingles/ener1/1canf-i.html |
| PR 10/06/00 12:23 EDT CANF: Castro Appeasement Lobby
Fails In 3-Year Campaign To Bring Down Embargo
Group Praises Republican Leadership For Putting Principle Before Tainted Profit WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cuban American National Foundation today said that a well-financed, three-year campaign to unilaterally lift U.S. economic sanctions on the Castro dictatorship has failed due to the principled stand of Republican Congressional leaders. Last night, Senate and House conferees agreed to language in an Agricultural Appropriations bill that would allow U.S. food sales to the Castro regime but prohibits U.S. public and private financing, credits, barter trade, and Cuban imports to the United States. The bill also codifies U.S. travel restrictions to the island, dealing a blow to those who seek to exploit the Cuban people in their time of suffering. "Three years and millions of dollars later, Castro, his apologists, and mega-firms like Archer, Daniels, Midland have failed in their effort to get what Castro wants most: credits and subsidies from the American taxpayer," said CANF Executive Vice President Dennis Hays. "For that, the American people owe a great deal of gratitude to the Congressional Republican leadership, especially Tom DeLay, who didn't buy into Castro's false promises and refused to place tainted profits before principle." Hays pointed out that 40 years of communist misrule and mismanagement of the Cuban economy has wrecked Cuba's agricultural sector and virtually eradicated the Cuban family farm. He said that as a result, Cuba, an exporter of food for 400 years, is now reduced to international begging. "American farmers will now discover what Europeans and Latin Americans have learned the hard way: Cuba is broke and Castro is a deadbeat," he said. Hays added, "It is abundantly and painfully clear that feeding the Cuban people is not a priority of the Castro regime. Rather, it is catering to foreign tourists whose dollars prop up its repressive machinery. Whatever U.S. food products Castro can buy will not end up in the homes of Cuban families, but on the buffet table of the Hotel Nacional. Any American considering such sales to Cuba ought to keep in mind that support for the Castro regime directly contributes to the suffering of the Cuban people." He said also that Castro will not only be forced to pay cash for U.S. agricultural commodities, but that the Cuban dictator loses a critical element in his propaganda attacks against the U.S. "No longer will Castro and his apologists in the U.S. be able to use the canard that we are responsible for the plight of the Cuban people. The Cuban people will now understand that the U.S. is prepared to send them food and that it is up to Castro whether to feed them or his repressive apparatus," Hays said. SOURCE Cuban American National Foundation [For some background on new CANF Executive Vice President Dennis Hays, check out Alberto Jones' column: On Hayes at the CANF and the Guantanamo West Indians' pension, 7/1/00 For a response to this outrage, see Urgent request to call the President on legislation which codifies the travel ban, 9/27] |
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