Granma on the FBI Faget Fabrication

Granma, 2/25/00

AS it was widely known, the hearing in southern Florida’s federal court to decide on the future of kidnapped child Elián González was due to start on February 22, in accordance with the laws, procedures and flaws of the U.S. legal system. The first federal judge, Mr. King, coincidentally the worst of the lot, "selected by computer" from a total of 12, was challenged and finally exposed for his scandalous links with the mafia he was unable to conceal. [AfroCubaWeb: he decided the case giving $70 million in phone company funds to the family of the 4 pilots shot down when they invaded Cuban airspace. The judgment threw phone communications into dissarray for several months, and the systems still haven't recovered.  See Jose Basulto, Brothers to the Rescue, downed planes and why phoning Cuba can be so hard]

The newly appointed judge, Mr. Hoeveler, turned out to be a person with a different reputation. He was known to be an independent, meticulous and methodical man who took all the time needed to read and study files and papers before making a decision. Although too slow for such an urgent case, he was also famous for not being susceptible to bribery.

It wasn’t long before information emerged on the criminal record and moral background of the nuclear family assigned by the mafia and U.S. justice with the child’s custody: two great-uncles found guilty of alcohol-related crimes, two cousins tried and sentenced to stiff prison terms for armed assault, the son of the main householder tried and found guilty of prostitution. Not to mention other aspects yet to see the light of day in the background of the already infamous and discredited character who received custody of the child as if he were a lottery prize!

Over and above this, U.S. public opinion was for the most part in favor of the child’s return.

The mafia were desperate. It had been responsible for other repugnant actions: the cruel scenario for Elián’s meeting with his grandmothers Mariela and Raquel, with the house and neighborhood virtually taken over by the mafia; acts as cruel as cutting off the telephone communication between father and son; oppressive and offensive messages for Raquel; the total absence of privacy; the dramatic reduction of the time agreed and the meeting’s abrupt end; deceit, betrayal: a gross swindle, deliberately merciless. And to crown it all, a diabolically perfidious nun, who betrayed the most humane ethical principles of her own religion to become the mafia’s new main spokesperson and who, in such a saintly and pious manner, had offered her luxury mansion to the attorney general for the meeting.

Later came the extraordinary success of the noble and humble grandmothers in their meetings with a large number of influential U.S. Congress members and the U.S. press, thus delivering a hefty blow to the mafioso Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). That organization responded with a vicious campaign against Mariela who, during a roundtable and with the candor of a humble Cuban grandmother, informed the public of the details of what she did in desperation to draw the totally changed child out of his timidity and apathy. The Miami mafia picked it up and circulated it with an insane fury, insinuating despicable imputations against her.

The Miami dregs ran about in all directions, moving influences and campaigning to salvage their lost bill to grant U.S. citizenship to the kidnapped little boy. They resuscitated the two surviving adults from the disastrous boat crossing to tour the Capitol’s corridors and offices together with the nun and childless cousin Georgina who is currently playing the role of Elián’s mother, in order to persuade representatives and senators of the justice and goodness of the infamous cause of the Miami terrorists and annexationists.

An extremely strange nun, a pimp and a prostitute (the two survivors), were accompanied by a gentleman who, by a further coincidence, goes by the name of Mas Santos (head of CANF) were CANF’s key witnesses in the U.S. Congress.

It seemed as if there was nothing left to do apart from to hire other lawyers, contracting new firms as costly as they are accredited in the market, and presenting fresh delaying appeals.

Just a few days prior to the court hearing, at a psychological moment calculated to be the most exact and convenient, they turned to a final, most perverse and cynical resort. During the night of Thursday February 17, FBI agents from the Miami bureau ostentatiously surrounded the house of a senior official from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and made a spectacular arrest. It resembled action against a shady emery just prior to an outbreak of nuclear war.

Why so much ostentation and scandal?

Numerous and interminable cables explained it all on February 18 and 19. Almost all of them were on the same subject, with varying nuances and styles.

Below is a brief synthesis of what was circulated:

"A high-ranking official in the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), in charge of Cuban dissidents’ petitions for political asylum, was charged by the U.S. justice today with spying for the Cuban government after being detained by the FBI."

"The U.S. authorities have accused Mariano Faget of supplying national defense information to non-authorized persons and perjured evidence to government agents.

"The first charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years’ imprisonment, and the second, some five years more. ‘We expect to hold him in the Federal Detention Center, without right to bail,’ stated FBI special agent Carlos Saldívar.

"Paul Mallet, regional director of the Federal Investigation Bureau, confirmed that Faget had been under investigation for almost one year, but refused to disclose the suspect’s motives for working in favor of the Communist government of Cuba, of which it was thought he was an enemy.

"Faget, born in Cuba and a naturalized U.S. citizen, has a 34-year service record in the INS and, according to the authorities, ‘lent many services to the United States.’

"Faget was a ‘false-blue.’ That’s what we call those who betray the United States."

"There didn’t seem to be any exchange of money during the one-year-plus investigation, according to Mallet, who abstained from commenting on the possible motives of the alleged spy, who was about to retire."

"The Justice Department alleges that the suspect presented Cuba with reports on U.S. national defense."

"Faget—who emigrated in 1960—is the son of Mariano Faget, who was director of the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (BRAC) during Fulgencio Batista’s government in the ‘50s, according to El Nuevo Herald."

As can be seen, what has been published to this point seems to insinuate the emergence of a new Karl Marx who, in the most altruistic form, is lending voluntary services free of charge to the Communist government of Cuba, and is none other than the son of a man who was for many years director in Cuba of the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities, and excellently trained by the FBI during the McCarthy era.

But the story continues:

"It was revealed that, on February 11, as part of a plan to set a trap, INS and FBI officials met with Faget to ask for his help with the desertion of a Cuban official, forewarning him that the information was secret.

"Paul Mallet, the FBI special agent, explained that Faget called a New York entrepreneur on his cellular phone after the meeting in the Miami Hilton hotel had ended.

El Nuevo Herald identified Peter Font as "New York’s man for Cuban-U.S., and the owner of Tellahassee, a Florida-registered company of which Faget was vice president and secretary.

Immediately, as was to be expected, a February 18 cable noted:

"The Cuban American National Foundation today called on the U.S. government to undertake a complete investigation into the role in the case of the shipwrecked child Elián González played by a senior immigration official accused of spying for the government of Cuba.

"Lawyers representing Lázaro González, the great-uncle of Cuban child Elián González, asked U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to review the decision made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service allowing the boy’s return to Cuba, after the detention of a senior INS official accused of being a spy for the Cuban government."

Where did that material come from and on the basis of what facts did the Miami FBI director concoct this ridiculous saga?

(c) Granma, Habana, Cuba