Arca Foundation Backed (Smith Bagley) U.S. Anti-Embargo Group Disbands Over Cuba Actions

Leftwing stooges create another front for Castro By Mario Ramirez. TNA News with Commentary. The New Australian, June 21, 2001. [Full Text] A new group called the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF) has been created in Washington D.C. The main goal of the Cuba Policy Foundation is to create a lobby to lift the American sanctions on the Communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro. The CPF also hopes to undermine the work being done by many pro democracy groups inside and outside Cuba which hope to bring civil society to the island.

Although the CPF says that it's a "centrist" or "non-ideological" group not concerned with the actions of the either right or left regarding Cuba, one can't help but examine the group's benefactors, leader, and impetus to exist. Upon finding out more info on the CPF a pattern soon forms, and one realizes that this "advocacy" group is not neutral, and that it's hiding behind an agenda more slanted towards helping Havana then actually bringing democracy to Cuba.

In April, the "neutrality" of the CPF was questioned when it was honored by the officialist propaganda organ of the Castro dictatorship, Radio Havana. Radio Havana in its report ended up praising Grooms Cowal's efforts in starting the Cuba Policy Foundation by stating the following: "The Cuba Policy Foundation has challenged the ultra-right-wing Cuban-American National Foundation to a public debate concerning the merits of Washington's blockade of Cuba."

Let the facts speak for themselves:

The Cuba Policy Foundation is headed by Ambassador Sally Grooms Cowal, who acts as its president. If you can remember back to the Elian Gonzalez debacle, Sally Grooms Cowal was the individual whose other group, Youth for Friendship, "hosted" the Cuban boy in the Rosedale mansion after he was taken by Janet Reno's agents in Miami. The Rosedale compound, which is in Maryland, is owned and operated by Youth for Friendship. Additionally Grooms Cowal, was a former deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs under President George Bush in the late 1980s. She has also served as ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.

The CPF is bankrolled by the Arca Foundation.

For those of you who don't know about the Arca foundation, it passes itself as a philanthropic organization that gives millions of dollars annually to organizations that fight for social justice around the world. Unfortunately a grand majority of these organizations are of a far leftist nature, like in 1998 when it gave $1,000 to an obscure contingent called Fondo Del Sol which helped surviving members of the Stalinist Abraham Lincoln Brigade view a photo exhibit on the Spanish Civil War! Among the pro Castro groups Arca has funded have been the Pastors for Peace ($10,000 in 1999), Global Exchange ($50,000 in 1999), and the TransAfrica Forum ($100,000).

Communist Cuba is the main focus of Arca's Foreign Policy grants list, and although it gives money to other international and domestic institutions, it annually gives a substantial amount of funds to causes dealing with communist Cuba. In 1999 alone, the Arca Foundation gave to over 19 organizations that are sympathetic to revolutionary Cuba.

The Arca Foundation's records denote that it has spent over $3 million dollars since 1995 devoted to institutions that ignore human rights in Cuba, but fight aggressively to drop US sanctions to the rouge nation. The Arca Foundation which is run by the R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir Smith Bagley, has silently worked in the background with institutions and Castro sympathetic Democratic politicians working to end economic sanctions against the dictatorship.

"Smith Bagley and the Arca Foundation is the pro-Castro lobby's sugar daddy," says Jose Cardenas, Washington spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation. "Arca is a walkup window for free checks passed out to any and all comers with an ideological ax to grind against U.S. policy on Cuba."

For the record, Smith Bagley was the individual who threw a party at his mansion where Elian Gonzalez was the guest of honor after the boy was accosted from the home of his Miami relatives. During this party, agents of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC provided delicacies like smoked salmon, shrimp and fruit that although taken for granted here in the United States, are unavailable to most of the Cuban population back on the island. Yet, Bagley who is a tremendously rich WASP sees no problem in giving money to organizations that help the Cuban revolution while the rest of the island population goes poor, hungry and oppressed.

According to a 1998 report by journalist Pablo Alfonso of the Miami Herald, Arca has given money to the following other pro Castro causes: The American Association for World Health, based in Washington. The association received $134,500 to write a report on the impact of the U.S. embargo on the health of the Cuban people. Oxfam-America Inc., received $35,000 in 1996 from the Arca Foundation to help increase production in the 'cooperative' farm Gilberto Leon, which belongs to the National 'Association of Small Farmers.'

The World Policy Institute, based in New York City, which in the past two years received $330,000 from Arca "to educate the American business community" about the negative consequences of increasing the economic sanctions against Cuba. The Center for International Policy (CIP), part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and directed by Castro's apologist Wayne Smith. In the past three years, the CIP received $304,000 from Arca, of which $20,000 went to publish its monthly newsletter! The rest was allocated to send delegations to Cuba and organize seminars to lobby members of Congress to lift the sanctions against Cuba.

It's no surprise that none of the organizations listed on Arca's Cuba list are supportive of pro democracy dissidents fighting for human rights inside of Cuba.

The new Cuba Policy Foundation is no exception.

After important US law makers proposed the "Solidaridad Act of 2001", which would bring $25 million in food, medicine, office, and educational equipment for independent journalists, dissidents and non governmental organizations inside of Cuba, CPF boss Grooms Cowal cynically said the following of the Solidaridad Act in a March 28, 2001 Washington Post article: "We have been promoting dissidents (In Cuba) for 40 years without measurable results."

Not only is the above statement an ignorant one, but it lacks sensitivity and compassion for the thousands of dissidents that have been unlawfully discriminated, jailed, and even killed for daring the Cuban dictatorship to respect the most basic human rights like freedom of speech, religion, and the right to hold multi party elections. Grooms Cowal either fails to understand, or ignores the fact that in Cuba there exists an advanced police/security apparatus modeled after the former KGB and East German Statsi.

Cuban state security along with the Gestapo like Comité de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR), neighborhood watch groups, and non Cuban procommunist sympathizers like Venceremos Brigade, Global Exchange, International Action Center, and Pastors for Peace, have contributed greatly to spreading propaganda and helping the Cuban dictatorship in the repression of the Cuban people. It's no surprise that some of the non Cuban communist groups mentioned have been funded by none other than the Arca Foundation.

Grooms Cowal says she was inspired to form the Cuba Policy Foundation because of a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, which made arguments for lifting the embargo. The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) recently made a trip to Cuba where CFR notables like David Rockefeller cavorted and only had good words to say about Fidel Castro and the island's alleged free health care and educational systems. It's also important to point out that the CFR has received over $150,000 from the Arca Foundation to carry on its Cuba related projects since 1998. Is it no coincidence when William Rogers, an organizer of a CFR task force to Cuba last year has been named chairman of the new Cuba Policy Foundation?

In retrospect it is doubtful that the Cuba Policy Foundation will offer anything we haven't heard before regarding Cuba. Since it is being funded by Arca, it doesn't matter how much neutrality it alludes to - unfortunately when it comes to Cuba there is no center - you are either for a democratic change on the island, or you are a supporter of the Western Hemisphere's longest running dictatorship.

Finally Grooms Cowal gives herself away too easily, seemingly to be more interested in making a profit for Americans on the island rather then helping the actual Cuban people overcome their hardships. At times, Cowal seems to have a wishy-washy attitude, not knowing what to say, as it's evident in the following quotes:

March 28 /PRNewswire report:

"Our businesses, cities and ports are losing millions of dollars every year because of the embargo... No one can objectively dispute that the embargo has hurt American businesses." On an April 2, 2001 report by the Cybercast News Service, Grooms Cowal stated the following contradicting herself: "There's a real need for a new centrist group, not left-leaning activists, and not just business interests." In a Washington Times report that appeared on April 5, 2001, Cowal said that the CPF will argue that Americans are losing millions of dollars in trade by maintaining an ineffective embargo on Cuba.

The bottom line is - the CPF is funded by the Castro friendly Arca Foundation, Grooms Cowal housed Elian after he was taken by Janet Reno's storm troopers, and she seems to be more concerned with Americans making a buck or two in Cuba, thus propping up the dictatorship a little longer.

Sally Grooms Cowal and her new Cuba Policy Foundation is not to be trusted.

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Editor: What the likes of Cowal don't understand is that trade is a two-way street. For America to benefit from selling to Cuba it would have to import Cuban goods. This is because the exports are the price of imports. However, the Cuban economy is such a shambles that only the ignorant, the delusional or fellow travellers could preach that America has lost huge amounts by not trading with Castro's vicious regime.

Since last year, for example, Congress has allowed the sale of medicines and agricultural products to Cuba. Result? Zilch. Because Castro cannot afford to pay for foreign goods. No doubt mercenaries like Cowal will suggest massive loans (read gifts) by American taxpayers to El Commandante. Someone should remind this lot that several countries have already cut off credit to the psychopathic Castro because he took huge amounts of goods for which he could not pay.

On a final note, perhaps Cowal would like to explain to her fellow Americans why she is acting for Arca (which is basically what she is doing) when this foundation also funds the Institute of Policy Studies, a pro-Castro organisation that also acted as a front for the KGB? [End]

Castro's Opponents in Cuba Down but Not Out - "I've never felt so much solidarity in the streets." *** HAVANA (Reuters) - Opponents of President Fidel Castro said on Wednesday that mass arrests and infiltration by government spies knocked them to their knees, but they expect to rise again on growing discontent with Cuba's crumbling communist state. Dissidents who survived the worst wave of repression in Cuba in decades said their fragile organizations were decapitated by the round-up of 75 leading dissidents, activists and independent journalists a month ago. "The dissident movement is practically paralyzed," said Vladimiro Roca, who was freed last year after four years in jail for criticizing Castro's economic policies.

"It was a really big blow, but there are enough dissidents out of jail. We are regrouping," the son of a founding father of Cuba's ruling Communist Party told Reuters. Roca said it would take months before disabled dissident groups could raise their heads again. Western diplomats in Havana wonder whether Cuba's small and divided opposition groups will be able to regain momentum after so many were given severe prison terms of up to 28 years.

The crackdown dealt a devastating blow to a nascent opposition movement that had raised its voice last year calling for democratic reforms to the one-party state while enjoying a rare period of official tolerance. Particularly shocking was the number of undercover security agents who surfaced at the trials as witnesses to reveal that they had been posing as dissidents, in some case for decades. "The damage to the dissidents is enormous. I don't know how they will recover now," said a European ambassador. "Who can they trust now, after it turns out that even leading figures were agents for 10 years?" the diplomat added. ***

"The regime's sudden, wholesale repression of human rights is incomprehensible as a matter of policy, and unacceptable as a matter of principle,"

Sudden? Where have these people been? They probably were surprised the Iraqi Information Minister was prevaricating, too.

It's a bunch of bs. This "foundation" was bankrolled by Smith Bagley.

Manuel David Orrio, a Cuban agent who posed as a journalist, displays cameras and gear he said were gifts of a Cuban American group.Jose Goitia - AP

'Dissidents' Were Informers - Cuban Trial Reveals Duplicity of Writers, Activists - *** MEXICO CITY, April 23 -- Vladimiro Roca, fresh from five years in prison for criticizing Fidel Castro's government, was invited to talk about his experience last May at the home of Vicki Huddleston, then the top U.S. diplomat in Havana.

Roca recalled that Manuel David Orrio, a gregarious and accomplished dissident journalist, stood up to thank Huddleston for hosting and encouraging peaceful opposition to Castro's authoritarian rule.

"He was very well-spoken, talkative and well-educated, and seemed very convinced of what he was saying," said Roca, the son of a Cuban revolutionary hero who split with Castro years ago, in a telephone interview from Havana. "It never occurred to me that he was a spy."

Roca and 50 others gathered that day didn't know that their friend Orrio had another name, too. To his secret bosses in the Cuban military, he was known as "Agent Miguel," one of at least a dozen government spies who had infiltrated the ranks of the journalists, human rights activists, economists, librarians and others espousing democratic reforms in Cuba.

Orrio's spying was revealed in a Havana courtroom earlier this month. He was one of the key witnesses against 75 dissidents rounded up and arrested in what human rights activists have condemned as Cuba's most harsh crackdown on opposition leaders in a generation.***

D.C. foes of Cuba embargo quit group - Leaders criticize repression surge (Yeah, right!) ***Congressional leaders have acknowledged that recent developments in Cuba have hurt initiatives to ease the 4-decade-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. But the resignation of the Cuba Policy Foundation's board members stands out because of their prominence in U.S. policy circles

……………. Formed in 2001, the Cuba Policy Foundation lobbied lawmakers, encouraged them to visit Havana and held town hall debates on Cuba policy around the United States. TOP LEADERS At the forefront was Sally Grooms Cowal, a former deputy secretary of state for inter-American affairs under former President George Bush. Cowal is better known in Miami for arranging a place to house the father of Cuban boy Elián González during his stay in Washington. ***

Fidel did more to give the pro-Cuban Commies in the U.S a black eye than all of his opponents ever could. Thanks for your help, Fidel! Its been appreciated.

Since the game plan has been changed, they're folding up their pro-Castro tent and waiting for further orders.

Trade trip to Cuba in limbo "Everybody's been down there," he said. "Now we're saying, 'Wait a minute.' " -The federal government is reviewing plans proposed by a Tampa port delegation. -By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times published April 24, 2003 [Full Text] TAMPA -- A delegation from the Tampa Port Authority tentatively planned to travel to Cuba in June to meet with the island nation's government-owned buyer of food and agricultural products. Now the trip is in limbo. The federal agency that licenses companies and groups to visit Cuba for trade talks is reviewing whether to let officials from Tampa and a number of other ports make future trips.

Port director George Williamson was surprised to hear about the review by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control because other port authorities have received licenses and traveled to Cuba to promote products moving across their docks. "Jacksonville, Texas ports -- everybody's been down there," he said. "Now we're saying, 'Wait a minute.' " Tampa's port applied for a different kind of license than port authorities traveled under in the past, said Treasury spokesman Taylor Griffin. "The Office of Foreign Asset Control and State Department are reviewing the request," he said.

Congress voted in 2000 to ease the trade embargo and let U.S. companies sell certain food, agricultural and medical products to Cuba on a cash-only basis. Port authority officials skipped a major food and agriculture expo in Havana last fall and had dismissed the possibility of significant trade with Cuba. After learning that local companies with contracts from Cuba were shipping products through other Florida ports, the port authority board changed course. Cuba's import purchasing arm, Alimport, invited board members in February to Havana to get acquainted and talk about trade opportunities. The port applied in March for a six-month travel license to attend a "tentatively scheduled" meeting with Alimport in June to determine demand for cargo from Tampa.

The delegation would include Williamson, authority chairman Joseph Diaz, Hillsborough County commissioner Pat Frank, port counsel Dale Bohner and two guests: Louis Ricard of Cargill Inc. and Joe Guidry, the Tampa Tribune's deputy editorial page editor. Bohner said Wednesday that the trip wasn't nailed down. Port officials had expected to get the license in May, then call Alimport to work out details, he said. "We're still hopeful that we'll be granted the license," he said.

In another sign of its new attitude, the port authority sponsored a seminar Wednesday on the opportunities and legalities of trading with Cuba. Experts from academia, business and government told about 130 people at the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel that Cuba holds tremendous trade potential for Tampa and Florida. But because Cuba has so little hard currency and the U.S. government doesn't allow sales on credit, they said, it's unlikely export sales will exceed the current $200-million a year in the near future.

Cuba's recent crackdown on dissidents and the approaching 2004 presidential elections make it unlikely the Bush administration will loosen trade restrictions, said Van Yeutter of Cargill, which sells food and agricultural products to Cuba. "It's not the bonanza people think it is at this time," said Diaz, the port authority chairman. [End]

-- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.