Cuba's Castro Calls Spies 'Heroes'

PORLAMAR, Venezuela (AP) - Cuban President Fidel Castro called two convicted spies sentenced to life in prison in the United States heroes Thursday.

Cuban intelligence officer Ramon Labanino was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for trying to infiltrate U.S. military bases. Accused ringleader Gerardo Hernandez was sentenced to life Wednesday, and three others face sentencing later this month.

All five were convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami in June after a crackdown on spies operating inside the United States.

``These boys are five heroes'' who have been treated in the United States ``with incredible brutality,'' Castro told reporters Thursday after a Caribbean summit on Margarita Island.

``Their honor and dignity have been stripped away with the help of four North American attorneys,'' he said.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Hernandez did ``absolutely nothing that put the United States in danger.'' He insisted Hernandez was in Florida to obtain information about Cuban exile ``terrorist'' groups who he said operate in the United States with ``impunity.''

Prosecutors also accused Hernandez of knowing about a plot to shoot down rescue planes in 1996 because he warned two agents who infiltrated an exile group not to fly during a period that included the day of the attack. Four Cuban Americans were killed.

Castro called Hernandez ``a hero capable of resisting all of the humiliations in a strange country.''

However, Castro did praise the first commercial export of U.S. food to Cuba in nearly 40 years. The shipment of 26,400 tons of corn from eight Midwestern states leaves Louisiana on Friday.

Cuban President Fidel Castro (L), Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (C) and Colombian Andres Pastrana talk during the closing of the III summit of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) on Margarita Island, Venezuela, December 12, 2001. Caribbean leaders signed cooperation and trade agreements where Chavez carried his left-leaning agenda into the Caribbean Summit urging his Caribbean neighbors to shun a U.S.-backed hemispheric free trade zone. REUTERS/Jose Miguel Gomez

Wednesday December 12 5:54 PM ET Caribbean Leaders Endorse Trade Pact -- By FABIOLA SANCHEZ, AP

[FULL TEXT] PORLAMAR, Venezuela (AP) - Caribbean leaders on Wednesday endorsed a Western Hemisphere free trade zone - with protections for developing economies - even as host President Hugo Chavez suggested an alternative to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Concluding a two-day summit, leaders of the Association of Caribbean States called for FTAA negotiations to conclude by January 2005 and the free trade zone be opened by December 2005.

They denounced U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba and warned of the perils of globalization for the region's tiny economies, which rely heavily on a tourist trade that has fallen precipitously since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

As in previous summits, the leaders' declaration contained many calls for cooperation but relatively few concrete steps. The pattern has bedeviled the region since the Caribbean Community, comprising 14 of the ACS' 25 members, was founded in 1973 to establish a common market. It has yet to do so.

Despite the summit's formal FTAA endorsement, Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro warned that the FTAA could drown tiny economies at the hands of such powerhouses as the United States and Canada. Chavez said his government will put the deal to a popular vote.

``It is impossible to accept a unilateral trade process without some reciprocity,'' Castro said. ``For the first time, there is a coincidence between United States workers and Latin American workers'' against free trade because it threatens jobs, he claimed.

If developed nations fail to lower trade barriers for developing nations' products, Latin America and the Caribbean should consider an alternative to the FTAA, Chavez said. Providing few details, he suggested calling it the ``Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas,'' after South American independence warrior and native hero Simon Bolivar.

``We cannot just keep clamoring in the desert for changes by developed nations that we need,'' Chavez said. ``I have the feeling there is no will to make them. ... Meetings and summits, declarations, communiques. Demands for changes in the international financial architecture. Have you seen the will, anywhere, to make changes to the international financial system?'' Chavez said.

The FTAA would stretch from Alaska to Argentina. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation giving President George W. Bush power to negotiate the FTAA and other trade pacts.

The summit came after the U.S. State Department advised Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, that its application to join the ACS as an associate member could interfere with U.S. diplomacy in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon wants closer ties with the island's neighbors. [End]

Thursday, December 13, 2001 Second Cuban spy gets life prison sentence By CATHERINE WILSON, AP

[Full Text] MIAMI -- (AP) -- A second Cuban spy who said he devoted his life to fighting terrorism by Cuban exiles was sentenced Thursday to life in federal prison for espionage work targeting two U.S. military bases in South Florida.

Ramon Labanino, a Cuban intelligence major who supervised a husband-and-wife team assigned to infiltrate the U.S. Southern Command, was sentenced a day after the ringleader received the same punishment.

``He has told us clearly what his job is, which is to serve the interests of his country no matter what,'' chief prosecutor Caroline Miller said after Labanino gave a 25-minute speech in court.

The spy ring never got any classified information, but the judge decided the goal of three agents convicted of espionage conspiracy was to obtain U.S. secrets. Two other agents were found guilty of lesser charges. All plan to appeal.

Labanino shook hands with his attorney and fellow agents after standing for his sentence with his hands in his pants pockets and his ankles in chains.

``It was expected but it's still disappointing, and how do you prepare yourself for that?'' defense attorney William Norris said outside court. ``The judge was required to be consistent in her rulings.''

Labanino accused prosecutors of blackmailing exiles subpoenaed as defense witnesses with threats of prosecution to keep them off the stand. He also attacked the FBI for allowing ``the extreme Miami right'' to go unpunished for terrorism in Cuba. ``This sentence could not be more ironic or unjust.''

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called the life sentence imposed Wednesday on Gerardo Hernandez, leader of Havana's Wasp Network, ``a grave injustice.''

``He was doing absolutely nothing that put the United States in danger,'' Perez Roque said Thursday in Venezuela. Hernandez called his trial a ``propaganda show'' in a 20-minute speech to U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard.

Labanino, 38, a husky man nicknamed ``Rough Treatment'' by his FBI watchers, temporarily led the ring when Hernandez went home on leave.

Labanino was under surveillance for about two years and was videotaped exchanging packages with a Cuban U.N. diplomat in a fast-food restaurant restroom in New York.

Norris argued that the life sentence was not justified because nothing Labanino did or dealt with threatened U.S. security. Without mentioning evidence that the ring infiltrated military bases, Labanino said he was devoted to fighting terrorism ``planned, organized and executed'' by exiles in Miami.

But the judge said the agent's intent ``was to acquire top secret information that, if it were disclosed, would cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.''

Hernandez and Labanino were arrested in 1998 on an indictment accusing Cuba of planting 14 agents in Miami.

Hernandez, 36, was sentenced for his role in a MiG attack that killed four Miami fliers with the exile group Brothers to the Rescue as well as the espionage plot targeting military bases and exile groups.

Hernandez warned two agents who infiltrated the exile group not to fly on its planes during a four-day period that included the day of the air-to-air missile attack in international airspace. Relatives of the dead fliers spoke in court.

Hernandez's mother received a visa to attend his sentencing, but none of Labanino's relatives were present. Several of them videotaped messages to the judge, which she viewed privately.

After the sentencing, Hernandez called his wife of 13 years, Adriana Perez, 31, in Havana.

``He was in good spirits because he is sure that his cause is just,'' Perez told The Associated Press. ``He said that he had felt safe with his mom there and that he had been thinking of me.''

Cuba's Perez Roque said the agents' mission was to obtain information about exile groups who he said were terrorists operating in the United States with impunity.

Information gathered by the ring was passed by the Cuban government to the FBI, but Perez Roque said there still has been no response.

The prosecution's case centered on computer diskettes seized at the agents' South Florida apartments. Messages that passed between the spy ring and Havana were peppered with communist rhetoric, denunciations of the United States and snide references to prominent Cuban exiles.

The other three convicted spies -- Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez -- are scheduled for sentencing later this month.

The sentencing of fellow agent Rene Gonzalez was to begin late Thursday and was expected to go into a second day. Two other convicted spies, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez, are scheduled for sentencing later this month. [End]

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