Your right, we have spent all this time trying to get this tin pot dictator on the ropes, now that he's on the ropes, idiots like Armey want to save him. I'm thinking his acorn, Scott, didn't fall far from the tree. Why should I vote for him to replace his dad?
Tiny Cuba is not the USSR. Fidel is an old man. Old men
become like women as they age - more emotional. His ego
is the chink in his armor. Appeal to his ego, he can take
credit for Cuba's sudden change of good fortune even as
he losses grip on her.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee
403 Cannon House Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20515
Tx18@mail.house.gov.
July 31, 2002
Dear Representative Jackson Lee:
I am writing this letter with a heavy heart after seeing you in CSPAN defending the permanency in this hemisphere of a tyrant and a terrorist instead of the interest of your constituency and, above all, undermining the security of the United States.
It was a disgraceful spectacle witnessing American representatives and senators of both parties allowing the use the American taxpayers’ money to finance Cuba’s repressive apparatus and Castro’s international terrorism network.
All of you have shown extraordinary naiveté in thinking that business and tourists’ contacts with Castro’s regime would transform the brutal tyrant into a peaceful and benevolent leader. Over 150 nations around the world have been dealing with Castro for 43 years without achieving any change in the Stalinist economic and repressive model chosen by Castro. What makes you think that the American tourists and businessmen’s mere contract with them will infest the Cuban leaders with the virus of freedom and democracy?
In order to deal with Castro you have to overlook the fact that Castro is a cold-blooded murderer who approved the death by firing squad of each one of tens of thousands Cubans put to death by his direct orders, including some Americans, whose crime was opposing his reign of terror. You have been insensitive to the more than 500,000 thousand political prisoners, men, women and even children of every race and creed who were tortured in his dungeons, and over thirty thousand who died trying to cross the Florida straits in fragile makeshift rafts in their pursuit of freedom in what might be recognized as an unprecedented mass suicide. Still now, after 43 years, there are hundreds of prisoners of conscience whose human rights are being violated every day in Castro’s dungeons. Add to this horrific picture, the more than 2 million Cubans that were forced into political exile from a population of 7 million.
I also realize that what happened to these unfortunate people had no bearing on your conscience. But, this is the same dictator who tried to nuke our cities during the Missile Crisis and whose henchmen brutally tortured our POWs in Vietnam. I expected that as representatives of the American people, regardless of any other considerations, you must have been concerned that Castro’s Cuba is the main haven and sponsor of terrorism in this hemisphere and those politicians and business people, in dealing with Castro, are aiding and abetting terrorism. The Iranian terrorists who bombed an Argentinean Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in 1994 were trained and had their base of operations in Cuba.
Recently, British intelligence exposed Castro’s relationship with the IRA, the Colombian guerrillas, the Spanish Basque and Chilean terrorists, provoking a strong protest to the Cuban regime by the Chilean socialist administration. In fact, IRA terrorists based in Cuba were introducing more devastating techniques in the use of explosives for urban attacks in Colombia. Just this month was revealed that the most wanted Greek terrorist was detained after almost three decades in hiding and how he was trained in Castro’s Cuba. He was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks throughout Europe. Carlos “The Chacal”, the son of a Venezuelan Communist millionaire and the most famous and murderous of the terrorists in the 70’s was also trained in Cuba and is serving a long prison sentence in France. Castro’s Cuba has been the headquarters for the coordination of activities of over one hundred international terrorist organizations.
With President Chavez, a Castro’s subrogate in power in Venezuela, cooperating with Cuba’s terrorist designs, the U.S. is confronting the worst menace since Castro’s puppets in Central American were defeated in the 1980’s. Venezuela is one of our main providers of oil. To secure another source of oil, in case Chavez stops the flow of oil to our country, our government just provided $90 million dollars to reinforce the protection of the Colombian oil pipelines, which are under constant attacks by the Castro’s supported Marxist guerillas.
A few weeks ago, six pilots working in the U.S. with Venezuelan passports and who were flying airplanes with different American companies were detained. An informant alerted the American authorities that they had sophisticated false credentials that allowed them to bypass all security checks while going in and out of our airports. Was this grave security break another undercover operation of the Cuban terrorist network? Tens of thousands of terrorists were trained in Cuba by Castro, as far back as 1962, his camps were taking in 1,500 Latin American guerrillas a year. “Any revolutionary movement anywhere in the world can count on Cuba’s unconditional support,” declared Castro at the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana where the international terrorism network was consolidated under Castro’s leadership.
We have in this hemisphere another “axis of evil” in the troika Castro/Chavez/ Colombian guerrillas and you are pursuing the normalization of commercial relations with a terrorist Stalinist regime that has state of the art biological, chemical and cyber warfare capabilities, and the will to use it against us. As a matter of fact, Cuba has more than 3,000 biological and chemical warfare researchers trained in the Soviet Union and East Germany who has been working in tandem with Iraq and Iran in the development of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Last week Castro sent a personal envoy to Iraq in order to reiterate Cuba’s support of that terrorist state in case of an American attack.
We should keep in mind that in May 2001, Castro visited the main centers of terrorism in the Middle East, Iraq, Libya, and Iran, reinforcing his ties with the “Axis of Evil.” Castro sold to Iran one of his biological research laboratories as part of their cooperation in the production of biological weapons. Iran has well-developed facilities in their own country, why do they need one 90 miles from U.S.?
Was Castro also giving the necessary intelligence information to the Al Qaeda terrorists that made the successful attacks of September 11th possible? The Russians have a spy base in Cuba that is their main source of intelligence. During his visit to Cuba In August 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Fidel Castro, visited the Lourdes spy center. At a meeting with center specialists, Putin noted that their work is very much needed, "not only by the military, but also by the political leadership of the country." Putin said at a press conference in Havana that both Russia and Cuba are currently interested in continuing the operations of the Lourdes base. According to Putin, this center serves the interests of the Russian military and also provides some information obtained for appropriate Cuban government agencies. Such information might have been also very valuable for Al Qaeda and the terrorist network.
As part of the conditions set in 1968 by the former Soviet Union in order to supply Cuba with unlimited free weapons and an additional 6 billion dollars annually in economic subsidies, Castro allowed the Soviets direct intervention in Cuba’s economic, military and intelligence apparatus. Soviet Colonel Viktor Simenov of the KGB took direct supervising control of the DGI, Cuban Intelligence Services. All the DGI’s operational decisions, and its annual budget, had to be cleared through Colonel Simenov. Anything Cuba did in aid to worldwide terrorism after that would have to be done with the Russians’ knowledge and consent, under their close supervision if not their express command.
Evidently the Russian intelligence new quite well Castro’s involvement with Al_Qaeda and every other kind of international terrorism for the last 4 decades. Why did the Russians decide to close their spy base in Cuba immediately after the attack without even consulting with the Cuban regime? After several postponements, and in spite of Castro’s public tantrums and opposition, the base was dismantled. Were the Russians trying to disassociate themselves from Castro and the Al Qaeda partnership? Nevertheless, even though the equipment should have been returned to Russia in December of 2001, so far Castro has not allowed it to happen and is negotiating to give the former Russian base to the Chinese.
During one of those pilgrimages to Cuba that have become fashionable among American politicians, Senator Specter recognized the extraordinary intelligence capabilities of the Cuban regimen, a service that rivals the Mossad and the CIA. In one instance, the Pentagon’s most trusted analyst in charge of evaluating Castro’s menace to the U.S. was found to be a mole working for the Cuban intelligence. Are we going to put our security in the hands of one of our worst enemies?
Nevertheless, some American legislators went so far as to ask that the American taxpayers provide Cuba with state of the art radar under the pretense that Castro, whose main source of personal income is drug trafficking, would cooperate with us in the interdiction of drugs coming into the U.S. That is absolutely insane. In fact, this will further facilitate the importation of drugs into the U.S. and enable him to easily fulfill his dream of obliterating our country.
It is unconscionable that you are advocating a policy of abject appeasement toward Fidel Castro’s regime, while undermining President’s Bush war against terrorism. You are advocating relations with a terrorist state whose leader pledged on May 2001 at the University of Tehran, that their alliance would bring U.S. down to its knees. This was an ominous threat that came to fruition on September 11 with the brutal terrorist attacks to our country. Was Castro aware of the attack? Was he part of the planning? Russian Prime Minister Putin’s reaction after the attack attests to that possibility.
In a recent visit to Cuba, Rep. Diane Watson, attacking the U.S. bipartisan policy toward Cuba for more than four decades, arrogantly affirmed: "That might be the executive branch's view, but that is not the legislative branch's view, and we make the policy…More and more lawmakers are coming here by themselves, seeing for themselves, developing good will." I always thought that, according to our Constitution, the President was in charge of U.S. foreign policy.
Secretary of State Collin Powell reiterated Castro’s menace to this country and exhorted you to support President Bush’s war against terrorism. You and your colleagues in the U.S. Congress are single handedly removing from the terrorist list of the Sate Department a regime that has been one of the main sponsors of terrorism in the world for 43years, abrogating upon themselves the duties of the Secretary of State and of the President of United States by deciding our foreign policy and undermining our war against terrorism.
Although Castro, with a personal fortune of over 1.5 billion dollars is among the richest chief of state in the world according to Forbes magazine, Cuba, nevertheless, has defaulted on all its international debts. But, thanks to the irresponsibility of legislators such as yourself, the American taxpayers are going to finance Castro’s purchases and Cuba will buy a billion dollars worth of American food each year while the American workers foot the bill. Lenin affirmed that we would be the ones selling the rope to the communists in order for them to hang us. These American legislators go much further; they want to provide the rope free of charge to Castro and should be ashamed of themselves.
Jesus J. Chao
