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Wayne Smith, a Castro's sycophant and now a senior fellow with the Center for International Policy, "concedes that members of Spain's Basque separatist group, known as ETA, live on the island. But he notes they are there under an agreement between Castro and former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, whose successor has not requested their extradition." The truth of the matter is quite different.

CASTRO AND THE FINANCING OF THE ETA TERRORISM. Fidel Castro, who is, according to Forbes Magazine, among the richest chief of states in the world while the Cuban people is starving to death, have the drug traffic among his main sources of income and as intermediary the money laundering of the main terrorist organizations. Cuba is a conduit for the financing of the Spanish terrorist organization, ETA.

In 1966 six members of the ETA arrived in Cuba from Panama in order to transfer and invest their war chest in the Island enabling them to auto-finance their terrorist network out of international police surveillance. After the closing of their newspaper “Egin” in Spain and the investigation of the finance sources of the ETA by the Spanish Judge, Baltasar Garzón, which resulted in finding in 1998 that there was at least a company in Cuba dedicated to the laundering of the terrorists’ money through out export and import deals between Cuba and the Basque Country.

In March 1992, with the capture of the important leaders of the ETA in Bidart, among the documents that were found was a list of companies. Nevertheless, the relationship of those companies with the ETA could not be proven at the time.

The ex-leader of the ETA, Carlos Ibarguren was shown to be in charge of Gadusmar in Cuba, a company with headquarters in Bermeo (in the Basque Region) dedicated to the import and export of codfish, but at the time, the Spanish police did not even follow the leads. Finally, when those leads were corroborated by other sources after the closing of the daily “Egin”, judge Garzon found that he had a case and placed Gadusmar under surveillance. The same company appointed Carlos Ibarguren and Agustín Azcarate as their delegates and men of trust in Cuba in 1996.

At the time, about 15 members of the ETA (etarras) lived in Cuba-an still live there, each one receiving one thousand dollars a month (in Cuba the average salary is $15 dollars per month, a physician makes $40). Gadusmar paid the terrorists. In June 1998, judge Garzon, imprisoned twelve members of the group because of their relation with the financial branch of the ETA. One of them was Juan Pablo Dieguez Gomes, chief administrator and responsible for Gadusmar.

Note: Judge Baltazar Gaston tried to prosecute General Pinochet for crimes against humanity, although he did not acquiesced to do likewise with Castro who had a much worse record of crimes and violations of human rights.