CHINA AND CUBA: DANGEROUS LIASON

By Agustin Blazquez with the collaboracion of James Sutton


Friday, June 29, 2001


Long ago the communists prophesized that the capitalists will sell them the rope for their own hanging. And the greedy business interests influencing the political decisions of the capitalist countries, as in the U.S., appear to be working overtime for that prophesy to be fulfilled.

After the incident of the EP-3E surveillance plane and the blatant hostility of China, President Bush, like his predecessor, Clinton, bestows "most favorable nation" trade status for that bastion of democracy and human rights, China.

Meanwhile, China is busy cozying up to Castro establishing its presence on the island just 90 miles south of the U.S. And who better to help Castro in his covert war against the U.S. than a country that has already obtained the plans for U.S.’s missiles and weapons all the while maintaining its "most favorable" status?

Since the late 1990s, Cuban independent journalists inside the island have been reporting increasing numbers of Chinese arriving in Cuba. By 1999 they were being housed in hotels and in luxurious protocol houses while Cubans struggle in overcrowded and falling-apart houses, and suffer with daily shortages of food, water and electricity due to classic communist inefficiencies.

Apart from the obvious, we also find ominous reasons for the China-Cuba alliance. Next door to an operational Russian electronic spy facility near Havana, China has built a state-of-the-art spy facility to gather personal, commercial and political information about the U.S. China trained the personnel and is supervising the operation.

According to Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, China already has "two electronic eavesdropping stations in Cuba." Observed by sources inside Cuba, the great numbers of Chinese are monitoring telephone calls at the electronic espionage facility located in Paseo between 11th and 13th Streets in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana.

In 1999, Cuban sources on the island reported the Chinese presence in the satellite-tracking facility at Jaruco, near Havana. The same sources said that they were engaged in modernizing the base and supplying Castro with spare parts for military equipment including his Russian war planes, like the ones used to kill three U.S. citizens and a resident on Feb. 24, 1996. It appears that Castro, to further assure his stay in power, is allying with the Chinese. He knows from prior experience that the U.S. will look the other way in order not to upset its trade with China.

This could be a very dangerous alliance and could directly endanger the security of the U.S. China could introduce weapons – some of them easily built from U.S. designs obtained through espionage - tilting the balance of power in this hemisphere.

As reported by the Washington Times on its front page on June 12, 13, 14 and 20, 2001, China’s state-run shipping company, China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco), has sent "at least three shipments of weapons" during 2000 "to the Cuban port of Mariel." Castro, a pathological liar, and China are denying the arms shipments.

Cuba is listed in the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. It is known that Cuba has facilities for the production of bacteriological arms, with ingenious means of deliverance to the U.S. – some thanks to the Smithsonian Institution’s help from migratory bird research. Here is fine example of selling "the rope."

China, in addition to its position in strategically located Cuba, has positioned itself in Panama and in tandem with Castro’s goons is reported in increasing numbers in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez, the pro-Castro president, is following Castro’s steps in an alarming fashion.

In Venezuela the intimidation of newspapers and television reporters has begun with the goal to eliminate freedom of expression. The indoctrination of children into communist ideology has begun. And the political subversion of the students of the Central University of Venezuela. And the creation of Castro-type militias and security apparatus trained by Cuba. And the creation of the infamous – Nazi Germany inspired – citizens committees to spy on the inhabitants of each city block.

According to pro-democracy Venezuelans, who are resenting the "involvement and invasion by Chinese and Cuban Communists" in their "internal affairs," workers are being replaced "with Cuban and Chinese agents to the detriment of national security and defense."

While the U.S. gets involved in far away wars and international conflicts that sometimes are difficult to justify, it has a tendency to overlook what is going on in its own backyard, neglecting to pay attention to Latin America. This attitude is the root of many problems, resentment and hatred from Latin America.

Castro’s Cuba has caused more trouble for the U.S. than any other country in the Americas. Never forget that Castro asked the Soviet Union to nuke the U.S. in 1962. Never forget that it was Castro’s arms and trained guerrillas that destabilized Latin America resulting in thousands of deaths and immigrants fleeing and still flooding the U.S. illegally.

No matter what some liberal and lefty U.S. politicians say, Castro was and still is directly involved in the trafficking of large amounts of drugs into this country. His dual purpose was and still is the destabilization of U.S. society and the making of money for his international schemes. There is even this note from the Miami Herald written by David Kraslow of its Washington Bureau, published on Sunday, Sept. 22, 1963 on page 6-A, titled CASTRO LINKED TO ‘ALARMING’ COCAINE TRAFFIC? It says: "Fidel Castro is more than a Cold War headache to the United States. Federal narcotics officials said Saturday they can date an ‘alarming rise’ in the cocaine traffic into the U.S. from Castro’s accession to power in Cuba. And federal officials say it may be that Castro is relying on dope smuggling to get badly needed dollars for foreign exchange that he could not otherwise obtain." And Castro - helped by the silence of the U.S. media - keeps pretending not to be involved in the drug trafficking that has killed and ruined the lives of thousands of U.S. citizens. Meantime, he continues sending agents and spies into the U.S. as the recent conviction of his five Cuban agents in Florida makes evident. As well as sending the kind of "diplomats" that assaulted U.S. citizens peacefully demonstrating on April 14, 2000, on U.S. soil in our nation’s capital. And, through blackmail and the guerrillas, he continues his meddling in Latin America, like his presence in Venezuela exemplifies. And now Peru is tilting to his side.

Castro – aging and ailing – as well as his possible communist successor are a threat to the security of the U.S. and its citizens.

About 84,800 Cubans have had horrible deaths in the Florida Straits trying to escape. Between them and the executions, extra-judicial assassinations and deaths in jails due to beatings and denial of medical care, about 108,722 Cubans have died just 90 miles away, with barely any notice from the U.S. government or the media; thus the American people are in the dark. That is why they fail to understand the ire of Cuban Americans’ struggle to bring freedom and democracy to their land.

With China directly involved and positioned in Cuba, that island freedom’s could be compromised once again by another cowardly concocted arrangement a la Kennedy when in 1962 Cuba was given on a silver platter to the Soviet Union. But this time the brazen bully is China, with millions of soldiers and a developing federation of international U.S.-hating thugs at its side. Not a pretty picture.

Clearly, this very dangerous situation could have catastrophic consequences for the Cuban people as well as U.S. citizens in case of a confrontation with China. This is very much what the Soviets were doing in the early 1960s that caused the 1962 Nuclear Missile Crisis. There are reports since last year from the Chinese defense minister about the inevitability of a war with the U.S. over Taiwan. No wonder China is vehemently opposed to the U.S. development of a defense system.

It is time for the U.S. politicians to admit that the decades of engagement with Communist China for the U.S. businessmen to make an easy buck has failed to bring democracy to the Chinese and has made China into a mighty and powerful dragon ready to swallow the world. Wake up before it is too late and the communist prophecy about "the rope" comes true.


END


2001 ABIP

Agustin Blazquez is producer-director of the documentaries "Covering Cuba,"

"Covering Cuba 2: The New Generation" and the upcoming "Covering Cuba 3." ABIP@olg.com

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Castro/Cuba



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