CASTRO’S AGENTS AT THE WASHINGTON POST?RECENT ARTICLE CALLS CUBAN AMERICANS "TERRORISTS"

Cuba

CASTRO’S AGENTS AT THE WASHINGTON POST?

RECENT ARTICLE CALLS CUBAN AMERICANS "TERRORISTS"

After the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, some reprehensible hate-crimes were directed against the Arab and Muslim American population in this country. Our government as well as all intelligent and decent Americans promptly condemned those actions and with the cooperation of the U.S. media, a concerted effort and a campaign began to eliminate this abhorrence.

But on September 25, 2001, on page A10, The Washington Post published an article by staff writer Sue Anne Pressley, titled Among Miami's Cuban Americans, Terrorism Is a Familiar Story. Tactics Used by - and Against - Castro Still Stir Debate in Exile Community.

As we find ourselves in a period of deep emotions calling for introspection and extended concern for others, we inexplicably find The Washington Post with an article written by a prominent staffer that seems to be attempting to foster distrust, division, and hatred against the patriotic and law-abiding Cuban Americans. I wish I could convey here the level of concern displayed by the Cuban Americans I have been seeing about the September 11 attacks – concerns and feelings they share with all Americans. But The Post has other concerns.

During the Elian affair, this type of defamatory campaign was perpetrated - with the cooperation of The Washington Post – apparently to neutralize the viewpoints of the Cuban Americans. Now, in the midst of our national crisis, the effort continues for the same purpose. And that is that the information Cuban Americans have (first-hand, including from high-ranking defectors) on Castro's connection to terrorism and biological and chemical weapons be discarded after being subjected to character assassination. It appears that The Washington Post is cooperating once more with a long-time Castro scheme.

Character assassination is a favorite technique of communists and Fascists as well. It seems odd and out of place in a civilized, democratic and lawful society such as ours.

The Washington Post’s Pressley opens her September 25 piece, "Some among them have received training from the CIA to fight a communist foe. The most extreme among them have been accused of committing atrocities for what they believe is a righteous cause."

Ileana Fuentes, an author, cultural critic, feminist and human rights activist from Miami says, this "is a blatant misrepresentation." As true atrocities she cites "the genocide in the Balkans; the Jewish Holocaust; three hundred years of slavery; the soviet gulag; the murder of innocent women and children aboard the ‘13 de marzo’ tugboat by Cuban authorities; the murder of four Cuban Americans aboard two unarmed rescue planes, also by Cuban authorities." And that atrocity is "what we witnessed on September 11th."

Pressley’s article is constructed around a Miami conference attended by "100 people" on September 22, 2001, "sponsored by a coalition of lesser-known exile groups who denounce what they view as the use of terrorism in U.S. policy against Cuba." According to this article, "one panel discussion was titled ‘The use of terrorism and sabotage in Washington's policy of aggression against Cuba and its effects in Cuba and in Miami.’" Obviously a decidedly anti-American group of Cuban "exiles."

Miami is a place easily infiltrated by Castro’s provocateurs and spies. Miami groups that are anti-American or pro-Castro must therefore be viewed with guarded skepticism.

Joaquin J. Coello an attorney in Georgia points out that it is a well-known fact "that some Cubans in Miami are following this line. Castro has infiltrated the community organizations with sympathizers and sleepers to be activated at a moment’s notice. Mr. [Arthur] Buonamia, a Democratic Party official, and others who participated at the conference are only following the official line of dictator Fidel Castro."

The Post article raises the issue of Orlando Bosch, referring to him as an "anti-Castro militant." He "was held in a Venezuelan jail for more than a decade on charges that he masterminded the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed all 73 people aboard." But, she admits that he was "released in 1988 without being convicted." As Fuentes points out, the fact that he was accused is "made irrelevant when she ads that he was released ‘without being convicted.’" And "no bombing that ever occurred in Miami has ever been proven - by investigation or legal proceedings - as having been perpetrated by exiles. What kind of reporting is this that makes unsubstantiated hearsay pivotal to a story?"

Coello said, "Her reference to Orlando Bosch indicates he sat in a prison in Venezuela but was never convicted, yet her article makes the innuendo he was guilty."

Of Pressley’s description of Miami as "the site of numerous bombings during the past 40 years," Fuentes points out that, since the bombing actually stopped more than 10 years ago, Pressley’s statement takes liberties that would not be permitted. Would the same liberty be taken by a mainstream newspaper to describe Liberty City as a ‘site of numerous riots’ or Mobile [Alabama] as a ‘site of numerous lynchings?’"

The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby’s Un Unpardonable Act, published on September 6, 1999, says of the 16 Puerto Rican terrorists Bill Clinton pardoned, that they "were responsible, along with their comrades, for some 130 bombing attacks between 1974 and 1983 [in the U.S.]. At least six people were killed and more than 80 were wounded in those attacks, and property owners sustained millions of dollars in damages. In Puerto Rico itself, they wrought even more bloody mayhem, beginning with the murder of a police officer in 1978. In December 1979, they ambushed a Navy vehicle in Sabana Seca, killing two of the 17 passengers and badly wounding nine. In January 1981, they bombed the Air National Guard base in Carolina and destroyed nine fighter jets." The cost of the nine jets was $45 million.

With that in mind, Fuentes continues that Puerto Rican terrorists associated with seeking independence from the U.S. have made many more bombings in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the last four decades than in any other city in the U.S., yet The Washington Post wouldn’t "dare describe San Juan as ‘the site of numerous bombings.’ The Puerto Rican community "would scream ‘Prejudice!’ and ‘Political profiling!’" She says that they will run up and down the halls of Congress protesting, "and rightly so."

As Fuentes says, "Ten, twenty, even a hundred people does not constitute the ‘American community’" that Pressley tries to create in her article. And she adds, "It is time that American journalists stop foaming at the mouth with hatred for Cuban Americans and start showing us the decency and fairness all other ethnic groups enjoy and deserve."

This article presents Rev. Francisco Santana, "a priest at Our Lady of Charity Shrine and an organizer of the prayer service" for this conference saying, "Back in the '60s, some Cubans were trained like bin Laden, trained by the CIA to fight during the Cold War against what was perceived as the evil empire."

Coello says Pressley’s "article comparing Cubans to bin Laden is an insult to all of us Americans of Cuban heritage." Cubans never had the goal to kill innocent Americans. What an abhorrent accusation.

Alba Herrera-Rohdes of New Jersey said, "Shame on her for her egregious attack on the Cuban-American community! As a Cuban, and as an American who has been personally touched by the savage terrorist attack which took place in New York City and Washington, I was highly offended and insulted that Sue Anne Pressley, would see fit to publish such a slanderous report labeling an entire ethnic community as terrorists.

"Not only was her report libelous and defamatory, it was full of inaccuracies and lies."

She faults Pressley for calling the Cuban exiles in this country "terrorists for struggling for over 42 years to bring about democracy, freedom, and liberty to Cuba." She points out that Cuban Americans have been warning the U.S. of everything from "the eminent threat looming 90 miles south of our shores, to Osama bin Laden, who is bent on destroying America and everything it stands for." And that calling Cuban Americans "terrorists’’ is "to say the least, despicable."

Susan Wright of Georgia says of The Post, "It's time they start reporting on the real terrorists on the Cuba-U.S. circuit and stop slandering Cuban Americans - something they wouldn't dream of doing to the African Americans or Jews. But if they are insisting on doing it, then prove it!

"Ninety miles from our borders lies the most deceptive among the terrorist nations. In fact, that is [Castro’s] major strength: his ability to deceive the US mainstream media that he [Castro] is not a major threat, even as he swears that his ‘ultimate purpose’ is to destroy the ‘imperialist nation [U.S.]’". Wright recommends that the U.S. media "Read his speeches in Granma! Wake up!"

Pressley’s article quotes Max Lesnik, the leader of the Alianza Martiana, one of the conference sponsoring groups, ending her article with this outrageous statement, "The fight against terrorism should start in Miami, here at home. They don't have to go to Afghanistan to find terrorists."

Cubans who lived the pre-1959 days, remember Lesnik’s unwavering support for Castro’s criminal terrorist bombings of schools, restaurants, department stores, movie houses, night clubs, etc., where innocent civilian men, women and children were maimed or killed. According to a source in England, Lesnik was "applauding and supporting" Castro until he was supposedly "expelled" from Cuba. In Miami, Lesnik got involved in "anti-Castro activities." Mysteriously, Lesnik had a change of heart and now is involved with other "exiles" in sponsoring Castro’s goals in the U.S. It appears that there are some skeletons in the closets of these "exiles" that deserve a closer look than Pressley is affording.

Fuentes says, "Interviewing Max Lesnik - could go unnoticed, were it not for Mr. Lesnik's dictum that the U.S. government need not go to Afghanistan ‘to find terrorists.’ Mr. Lesnik, who is unknown to the majority of Cuban Americans today, and despised by the few still alive who do know of him, undermines and mocks the gravity of the current tragedy with his statement. A statement, by the way, that is incomprehensible coming from a Jew who should be taking this tragedy very personally."

Lesnik, as well as others used as sources in this article, are Castro's agents whose ongoing purpose is to discredit the Cuban American community. If the Miami Cubans are "terrorists" as this article claims, why has Miami been so well penetrated by Castro's agents and spies for decades, people who are making a living there while conducting all kind of anti-U.S. and anti-Cuban American activities?

For example, Francisco Aruca, a well-known Castro’s provocateur agent with a daily talk show in Spanish and English on Miami’s Radio Progreso. Aruca is participating in this campaign by also calling the Cuban exiles "terrorists." He posted on his website a letter to President Bush with the same accusation and requested that others join in. People like Aruca and others are alive and well, living in the exile community. This alone should destroy the premise of this misleading article.

Mario Ramirez in New York City says "Although Ms. Pressley tries to show that some Miami Cubans are ‘moderate,’ in the end people will overlook this and instead they will focus on the negative aspects listed in the article. Call it a form of subliminal character assassination; that's exactly what the propaganda folks in Havana, and anti-Cuban American organizations, like those ‘free-speech and civil liberties advocates’ listed in the article want.

"How silly to quote Max Lesnik, the leader of the Alianza Martiana. That is an obvious front group. Of course, they are going to call us terrorists. The Washington Post is the guilty party here for publishing this garbage," says an unidentified Cuban American.

Ramirez adds, "It's amazing that in the current atmosphere of calling for tolerance and non violence against Arab and Muslim Americans, that a supposedly responsible institution like The Post would allow another minority group (Cuban Americans) to be maligned and slandered. It's as if Ms. Pressley was saying, ‘It's politically incorrect to bash Arab Americans, but OK to take it out on those crazy Miami Cubans - who happen to be terrorists, by the way!’"

"I suggest to Ms. Pressley," says Herrera-Rohdes, "if she wants to look for terrorists and a terrorist harboring country, look no further than 90 miles south of Key West. She would be surprised, what a haven for terrorists the ‘paradise’ island actually is. While she is there, she might want to ask Castro to return the Black Panther terrorist, Joanne Chesimard [also known as Assata Shakur], to us, so that she may finish her sentence for murdering a New Jersey State Trooper back in the 70's."

Coello says, "Make no mistake Castro is no friend of the US and we should not continue to make him look as a benign aging man with an ideal, for he has and continues to harbor, train and support terrorism and was the only country in Latin America not to sign a declaration against terrorism."

Herrera-Rohdes says, "At a time when America is bending over backwards asking its citizens not to seek vengeance against the Muslims in this country, or to blame them for the actions of a few extremists, I find extremely irresponsible and reprehensible of The Washington Post to single out the Cuban American community as a scapegoat for the attacks taken against our country. Do we not deserve the same respect and consideration? Or is it open season on Cuban Americans in this country?"

Clara Fuentes says, "There is too much garbage in the media here, and those whose livelihood consists of attacking the integrity of others, have none themselves. Much less professionalism.

"At a time when the survival of a nation and the free world depends on unity, those attacking others for no reason and with lies are as enemies of America, its values, and integrity as the terrorists themselves. Those causing division and promoting hatred are as much an enemy of this country as any terrorist could be. So, who are the real terrorists here?

"As long as they [U.S. media] use freedom irresponsibly to undermine integrity and promote bigotry, they are also enemies of freedom."

George, an American says, "The Washington Post is full of far leftists and Sue Ann Pressley must be one of them." Another American, Audrey, says, "It is hard to understand that Americans have such little understanding of Cuban Americans."

The Post would not consider such a hate-piece against blacks, Jews, Arabs, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans or any other minority in this country - regardless of the source of the information. If any of them had been maligned by The Post as often as Cuban Americans, there would be a continuous outcry. And The Post would have to apologize, and the reporter would be fired.

Perhaps the extreme animosity The Washington Post has demonstrated through the years against Cuban Americans is because they cannot fool us with their misinformation about our own country, as they do the average American.

This is not the first time and probably not the last that The Washington Post has published insensitive and offensive articles, as well as cartoons – such as the April 19, 21 and 28, 2000 by Herblock - against Cuban Americans reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda against the Jews. During the Elian affair Cuban Americans were attacked by Post staff writers like Judy Mann on January 4 and July 12, 2000. Mann is not an unbiased reporter; she visited Cuba in her student years and apparently became pro-Castro.

Among the Post attackers are Michael Leahy, Hank Stuever, Mary McGrory, and Donna Britt as well as Sue Anne Pressley alone and in close collaboration with Karen DeYoung in many misleading articles.

Ramirez comments, "Havana says: Why defame Cuban Americans ourselves, when we can have American journalists do it for us? And thanks to Ms. Pressley, a bearded man in Havana probably smiles tonight."

Agustin Blazquez, Producer/Director of the documentaries

COVERING CUBA, COVERING CUBA 2: The New Generation and the upcoming COVERING CUBA 3: Elian

And author of the book with Carlos Wotzkow COVERING AND DISCOVERING

Top ^