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The Labyrinth Of The Minotaur

by
Pedro Prada and Luis Martin
January 19, 1998

Early in 1997, US congressmen willing to improve relations with Cuba, presented a bill before the House of Representatives that would end the US embargo of food and medicines on Cuba, The Cuban Humanitarian Relief Act, HR1951.

The bill was a response to a law passed in 1992 eliminating the ability of Cuba to circumvent the embargo by purchasing products, including food and medicines, from foreign companies and US subsidiaries abroad. Aware of likely worldwide condemnation and rebuke, the promoters of the law made sure it would not absolutely ban the sale of medicines and food from Cuba, but instead create a maze of conditions, regulations and reprisals that would in effect establish a de facto prohibition of such sales.

Authored by Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli and cheerfully approved by President Clinton, the draconian law imposed severe penalties on its violators, American or not. The sanctions were later reinforced by the Helms-Burton law passed in 1996.

The Cuban Humanitarian and Relief Act has provoked vociferous denials from the US State Department and Cuban- American congressmen that the inhumane ban actually exists. Now that the bill enlists the support of the US Chamber of Commerce, churches and other influential groups and individuals, the government has taken on the rhetoric of a typical scammer-consumer dispute in which a company is caught unscrupulously cheating the public. According to the State Department, the US government has done nothing to prevent Cuba from obtaining medicines and food; whatever shortages exist on the island is the fault of the Cuban government and the direct result of a "dysfunctional economy".

To illustrate some examples --among many-- that shed light on the truth of the matter, some time ago Cuba received a message from Siemens Elemac in Sweden saying that it could not continue to supply Cuba with pacemakers. The traditional supplier of that vital device had been sold to a US firm.

The news would not be so dismal if JBIW, another supplier of pacemakers to Cuba, had not also been sold to a US firm; or if Teratronics, another pacemaker exporter attempting to expand its sales in the US, would have to submit to the condition of ending its deliveries to Cuba because its product contained components "Made in the USA".

With an annual demand of about 600 pacemakers, priced in the world market at $900 t0 $1000 each, Cuba has found itself placed in an artificial and premeditated crisis situation that risks the lives of hundreds of human beings.

Yet pacemakers are not the only headache for Medicuba, the most important import-export state enterprise of medical products in Cuba. Under the island's current situation, it is not easy to sort the challenges of the blockade and work with a budget that, being less than half of the previous figures, also faces a weakening state of affairs.

THE LABYRINTH Knowing that it is necessary to trade with those who are free of US pressures and have solvent capital to resist any blackmail, Cuban buyers face the dilemma of finding and acquiring the medications set by the country's health parameters, at the lowest possible price.

The damages to Cuba have not been worse because the nation is respected for its demonstrated commercial responsibility in the last 20 years, for the international prestige enjoyed by its health care system and its demanding pharmacopoeia certifications which have remained at a difficult time when unscrupulous individuals would have offered inferior substitutes.

Sometimes it is impossible to avoid traps worse than the mythical Minotaur. Medicines could be bought in the immediate geographical area, for example in Venezuela. However, those medicines must instead be purchased in Europe by paying 5 times as much for air freight because the Venezuelan suppliers are owned by US-controlled pharmaceutical transnationals.

So it happens that Cuba can only obtain 1 lot of medications for the same amount that would normally buy 5 or 6 lots. The lower availability results in therapeutic instability, health damages, citizen frustration and insecurity.

Those are only the visible consequences on the people and the practitioners. At the financial level, Medicuba must pay higher air freight from Europe incurring losses of more than 50 percent. The result is rising debts with commercial firms.

While some are understanding of the precarious situation of their Cuban clients, others have suspended their transactions with Cuba until the debts are paid.

The field of choice for Cuba's commercial buyers is narrowed to choosing among subsidiaries that won't sell, the ones pressured not to sell, the ones whose costs are beyond our means and the resellers who charge extra for risks.

Medications such as Fentanil and Talemonal, world exclusive US anesthetics and the only ones used in Cuba, can be obtained as an exception of the Treasury Department only at risk and with delays in delivery of up to 8 months.

According to Sigma and Talgrex International Export catalogs, the extra charges paid by Cuba in the fields of health are in the millions and range from 80 percent to 140 percent above the prices paid by any regular buyer.

WASHINGTON DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TEARS In 1991, Leonor Dominguez, Deputy Director of Alimport, wept with anger and helplessness in Moscow when Soyuzplodexport, a baby food state enterprise, suddenly canceled its contract with Cuba, following the visit of Secretary of State James Baker to the still Soviet capital. At the same time, contracts with other state enterprises for the purchase of Cuban sugar were annulled and the Soviet officials who had signed the agreements mysteriously disappeared.

Leonor healed her wounds and searched for other opportunities and offers while her colleagues searched in other markets for raw materials that would enable Cuban industry to fill the baby food void. Although in lesser quantities, Cuban infants never lacked that source of nourishment.

But Alimport carries a $70 million per year debt in losses and other commercial failures. Among some examples are the witch-hunt carried out by US officials against Venezuelan exporters of frozen chickens to Cuba, or against powder milk merchants in Spain.

The latter product, being among the highest priorities on the list of food imports, incurs expenditures of approximately $80 million annually for shipping and risk transactions.

Cuba has paid as much as $80 per ton of milk imported from Europe. With the same money, Cuba could have acquired from 2 to 2.3 tons in the subsidized US market, or at least, in the Latin American or Caribbean markets.

Cuba could spend less in milk if it could better invest its resources in grain for cattle. But grain comes from the Gulf states of the US --the Corn Belt-- which produces most of the world's feed. When the Soviet option vanished, the grain had to be purchased in Asia and South America.

The same holds true for agricultural seeds that are not produced in Cuban laboratories and fields, pesticides, fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, fuel for agricultural machinery, repairs and replacements of imported equipment and even the coal necessary for the smelting and casting of hoes and plows used in animal traction.

These causal relations, added to our administrative, organizational and agricultural work stimulation problems, sheds light on the drastic reduction of our food production and its effects on the tables of Cuban homes.

"FREE" TRADE AND "FRIED TRADE" Without access to the largest world market and the inability to buy from enterprises with competitive prices, established trade marks and products, prestige, communication channels and reliable transport, Cuba confronts a market that pretends to be free but is, in reality, significantly restricted.

Although the prices that Cuban importers pay to finance an operation opens access to a market, it also increases the price of the product.

The lack of liquid assets worsens the situation. To be able to buy today also presents the paradox that money may not be available when a market suddenly opens for Cuba. Many Cubans are not aware of the anguish experienced at the Assets Central Commission, where counting, establishing priorities, and dividing the scarce hard currency of the nation goes on through the night until the early morning hours.

At an international level, this phenomena coincides with the insertion of Cuba's economy into the world market, in the huge economic spaces where Europe, Japan, the US and all of North America are concentrated.

When the seller is aware that the buyer does not have access to the competition and lacks solvency, the tendency is to impose conditions with elevated prices and difficult regulations. In spite of the attraction posed by commercial relations with Cuba and its multi-million dollar consumer market, a diabolical combination of blockade and internal crisis "fries" our trade possibilities.

Day by day Cuba learns her lesson. Perhaps by some twist of fate, the foreign economic relations of the nation have depended always and in different phases of her history on one market: either the US, Spain, or the Soviet Union and the socialist block.

Hence, the necessary search for markets, investments and fresh capital from different parts, as well as the integration into regional and subregional blocks of economic cooperation and the exploration of new horizons. This new task of diversification will ensure that "never again shall Cuba place all of its eggs in one basket".

But it will not be easy to accomplish under the implacable harassment and persecution of the countless agents and officials at the service of the US. Nor will it be easy for interested countries that must either evade US intelligence operations, threats, and pressures or have solid capital at their disposal to withstand the battering of the Empire.

Some widows of the Ministry of the Exterior in Havana still bear the following words from the 60's: "Careful, the enemy listens". It would seem paranoia, but it is not.

Note: Pedro Padra is a Cuban journalist living on the island. Luis Martin is a writer for the Cuban-American National Alliance living in the US. Alianza Nacional Cubano-Americana PO Box 15753 Rio Rancho, NM 87174 t/f (505) 994-0863

From: Cuban-American National Alliance

P.O. Box 6674
Beaverton, OR 97007-0674
(503) 526-9570 (tel/fax)

April 20, 1996

It's again an election year in the U.S. and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights is meeting in Geneva. In the world calendar these events mark a political Halloween in which the enemies of the Cuban Revolution haunt the world with the frightening screams, chain rattles and horror stories of human rights violations in Cuba. Two such recent stories tell of a repressed Concilio Cubano and the alleged castration in a Cuban hospital of a captured terrorist.

The history of the Republic of Cuba is a history of unceasing intervention of the U.S. in the internal affairs of the island nation. This meddling did not end with the abrogation of the Platt Amendment in the 1933 revolution. It continued throughout the decades through the manipulation of stooges in political parties, the army and outright control of Cuba's economy. This state of affairs abruptly ended with the triumph of the 1959 revolution.

In more recent times, the U.S. government attempts to recapture its control of Cuba by supporting the return of exiles loyal to U.S. interests and financing dissenting groups within Cuba. This strategy is termed by U.S. policymakers as the "Nicaragua Model".

The Cuban government has responded by limiting the political activities of groups inside Cuba known to be manipulated by the U.S. Because these dissenters lack support from Cubans, Washington has confer them with legitimacy as victims and defenders of human rights. One such entity is Concilio Cubano which attempted to coordinate a national meeting with exile subversive activity. Conversely, the Cuban government has permitted open political activities by organizations that have rejected foreign manipulation and subversion.

Given the history of U.S. aggression, sabotage and terrorism sponsored from abroad, the measures adopted by the Cuban government are a mild comparison to measures implemented by the U.S. in war and in peace to protect its national security.

Universal Declaration Of Human Rights

"In search of a better world in all matters, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations proclaims: To seek the creation of conditions of economic, judicial, political and social equality for all human beings...The right of all inhabitants of the planet to life, liberty, personal security, privacy, family integration, individual or collective property, freedom of thought, opinion and expression; to be elected and able to participate in the government of one's nation...

...That every person has the right to social security, to the satisfaction of economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to one's dignity and the free development of one's personality...

...Every person shall have the right to work, protection against unemployment and to an equitable and satisfactory compensation that assures that person and family an existence in accordance with human dignity...

...Every person has a right to an adequate standard of living that will assure that person and family health, well-being nutrition, clothing, housing, medical assistance and necessary social services...

...All children shall have the right to social protection, education, etc." Leading a country that for 37 years has endured a formidable enemy bent on its destruction, the revolutionary government of Cuba deserves world praise -not condemnation- for its human rights record. Where else in the world has any government displayed more restraint towards the perpetrators of the most infamous and heinous crimes against the people and the sovereignty of a nation? What country in the world can claim to have done more for human rights in fighting disease, illiteracy, poverty, underdevelopment, colonialism and the tyranny of the elite?

The "Poet " Cops

Armando Valladares has been the leading figure in directing the human rights offensive against Cuba. On his release from a Cuban prison in October 1982, he was hailed as a hero by western media and the Right. During his internment, Valladares complained of being tortured and mistreated by his Cuban jailers. His punishment was so severe, he claimed, that he had lost the use of his legs and was unable to walk. His supporters were therefore quite embarrassed when they met him with a wheelchair at the Madrid airport and he walked off the plane looking healthy.

Valladares has been characterized by the press as a "poet" and "artist" of deep religious conviction. In fact, he was actually a police officer in the Batista regime. The honors that he received were for his work as a cop and never as a poet. He was not arrested after the revolution first came to power, but was later jailed when he was caught red-handed in a plot to overthrow the new revolutionary government.

Human Rights In The Western Hemisphere

Worldwide the crusade for human rights exhibits a clear pattern of indictments that flows in only one direction: from the western industrialized nations to the largely underdeveloped nations. In the Western Hemisphere an examination of record on human rights violations demonstrates that Cuba has been singled out by its enemies to create a climate of intervention.

In 1989 the population of Latin America living in poverty was 183 million --44% of the region's population. Forty- eight percent of those who were poor --approximately 88 million-- were found to be living in indigence. According to these figures, the absolute number of poor in 1989 was 70% greater than in 1960 and 35% greater than in 1980.
According to the U.N. Development Program, "...in 1992 `only' 32% of the population lived under these conditions ('of utter indigence'). In other words, out of a world population of 5.5 billion, 1.76 billion persons live in utter indigence and 300 million have incomes 80 times greater than the remaining 5.2 billion individuals." Of 1.7 billion human beings who in extreme indigence, how many are Latin Americans, Africans and Asians? According to UNICEF and UNESCO studies, 100 million children under the age of 15 are working: of the 95% who live in underdeveloped countries, between 15% and 20% inhabit Latin America.
Another analysis by the British organization "Actionaid" asserts that in 6 years, 700 million people will lack potable water and 100 million children will not get an education.
The violation of the human dignity of those millions of men, women and children are de facto suppressed, since they are not believed to be deserving of any dignity at all. They are the people without jobs, housing, education, health or social security. They are beings without hope or future.

Other Figures About The Subcontinent:

Guatemala in the period of the civil war: 125,000 executed 45,000 disappearances 55,000 widows 300,000 orphan children 440 villages destroyed
Argentina: 26.4% homeless 21% in absolute poverty
Paraguay: 40% homeless 350,000 peasants without land 100,000 youth emigrants each year 40 enterprises owning 14,500,000 hectares
Venezuela: 60% in poverty and more than 60 dead every weekend due to organized crime.
Mexico: : 25% in extreme poverty
Chile: : 40% in extreme poverty and indigence
Brazil: : 21% in absolute poverty
U.S.A: A continuing history of political repression in the Cuban-American Communities that includes beatings, bombings, assassinations, loss of employment and lack of freedom of speech for Cubans opposed to U.S. policy towards Cuba.
- Cubans in the U.S. are deprived of the universal right of immigrants to travel to their country of origin, reunite with their families, or send them remittances.
- Immigrants are subjected to discrimination, persecution and brutality by security forces. They are further threatened by the denial of the basic right to education and medical treatment.
- The majority of the Black population is condemned to poverty, disease, illiteracy, drugs and delinquency.
- A large portion of the child population is subjected to poverty, hunger, disease and lack of medical insurance.
- Child labor laws are violated with impunity and a rising number of children are maimed and killed in work-related accidents. Children and youth are routinely victimized by violence, a growing illiteracy rate, the increasing breakdown of family structure, and the use of guns and drugs.
- Vast sections of the elderly are subjected to extreme poverty, neglect and outright abuse. These endure such marginal living conditions that weather variations have caused hundreds of deaths in one city alone.
- A wealthy and small portion of the population controls a rigged electoral process in which a minority of eligible voters elect a body politic subservient to the special interests of the elite.
- Violent repression of its citizens --such as Kent State and Waco, Texas-- rivals the brutality of the most totalitarian regimes.
- Large sectors of the population lack health care, higher education, adequate social assistance and decent housing.
- Racial and sexist discrimination, alongside the increase of xenophobia, patriotic chauvinism, and right wing terrorism.
- Long list of persons sentenced to death and executed, many of them for offenses of a social origin. The U.S. holds a larger portion of its population in prison than any other country.
- The widening manifestation of hedonism among the population, selfish individualism, the struggle for mere survival in some cities and the increase of violence among citizens. Acting in accordance with these forces are the increasing and shameful manifestations of social inequality, repression and legalized violence against racial minorities.

Chronology Of Terrorist Actions Against Cuba

1959-1980 The following is a partial chronology of twenty-one years of U.S. imperialist inspired aggression against Cuba, against Cuban citizens, diplomats abroad, and against those having commercial or political contact with Cuba.
1959 February 2: U.S. Citizen Allen Robert Maller is arrested for illegally having flown a light plane into the country and planning to kill Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro.
March 26: Cuban authorities uncover plot to kill Commander- in-Chief Fidel Castro.
April 26: Viscount airliner hijacked and pilot forced to land in Miami.
June 14: Four counterrevolutionaries hijack DC-3 plane and take it to Miami.
July 23: U.S. Citizen John V. Martino is arrested for counterrevolutionary activities.
August 8: Stanley F. Wesson, a U.S. diplomat in Cuba, is arrested as he is presiding over a meeting of counterrevolutionaries planning a series of sabotages.
August 13: C-46 plane bringing ten men and many weapons from the Dominican Republic is captured in Trinidad, province of Las Villas.
October 11: A plane drops two incendiary bombs on the Niagara sugar mill in Pinar del Rio province.
October 19: A plane drops two bombs on the Punta Alegre sugar mill in Camaguey province.
November 4: Three pirate planes drop bombs on various points in the province of Oriente.
1960 January 21: A plane drops four 100-pound bombs on Cojimar and Regla, Havana.
February 18: U.S. pilot Robert Ellis Frost dies when a bomb goes off on board his plane as he is raiding the Espana sugar mill.
March 4: French steamer La Coubre explodes while unloading arms in the part of Havana. It was proved that U.S. Government agents had taken part in the sabotage.
March 17: President Eisenhower directs CIA Director Allen Dulles to train armed troops to invade Cuba.
July 4: President Eisenhower orders a substantial cut in the Cuban sugar quota.
October 14: Six Cuban planes are hijacked.
October 19: United States bans exports to Cuba, "except medicines and food." 1961 January 3: United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Cuba.
January 5: Voluntary teacher Conrado Benitez (eighteen) murdered February 24: A light plane sets fire to cane fields in Camaguey.
March 13: Pirate vessel attacks Santiago de Cuba oil refinery.
March 31: President Kennedy cancels Cuban sugar quota for 1961.
April 13: CIA agents set on fire and destroy El Encanto department store in Havana.
April 15: B-26 bombers coming from Guatemala bomb Ciudad Libertad and San Antonio de los Banos airports in Havana, and Santiago de Cuba airport in eastern Cuba.
April 17: A mercenary force of more than 1,500 men lands at Playa Giron. Invasion wiped out within seventy-two hours.
April 24: President Kennedy admits full responsibility for mercenary attack on Cuba.
August 13: Cuban authorities disclose plans for U.S. fake attack on Guantanamo naval base: attack on the life of Major Raul Castro, followed by fake attack on naval base marking the beginning a grand-scale armed struggle that would justify U.S. intervention in Cuba.
September 24: CIA agent Luis Torroella, who had infiltrated Cuba with the mission to kill Fidel Castro, is captured.
November 7: State Security reports on counter-revolutionary plan including acts of sabotage and attempt on life of Prime Minister Fidel Castro at the welcome for Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticos on his return from a tour of socialist countries.
November 26: Literacy campaign teacher Manuel Ascunce Domenech is brutally tortured to death in Escambray Mountains along with peasant Pedro Lantigua.
1962 February 3: White House announces total embargo on U.S.- Cuba trade.
June 7: Two CIA agents die while trying to enter Cuba through Baracoa, in the island's eastern-most province.
August 19: Top U.S. Government officials openly discuss plan for attempt on life of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro.
August 24: Armed boats shell Sierra Maestra and several residences in the Miramar section of Havana.
October 22: President Kennedy orders naval and economic blockade against Cuba, giving rise to the October Crisis that jeopardized world peace.
1963 April 26: Two-engine plane drops bombs and incendiary materials on Nico Lopez oil refinery in Havana.
May 28: U.S. Navy turboprop plane attack on Cayo Frances on Cuba's north coast, reported.
August 18: Oil tanks in Puerto Casilda, on Cuba's south coast, bombed by mercenary plane.
August 19: Landing craft attack power plant and sulfuric acid plant in Santa Lucia, Pinar del Rio province, with antitank rockets and machine guns.
December 17: CIA saboteurs using underwater demolition equipment sink Cuban navy launch off Isle of Pines.
1964 May 19: U.S. Department of Commerce prohibits shipping of medicines to Cuba.
May 29: Balloons of various sizes carrying bacteriological agents are dropped over the region of Las Villas.
September 24: Spanish freighter Sierra Aranzazu carrying a shipment of toys for Cuba is attacked seventy-five miles off Cuba. Captain and two crewmen killed in the attack.
1965 January 26: Four armed CIA agents, among them Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, who revealed U.S. plans against Cuba, captured.
November 11: Pirate motor crafts attack Havana's seafront section. Counterrevolutionaries residing in Miami take credit for action.
1966 March 1: Rolando Cubelas, involved in plan to assassinate Fidel Castro, is captured by State Security agents.
March 5: Plot to assassinate Fidel Castro discovered. CIA participation in plot confirmed.
March 27: Attempted hijacking of Cubana Airlines plane foiled. Pilot and guard killed and copilot seriously wounded.
May 29: Pirate launch lands two CIA agents, then engages in combat with and is sunk by Revolutionary Navy torpedo boat.
September 29: Pirate light plane drops three bombs on thermoelectric power plant construction site and other work sites on the north coast of Camaguey province.
November 13: U.S. plane drops three bombs on Raul Cepero Bonilla (former CUBANITRO) plant, in Matanzas.
1967 May 3: Fragmentation bomb explodes inside the car of Cuban ambassador in Mexico, Kidnapping of Cuban boats continues.
1968 January 8: Bomb planted inside mail bag from U.S. goes off.
March 5: Fire breaks out in Patricio Lumumba tannery. Losses estimated at 1,000,000 pesos.
September 4: FAO specialist R.S. Vasudevo arrested after it was proved that he had introduced a virus harmful to coffee into Cuba. The blight caused enormous damage.
There were numerous fires in 1968: eleven in stores, five in agricultural sheds and forty-six in schools.
1969 May 3: Several CIA agents led by Amancio Mosquera ("Yarey") infiltrate Cuba and are captured September 12: Agent Jose A. Quesada infiltrates national territory and is captured along with weapons and equipment for espionage.
1970 Between 1969 and 1970 the U.S. treated the clouds with chemicals in an attempt to ruin the Cuban sugar harvest.
Between march and April a number of saboteurs were captured in the 10 de Octubre and Ciro Redondo sugar mills.
April 17: Group of mercenaries from the U.S. lands in Cuba. Four revolutionary fighters die in ensuing clash.
October 5: Cuban-born counterrevolutionaries and two U.S. citizens infiltrate national territory and are captured.
1971 February 24: The U.S. Coast Guard vessel Cape York kidnaps several Cuban fishing boats in international waters.
May 26: A U.S. Coast Guard vessel kidnaps four fishing boats in international waters.
July 12: Miami-based counterrevolutionaries claim responsibility for an act of sabotage causing a railroad accident in Guantanamo.
October 12: A mother ship and an armed boat attack the village of Boca de Sama, on the eastern part of the country. The toll: two dead and four wounded, among them, two children.
1972 April 4: Bombing attempt on the Cuban commercial office in Montreal, Canada.
October 10: Two armed boats attack two Cuban fishing boats and kidnap and fishermen.
December 1: A powerful bomb explodes in the Cuban consulate in Mexico.
1973 June 21: Dynamite sticks are hurled at the Cuban commercial office in Chile.
August 27: Three bombs are thrown at the homes of functionaries of the Cuban commercial office in Santiago, Chile.
September 11: The Cuban merchant ship Playa Larga is shelled by Chilean Navy ships in international waters.
October 4: Cuban fishing vessels are shelled in international waters.
December 4: A powerful bomb explodes in the Cuban consulate in Mexico.
1974 January 20: A powerful explosion causes extensive damage in the Cuban embassy in Mexico.
March 26: Bombs are thrown at the Cuban embassy in Kingston, Jamaica.
April 9: A bomb destroys the Cuban consulate in Madrid.
May 14: Two bombs explode in the Cuban consulate in Merida, Mexico.
July 3: A bomb explodes at the door of the Cuban embassy in Paris, France.
August 1: Three CIA infiltrators are captured. Rifles, grenades, ammunition and espionage equipment are confiscated.
1975 November 28: A bomb explodes in the automobile of the Cuban ambassador to Mexico.
1976 April 22: A bomb explodes in the Cuban embassy in Lisbon, Portugal.
June 6: A bomb explodes in the Cuban mission to the United Nations. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
July 9: A bomb explodes in the luggage about to be loaded on a Cubana plane in Kingston Jamaica.
July 23: Artaignan Diaz Diaz, a technician, is assassinated in Merida, Mexico, when two individuals attempt to kidnap the Cuban consul.
October 6: Cubana de Aviacion's CUT-1201 is criminally sabotaged, exploding in mid-flight off the coast of Barbados. All seventy-three passengers die.
1977 January 9: The New York daily Newsday says the CIA was involved in introducing a virus into Cuba which in 1971 caused an outbreak of African swine fever.
January 15: A U.S. senator demands that CIA Director George Bush provide information about bacteriological sabotage against Cuba.
December 20: Bombs are set off at two stores named Almacen El Espanol, one in Union City and the other in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Both had been sending medical supplies to Cuba. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
1978 September 9: A bomb explodes at the Cuban mission to the United Nations. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
October 5: A bomb is exploded outside of new York City's Madison Square Garden to protest the appearance of Cuban boxers there. Omega 7 assumes responsibility> December 29: Bombs explode at the Cuban mission to the UN and at Lincoln Center where a Cuban orchestra was giving a concert. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
1979 March 25: The Office of Cuban Affairs in West New York, New Jersey, is bombed. Almacen El Espanol in Union City, New Jersey, is bombed as well, Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
April 28: Carlos Muniz Varela, a leader among Cubans abroad who advocate normalization of relations and an end to the U.S. blockade against Cuba, was gunned down by counterrevolutionary thugs in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
September: The Carter administration unleashes the so- called Caribbean minicrisis.
October 17: Twenty-two hundred marines land at the Guantanamo naval base as part of the U.S. campaign to intimidate Cuba.
October 27: A high-powered bomb explodes in front of the Cuban UN mission. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
November 25: Eulalio Jose Negrin, an opponent of the U.S. blockade against Cuba and a participant in the Dialogue between Cubans abroad and the Cuban government is murdered by rightist goons in Union City, New Jersey. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
December 7: The Cuban mission to the UN is bombed. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.
1980 March 13: The Angolan mission to the UN is firebombed by Omega 7, protesting Cuban aid to Angola.
March 25: Enough plastic explosives to have blown up a city block is placed under the car of Raul Roa Kouri, Cuba's ambassador to the UN. Omega 7 assumes responsibility.

May be reproduced in part or in full citing the source: Cuban-American National Alliance P.O. Box 6674 Beaverton, OR 97007-0674
(503) 526-9570 (tel/fax)

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