CUBA'S RENEWED SUPPORT FOR VIOLENCE IN LATIN AMERICA - 1981/12/14

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05168213
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RIFPUB
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U
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12
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April 3, 2019
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April 12, 2019
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December 14, 1981
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Special eeport No. 90 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Cuba's Renewed Support for Violence in Latin America December 14, 1981 Following is the text of a research paper presented to the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the *nate Foreign Relations Committee by e Department of State, December 14, 981. CONTENTS PREFACE SUMMARY I. POLICIES II. METHODS III. CASE STUDIES Central America Nicaragua El Salvador Guatemala Costa Rica Honduras The Caribbean Jamaica Guyana Grenada Dominican Republic South America Colombia Chile Argentina Uruguay WV. POSTSCRIPT United States Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs Washington, D.C. PREFACE Any formulation of U.S. foreign policy for Latin America and the Caribbean would be incomplete without in-depth analysis of Cuba's role in the region. Some of Cuba's international activities have received publicity and attention, but much has taken place out of the public view. While understanding the full range of Cuba's activities abroad is obviously essential for governments engaged in foreign policy planning, the general public is often uninformed about the nature and extent of Cuba's involve- ment in other countries. This study of Cuban activities in Latin America and the Caribbean is being issued in the in- terest of contributing to better public understanding of U.S. foreign policy and developments in the region. The focus of this study is Cuba's ac- tivities in the Americas. It does not at- tempt to give a description of conditions in the countries in which Cuba is active or to analyze why violent groups de- velop, but instead examines the degree to which Cuba is directly engaged in efforts to destabilize its neighbors by promoting armed opposition movements. Cuba is clearly not the sole source of violence and instability in the region, but Cuban activities militarize and interna- tionalize what would otherwise be local conflicts. In a region whose primary needs are for economic development, social equity, and greater democracy, Cuba is compounding existing problems by encouraging armed insurrection. This report describes Cuban ac- tivities that are either publicly known or can be revealed without jeopardizing in- telligence sources and methods. Cuban involvement is not limited to the ex- amples contained in this study. SUMMARY A country-by-country examination of Cuba's activities in Latin America and the Caribbean makes clear that Cuba has renewed its campaign of the 1960s to promote armed insurgencies. In par- ticular, Cuba has stepped up efforts to stimulate violence and destabilize its neighbors, turning away from its earlier policy of strengthening normal diplo- matic relations in the hemisphere. Since 1978, Cuba has: � Worked to unite traditionally splintered radical groups behind a com- mitment to armed struggle with Cuban advice and material assistance; � Trained ideologically committed cadres in urban and rural guerrilla war- fare; � Supplied or arranged for the sup- ply of weapons to support the Cuban- trained cadres' efforts to assume power by force; � Encouraged terrorism in the hope of provoking indiscriminate violence and repression, in order to weaken govern- ment legitimacy and attract new con- verts to armed struggle; and � Used military aid and advisers to gain influence over guerrilla fronts and radical governments through armed pro- Cuban Marxists. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 4 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Unlike Che Guevara's attempts dur- ing the 1960s, Cuban subversion today is backed by an extensive secret intelli- gence and training apparatus, modern military forces, and a large and sophisti- cated propaganda network. Utilizing agents and contacts nurtured over more than 20 years, the Castro government is providing ideological and military train- ing and material and propaganda sup- port to numerous violent groups, often several in one country. Cuba is most active in Central America, where its immediate goals are to exploit and control the revolution in Nicaragua and to induce the overthrow of the Governments of El Salvador and Guatemala. At the same time, Cuba is working to destabilize governments else- where in the hemisphere. Cuba provides advice, safehaven, communications, training, and some financial support to several violent South American organizations. In the Caribbean, Cuban interference in the post-election period has been blunted in Jamaica, but Grenada has become a virtual Cuban client. Cuba's new drive to promote armed insurgency does not discriminate be- tween democracies and dictatorships. And attempts by Cuba to destabilize governments occur in spite of the ex- istence of diplomatic ties. This long-range campaign is directed by the Cuban Communist Party, which oversees farflung operations that include secret training camps in Cuba, intelli- gence officers abroad, training programs for select foreign students, networks for covert movement of personnel and material between Cuba and abroad, and propaganda suppOrt. Cuba's enormous investment of energy, money, and agents in this cam- paign would not be possible without Soviet help. Soviet assistance, now total- ing over $8 million a day, enables Cuba to maintain the best equipped and largest per capita military forces in Latin America and to channel substan- tial resources abroad. In return, Cuba usually is careful not to jeopardize ongo- ing government relationships in Latin America important to the Soviet Union. The scope of Cuba's activities in the hemisphere has prevented Cuba from always keeping covert operations hid- den. For instance, during 1981 alone: � In Nicaragua, Cuba has quietly in- creased its presence to 5,000 personnel, including more than 1,500 security and military advisers. � In El Salvador, Cuba's key role in arming the Salvadoran guerrillas was exposed and Castro admitted supplying arms. 2 � In Costa Rica, a Special Legisla- tive Commission documented Cuba's role in establishing an arms supply network during the Nicaraguan civil war and found the network was later used to supply Salvadoran insurgents. � In Colombia, Cuba was discovered to have trained guerrillas at- tempting to establish a "people's army." Cuba's new policies abroad and its reaction to emigration pressures at home have reversed the trend in Latin America toward normalization of rela- tions with Cuba. During the last 2 years, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Jamaica suspended or broke relations with Cuba. Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador withdrew their ambassadors from Havana. Cuban intervention is, of course, not the sole source of instability. The origins of occasional violent conflict in Latin America lie in historical social and eco- nomic inequities which have generated frustrations among a number of people. Sustained economic growth over the past 20 years and resilient national in- stitutions, however, have limited the ap- peal of radical groups. But in some countries, particularly the small nations of Central America, dislocations result- ing from rapid growth compounded existing tensions, leading to the emergence in several countries of radical movements, which often originated with frustrated elements of the middle class. Subsequent economic reversals have sub- jected already weak institutions to addi- tional stress, making these countries more vulnerable to the appeals of radical groups backed by Cuba. Cuba is quick to exploit legitimate grievances for its own ends. But its strategy of armed struggle is not based on appeals to the "people." Instead, Cuba concentrates on developing self- proclaimed "vanguards" committed to violent action. Revolutions, according to this approach, are made by armed revolutionaries. Cuba's readiness to train, equip, and advise those who opt for violent solu- tions imposes obstacles to economic progress, democratic development, and self-determination in countries faced with growing economic difficulties. The spiraling cycle of violence and counter- violence which is central to Cuba's policy only exacerbates the suffering of or- dinary people and makes necessary ad- justments more difficult. Cuba's renewed campaign of violence is of great concern to many countries, including the United States. Cuba should not escape responsibility for its actions. Exposing Cuba's efforts to promote armed struggle will increase the costs to Cuba of its intervention. I. POLICIES When it first came to power, the Cast regime had its own theory of how to spread revolution: to reproduce else- where the rural-based guerrilla warfare experience of Castro's 26th of July Movement in Cuba. In Che Guevara's words, the Andes would become the Sierra Maestra of South America. Initial attempts to repeat Cuba's revolution elsewhere failed decisively. During the late 1960s, the Castro regime gradually reined in its zealots. Without abandoning its ideology or its ties to radical states and movements, Cuba began to pursue normal government-to-government relations in the hemisphere. By the mid-1970s Cuba's isolation in the Americas eased, and full diplomatic or consular relations were reestablished with a number of countries. But diplomacy proved unable to satisfy the Castro government's ambi- tions. First in Africa and now in Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba's policy has again shifted to reemphasize intervention. On July 26, 1980, Fidel Castro declared that the experiences of Guate- mala, El Salvador, Chile, and Bolivia teach us that there is no other way th revolution, that there is no other "for- mula" than "revolutionary armed strug- gle." Castro's statement was an attempt to justify publicly what Cuban agents had been doing secretly since 1978: step- ping up support for armed insurgency in neighboring countries. This study traces the development of this latest phase in Cuba's foreign policy. Early Failures. The original Cuban theory held that a continental Marxist revolution could be achieved by estab- lishing armed focal points (focos) in several countries. Operating in rural areas, small bands of guerrillas could in- itiate struggles that would spread throughout the continent. In 1959, Castro aided armed expedi- tions against Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. During the early and mid-1960s, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia all faced serious Cuban-backed attempts to develop guerrilla focos. In seeking indigenous groups with which to cooperate, the Cubans rejected the orthodox Latin American Com- munist parties, which they regarded as ineffectual. Instead, they lent their su port to more militant groups dedicate to armed violence even when their Marxism was not fully articulated. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 The Soviet Union was suspicious of i Cuba's policy of inciting armed violence, referring to work through established oscow-line Communist parties. sagreement over this issue was a serious point of friction for several years. Cuba denounced the Soviet policy of "peaceful coexistence" as a fraud, arguing that it implicitly undercut the legitimacy of aiding "national liberation" struggles. At the 1966 Tricontinental Conference, Cuba sought to enlist North Vietnam and North Korea and create a more aggressive revolutionary interna- tionalism. None of the Latin American in- surgencies fomented by Havana, how- ever, aroused much popular support. The most severe blow to Cuba's policy during this period came in Bolivia in 1967, when Che Guevara's guerrilla band was opposed by both the peasantry and the Bolivian Communist Party. After this maverick approach failed to establish a continental revolution, Cuban foreign policy moved into closer conformity with that of the Soviet Union. Castro endorsed the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and accepted Soviet views on East-West relations. Within the hemisphere, Cuba generally 4113 onformed to the Soviet approach of stering state-to-state relations with several Latin American countries. The Turn to Africa. In the mid-1970s, Cuba renewed its penchant for direct intervention, not in Latin America but in Africa.' � In Angola, 20,000 Cuban troops, supported by Soviet logistics and materiel, assured the supremacy of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which had the strongest ties to Moscow of the three movements com- peting for power after Portugal's with- drawal. � In Ethiopia, the integration of Soviet and Cuban operations was even more complete, with the Soviets pro- viding overall command and control, materiel, and transport for 13-15,000 Cuban troops fighting against Somali forces. 'Cuba's military and political activities in Africa are intense and wideranging. Cuba still maintains expeditionary forces of at least 15-19,000 in Angola and 11-15,000 in Ethiopia. Cuba has military and security ad- viser contingents in a number of other African countries and in South Yemen. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 The Moscow-Havana Axis. These African operations gave evidence of Cuba's military value to the Soviet Union. In areas of the Third World where the Soviets were under con- straints not binding on Cuba, Havana could portray its actions as an out- growth of its own foreign policy of sup- port for "national liberation movements." Cuba's extensive and costly activities overseas would have been impossible, however, without Soviet aid. The Cuban armed forces, some 225,000 strong, with new sophisticated weaponry from the Soviet Union, became a formidable offensive military machine. Soviet aid and subsidies to the Cuban economy have climbed to more than $3 billion an- nually or about one-fourth of Cuba's gross national product. In December 1979, at a time when Soviet oil deliveries to Eastern Europe were being cut back and prices raised, Castro an- nounced that the Soviet Union had guaranteed Cuba's oil needs through 1985 at a price roughly one-third that of the world market. The Soviet Union also pays up to four and five times the world price for Cuban sugar.2 In return, Cuba champions the no- tion of a "natural alliance" between the Soviet bloc and the Third World in the nonaligned movement. At the Cuban Communist Party Congress in December 1980, Castro explicitly endorsed the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and defended the Soviet "right" to intervene in Poland. He also reiterated that Cuba is irrevocably committed to communism and to supporting "national liberation" struggles around the world. Cuba's policies abroad are thus linked to its relationship to the Soviet Union. By intervening in behalf of armed struggle in Latin America, Cuba injects East-West dimensions into local conflicts. 2According to the World Bank, Cuba's per capita annual growth rate averaged minus 1.2% during the period 1960-78. Cuban economic performance ranked in the lowest 5% worldwide and was the worst of all socialist countries. Only massive infusions of Soviet aid have kept consumption levels from plummeting. Cuba today depends more heavily on sugar_than before 195g. The in- dustrial sector hapSeen plagued by mis- management, absenteeism, and serious short- ages in capital goods and foreign exchange. The economic picture is so bleak that in 1979, and again in October 1981, the Cuban leader- ship had to warn that 10-20 more years of sacrifice lie.ghead. II. METHODS Even when pursuing an open policy in the 1970s of establishing normal diplo- matic relations with a number of Latin American countries, Cuba retained its clandestine ties with remnants of the in- surgents and other pro-Cuban elements in Latin America, providing asylum, propaganda, some training, and other support. Between 1970 and 1973, Cuba's security services moved arms and agents into Chile. At the same time, Cubans helped organize President Allende's per- sonal security and trained many leaders of the Chilean Movement of the Revolu- tionary Left. Cuba's renewed campaign to pro- mote insurgencies draws on these con- tacts and experiences and combines several different elements. Sophisticated Strategy. Learning from Che Guevara's failure in Bolivia, Cuban doctrine now emphasizes the need to enlist support for armed strug- gle through advanced training of local guerrilla cadres, sustained aid and ad- vice, and extensive propaganda ac- tivities. The foco approach of the 1960s�when a Cuban-sponsored team in the field was considered enough to spark insurrection�has given way to a more sophisticated strategy involving exten- sive commitments and risks. Soviet Support. A major difference from the 1960s is that, instead of throw- ing up obstacles, the Soviet Union generally has backed Cuban efforts to in- corporate nondoctrinaire groups into broad political-military fronts dedicated to armed struggle. Particularly in Cen- tral America, Soviet ties to local Com- munist parties and bloc relationships have been used to favor insurrectionary violence. For example, a senior Soviet Communist Party functionary traveled to Panama in August 1981 to discuss strategy for Central America with Cuban officials and leaders of Central American Communist parties. The Soviet Union has also used its extensive propaganda network selectively to dis- credit governments and build support for armed opposition groups. Allowing Havana to take the lead in the hemisphere enables Moscow to main- tain a low profile and cultivate state-to- state relations and economic ties with Major countries like Brazil and Argen- tina. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 3 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Cuba, in turn, is generally cautious not to undercut the Soviet Union where the Soviets have established valued rela- tionships. In Peru, for example, Cuba has been careful to exercise restraint to avoid prejudicing the status of the 300 Soviet officials there or jeopardizing the Soviet Union's arms supply arrange- ment. Central Control. Most of the covert operations in support of this strategy are planned and coordinated by the America Department of the Cuban Com- munist Party, headed by Manuel Pineiro Losada. The America Department emerged in 1974 to centralize opera- tional control of Cuba's covert activities. The department brings together the ex- pertise of the Cuban military and the General Directorate of Intelligence into a farflung operation that includes secret training camps in Cuba, networks for covert movement of personnel and materiel between Cuba and abroad, and sophisticated propaganda support. Agents of the America Department are present in every Cuban diplomatic mission in Latin America and the Carib- bean�in at least five recent instances in the person of the ambassador or charge d'affaires. America Department officials frequently serve as employees of Cuba's official press agency, Prensa Latina, of Cubana Airlines, the Cuban Institute of Friendship with People, and other ap- parently benign organizations. When too great an identification with Cuba proves counterproductive, Cuban intelligence officers work through front groups, preferably those with non-Cuban leader- ship.3 Cuban military intelligence personnel selected for clandestine operations in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East go through an elaborate training program conducted by Cuban, Soviet, East German, and Czech instructors in Havana, with special sessions in sur- rounding cities. In addition to the language and customs of the area to which they are assigned, and typical in- telligence operations such as infiltration procedures and photography techniques, the Cubans are instructed in handling explosives. To disguise their true oc- cupation, the intelligence agents are also instructed in civilian skills such as auto- motive mechanics, carpentry, and heavy equipment operation. 3Cuba maintains some front organizations set up in the 1960s. One of these, the Con- tinental Organization of Latin American Students, still holds irregular congresses of student leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean (the most recent in Havana in August 1981) and publishes a monthly journal distributed by the Cuban Government. 4 Armed Struggle. The new Cuban offensive relies heavily on violence. In outline, Cuba's strategy is to: O Unite traditionally splintered radi- cal groups behind a commitment to armed struggle with Cuban advice and material assistance; O Train ideologically committed cadres in urban and rural guerrilla war- fare; O Supply or arrange for the supply of weapons to support the Cuban-trained cadres' efforts to assume power by force; O Encourage terrorism in the hope of provoking indiscriminate violence and repression and generalized disorder in order to weaken government legitimacy and attract new converts to armed struggle; and O Use military aid and advisers to gain influence over guerrilla fronts and radical governments through armed pro- Cuban Marxists. The application of this strategy is demonstrated in detail in the case studies that follow. It should be noted, however, that Cuba sometimes empha- sizes certain tactics over others. In pur- suing its long-term strategy, Cuba con- cer.trates initially on building a network of loyal cadres. When local extremist groups are not capable of or committed to armed struggle, Cuba generally draws on them in support of active insurgen- cies elsewhere while developing their capacity and willingness for agitation in their homeland. In addition, foreign policy concerns may deter Cuba from promoting armed struggle in a particu- lar country. For example, Cuba at- tempts to avoid activities which could jeopardize its relations with the Mexican Government since Castro seeks Mexico's support to avoid isolation in the heinisphere.4 Propaganda. Cuba's extensive cultural exchange and propaganda ac- tiv:.ties are tailored to support covert operations and elicit support for armed 4Although Cuba is not involved in actions directly threatening to Mexican internal stability, Cuba has taken advantage of Mex- ico's open society and its extensive presence there�Cuba's Embassy in Mexico City is its largest diplomatic mission in the hemi- sphere�to carry out support activities for in- surgencies in other countries. Mexico is a principal base for Cuban contacts with repre- sentatives of several armed Latin American groups on guerrilla strategy, logistical sup- port, and international activities. struggle.3 For example, during the past year, Cubans have used Mexico as a base for coordination of propaganda o behalf of insurgents in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia. Radio Havair and other Cuban media recently have publicized statements by Chilean Com- munist Party leaders urging unity of the Chilean left and calling for armed action to topple Chile's government. Radio Havana has directed broadcasts to Para- guay urging the overthrow of the Para- guayan Government. Sports competitions, youth and cultural festivals, and special scholar- ships to Cuba provide channels to iden- tify potential agents for intelligence and propaganda operations. In Ecuador, Cuban Embassy officers in Quito used their ties with Ecuadoran students to try to orchestrate pro-Cuba demonstra- tions when the Government of Ecuador threatened to suspend relations after Cuba's forcible and unauthorized occupa- tion in February 1981 of the Ecuadoran Embassy in Havana, following its seizure by a group of Cubans seeking to leave Cuba. Military Training. Witnesses and former trainees have described several camps in Cuba dedicated specifically to military training, including one in Pin del Rio Province and another near Guanabo, east of Havana. The camps can accommodate several hundred trainees. Groups from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Hon- duras, Colombia, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Chile, and Uruguay have been trained in 5Prensa Latina, the press agency of the Cuban Government, has field offices in 35 countries, including 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, and combines news gathering and propaganda dissemination with intelligence operations. Radio Havana, Cuba's shortwave broadcasting service, transmits more than 350 program hours per week in eight languages to all points of the world. Cuba also transmits nightly mediumwave Spanish-language broadcasts over "La Voz de Cuba," a network of high-powered trans- mitters located in different parts of Cuba. In the Caribbean alone, Radio Havana's weekly broadcasts include 14 hours in Creole to Haiti; 60 hours in English; 3 hours in French; and 125 hours in Spanish. Prensa Latina and Radio Havana, in close coordination with TASS and Radio Moscow, regularly use dis- information to distort news reports trans- mitted to the region, especially those con- cerning places where Cuban covert activitie0 are most intense. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 these facilities during the past 2 years.6 0Recruits are normally provided false ocumentation (sometimes Cuban pass- orts) by Cuban agents in third coun- tries and are flown to Cuba on civil air- craft under cover as "students" or other occupations. Panama has been used as a regular transit point for Central and South Americans to and from military training in Cuba.' Once in Cuba, trainees generally are taken immediately to the guerrilla train- ing camps where they usually are grouped according to nationality and the organization for which they are being trained in order to promote a sense of cohesiveness and esprit de corps. Training normally lasts 3-6 months and consists of instruction by Cuban cadres in sabotage, explosives, military tactics, and weapons use. Although military training is frecfuently tied close- ly to operational requirements�the M-19 guerrillas who landed in Colombia in early 1981 did so immediately upon completion of their military instruction in Cuba�witnesses report that political indoctrination is also included in the cur- riculum. Many Cuban instructors are active military officers and veterans of Cuban xpeditionary forces in Africa. Soviet ersonnel have been reported at these camps, but they apparently do not par- ticipate directly in the guerrilla training. Political Training. Each year Cuba offers hundreds of scholarships to foreign students. All Cuban mass organi- zations operate schools in organizational 6Latin Americans are not the only trainees. In a May 1978 Reuters interview published in Beirut, Abu Khalaf, a leader of the military branch of Al Fatah, confirmed that Palestinian agents have received train- ing in Cuba since the late 1960s. Palestinian organizations, with Cuban assistance, have reciprocated by training various Latin American groups in the Middle East. Libya, which hosted a meeting of Latin American "liberation movements" January 25-Febru- ary 1, 1979, also has trained some Latin American extremists. 'Public exposure in March 1981 of the use of Panama as a transit point for Colom- bian guerrillas trained in Cuba led to sharp criticism of Cuba by the Panamanian Govern- ment. Panama imposed greater controls on activities of exiled Central and South Americans, and the transit of guerrillas through Panama appears to have ceased, at least temporarily. work and indoctrination open to care- fully selected foreign students.8 In addi- tion, some 11,000 non-Cuban secondary school students, mostly teenagers, were enrolled in 1980 in 15 schools on the Isle of Youth alone. Cuba does not publicize complete foreign enrollment statistics nor does it release the names of those trained. From the eastern Caribbean alone, close to 300 students are current- ly in Cuba studying technical and aca- demic subjects. The study of Marxism- Leninism is compulsory in many courses, and military affairs is compulsory in some. When governments have turned down Cuban scholarship offers, as oc- curred recently in Belize and Dominica, Cuba has gone ahead and concluded private agreements. Local Marxist- Leninist groups with ties to Cuba play a major role in selecting those students who receive scholarships. In sum, the infrastructure for Cuba's intensified revolutionary agitation in Latin America is a multifaceted yet carefully coordinated mechanism. The Cuban Communist Party, through its America Department, provides cohesion and direction to a complex network that consists of intelligence officers, elements of Cuba's foreign ministry, armed forces, mass organizations, commercial and cultural entities, and front groups. This extensive apparatus is designed to support one objective: a systematic, long-range campaign to destabilize governments. 8Courses in agitation and propaganda open to foreigners include the Central Union of Cuban Workers' Lazaro Pena Trade Union Cadre School and similar courses run by the Union of Young Communists, the Cuban Women's Federation, the National Associa- tion of Small Farmers, and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Even the � Cuban Communist Party offers special courses for non-Cubans in party provincial schools and in the Nico Lopez National Train- ing School, its highest educational institution. The Cuban press reported graduation ceremonies July 17, 1981, for this year's 70 Cuban graduates and announced that 69 foreigners had also attended advanced courses at the Nico Lopez school. Foreign students represented political organizations from Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Grenada, Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Sao Tome y Principe, and South Yemen. Official Cuban Communist Party newspaper Gramma labeled their Presence "a beautiful example of proletarian internationalism." Courses of in- struction at the Nico Lopez school, which is chaired by senior party leaders, include "political training for journalists," "political training for propagandists," economics, and ideology. III. CASE STUDIES The Cuban activities described in the case studies which follow must be con- sidered to understand developments within the countries in question. How- ever, the focus of the case studies is Cuban involvement in each country. Readers should, therefore, guard against assuming that the cases below provide a comprehensive picture of the general situation in the country where the events described have taken place. Central America Nicaragua. In July 1979, internal and external factors converged to bring about the triumph of the anti-Somoza in- surrection and the subsequent domina- tion of the new Nicaraguan Government by the Cuban-trained leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). These events provided a key test for Cuba's new mechanisms and strategy for promoting armed pro-Cuban movements in this hemisphere. Opposition to Somoza's authoritarian rule in the late 1970s was widespread. The 1978 killing of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, publisher of Nicaragua's most respected newspaper, La Prensa, converted many Nicaraguans to the armed opposition of which the FSLN was the core; FSLN assurances on democracy and pluralism were accepted by newly allied political moderates and private businessmen. Internationally, sympathy for the struggle against Somoza led Venezuela, Panama, and Costa Rica to aid the insurgents, while Somoza stood practically without friends. This environment enabled Cuba to disguise the extent of its support for the FSLN and avoid disrupting the fragile alliances between the FSLN and other opponents of Somoza. Behind the scenes, Cuba played an active role in organizing the FSLN and in training and equipping it militarily. Cuba had provided some training and arms to the FSLN in the early 1960s. Until late 1977, however, Cuban support consisted mainly of propaganda and safehaven. In 1977 and early 1978, a high- ranking America Department official, Armando Ulises Estrada,9 made 9Ulises Estrada was given his first am- bassadorial post in Jamaica following the July 1979 victory of anti-Somoza forces (see Jamaica case study). He is currently Cuba's ambassador to South Yemen. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 numerous secret trips to facilitate the uprising by working to unify the three major factions of the FSLN. Stepped-up Cuban support to the Sandinistas was conditioned on effective unity. During the XI World Youth Festival in Havana in late July 1978, the Cubans announced that the unification of the three factions had been achieved and urged Latin American radicals present at the meeting to demonstrate solidarity with the FSLN by staging operations in their own countries. At the same time, Estrada concen- trated on building a supply network for channeling arms and other supplies to guerrilla forces. International sympathy for the struggle against Somoza provid- ed a convenient facade for Cuban opera- tions. In preparation for the first FSLN offensive in the fall of 1978, arms were flown from Cuba to Panama, trans- shipped to Costa Rica on smaller planes, and supplied to Nicaraguan guerrillas based in northern Costa Rica. To moni- tor and assist the flow, the America Department established a secret opera- tions center in San Jose. By the end of 1978, Cuban advisers were dispatched to northern Costa Rica to train and equip the FSLN forces with arms which began to arrive direct from Cuba. FSLN guer- rillas trained in Cuba, however, con- tinued to return to Nicaragua via Panama. In early 1979, Cuba helped organize, arm, and transport an "internationalist brigade" to fight alongside FSLN guer- rillas. Members were drawn from several Central and South American ex- tremist groups, many of them experi- enced in terrorist activities. Castro also dispatched Cuban military specialists to the field to help coordinate the war efforts. Factionalism threatened San- dinista unity again in early 1979, and Castro met personally with leaders of three FSLN factions tO hammer out a renewed unity pact. When the insurgents' final offensive was launched in mid-1979, Cuban military advisers from the Department of Special Operations, a special military unit, were with FSLN columns and maintained direct radio communications to Havana. A number of Cuban advisers were wounded in combat and were evacuated to Cuba via Panama. The operations center run by the America Department in San Jose was� the focal point for coordination of Cuba's support. After the triumph of the anti- Somoza forces in July 1979, the chief of 6 the center, Julian Lopez Diaz, became Cuban Ambassador to Nicaragua. One of his America Department assistants in San Jose, Andres Barahona, was redocu- mented as a Nicaraguan citizen and became a top official of the Nicaraguan intelligence service. Castro has counseled the Sandinistas to protect their Western ties to keep the country afloat economically. But to in- sure that the FSLN could move to domi- nate the Nicaraguan Government, Cuba has acted quickly to build up Sandinista military and security forces. Since July 1979, Cuba has provided substantial military, technical, and political assistance. Some 5,000 Cuban advisers, teachers, and medical person- nel work at all levels of the military and civilian infrastructures." Of this number, more than 1,500 military and security advisers are actively providing military instruction and combat training; instruction in intelligence and counter- intelligence activities; instruction on security protection for the FSLN leader- ship; and advice on organization of the Nicaraguan police force. In addition, Nicaragua has received within the past year approximately $28 million worth of military equipment from the U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, and Cuba. This has in- cluded tanks, light aircraft, helicopters, heavy artillery, surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft weapons, hundreds of military transport vehicles, as well as tons of small arms and ammunition. Cuba presently is using Nicaraguan territory to provide training and other facilities to guerrillas active in neighbor- ing countries. The Cuban Ambassador to Nicaragua and other America Depart- ment officials frequently meet with Cen- tral American guerrillas in Managua to advise them on tactics and strategy. In- dividual Sandinista leaders have par- ticipated in such meetings and have met independently with Guatemalan and Salvadoran insurgents. The FSLN also '�The very quantity of Cuban advisers has caused resentment among nationalist Nicaraguans, leading to sporadic outbursts of anti-Cuban feelings. On June 3, 1981, the FSLN announced that 2,000 Cuban primary school teachers presently in Nicaragua would return to Cuba in July, at the mid-point of Nicaragua's academic year. The Nicaraguan Education Minister announced on June 18 that 800 of those departing would return in September after vacations in Cuba, while Cuba would replace the other 1,200 teachers in February. By November 1981, however, all 2,000 Cuban teachers had returned to Nica- ragua. has cooperated in a joint effort by Cuba and Palestinian groups to provide mili- tary training in the Mideast to selected Latin American extremists. Some San dinistas were themselves trained by th Palestine Liberation Organization, which maintains an embassy in Nicaragua. Between October 1980 and February 1981, Nicaragua was the staging site for a massive Cuban-directed flow of arms to Salvadoran guerrillas. Arms destined for Salvadoran and Guatemalan guer- rillas continue to pass through Nicaragua. El Salvador. Before 1979, Cuban support to Salvadoran radicals involved training small numbers of guerrillas, providing modest financial aid, and serv- ing as a political conduit between Salva- doran extremists and Communists out- side the hemisphere. During the Nicaraguan civil war, Cuba concentrated on support for the FSLN. After the fall of Somoza, Cuba began intense efforts to help pro-Cuban guerrillas come to power in El Salvador. When a reform-minded, civil-military government was established in October 1979, Cuba's first priority was to tighten the political organization and unity of El Salvador's fragmented violent left. At first, arms shipments and other aid fro Cuba were kept low as the Cubans in- sisted on a unified strategy as the pric of increased material support. To forge unity, Cuba sponsored a December 1979 meeting in Havana that resulted in an initial unity agreement among the Armed Forces of National Resistance (FARN), the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), and the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES), which had itself formed an armed wing at Cuban and Soviet insistence. In late May 1980, after more negotiations in Havana, the Popular Revolutionary Army (ERP) was admitted into the guerrilla coalition. The new combined military com- mand assumed the name of the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU). Dur- ing this period, Cuba also coordinated the development of clandestine support networks in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, sometimes using arms supply mechanisms established during the Nicaraguan civil war. With unified tactics and operations now possible, Cuba began to assist the guerrillas in formulating military strategy. Cuban specialists helped the DRU devise initial war plans in the sum- mer of 1980. The Cubans influenced the guerrillas to launch a general offensiv in January 1981. After the offensive failed, guerrilla leaders traveled to Havana in February 1981 to finalize a Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 strategy to "improve our internal mili- tary situation" by engaging in a � "negotiating maneuver" to gain time to regroup." Cuba provided few weapons and am- munition to Salvadoran guerrillas from its own resources but played a key role in coordinating the acquisition and delivery of arms from Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Eastern Europe through Nicaragua." After the unmasking of this network, Cuba and Nicaragua reduced the flow in March and early April. Prior to a guerrilla offensive in August an upswing in deliveries oc- curred. The arms flow continues via clandestine surface and air routes. In ad- dition, the Cubans over the past year have established a network of small ships to deliver arms to Salvadoran in- surgent groups. Cuba also assists the Salvadoran guerrillas in contacts with Arab radical states and movements to arrange military training and financing for arms acquisitions. In September 1980, Cuba laundered $500,000 in Iraqi funds for the Salvadoran insurgents. In March 1981, the Salvadoran Communist Party Secretary General, Shafik Handal, visited Lebanon and Syria to meet with ',Palestinian leaders. Cuba also coor- dinates the training of a relatively small number of Salvadoran guerrillas in Palestinian camps in the Mideast. Cuban training of Salvadoran guer- rillas increased sharply in 1980 as Cuba concentrated on building a trained army able to mount major offensives. A typical 3-month training program includ- ed courses in guerrilla tactics; marksmanship and weapons use; field engineering; demolition; fortification construction; land navigation; use of ar- tillery and mines. One observer reported seeing groups up to battalion size (250-500 men) under instruction, sug- "A guerrilla document outlining this strategy was found in Nicaragua in February 1981. Guerrilla representatives later con- firmed its authenticity to Western Europeans with the disclaimer that the strategy elaborately developed in the paper had been rejected. "The Cuban role as arms broker to the DRU since 1979 has been documented in the Department of State's Special Report No. 80, Communist Interference in El Salvador, February 23, 1981. In April 1981, when Socialist International representative Wischnewski confronted Castro with the evidence in the report, Castro admitted to Shim that Cuba had shipped arms to the guer- rillas. In discussions with several Inter- Parliamentary Union delegations at the September 1981 IPU conference in Havana, Castro again conceded that Cuba had sup- plied arms. gesting that some guerrillas trained as integral units." Cuba has provided selected guer- rillas more intensive training on specialized subjects. A former FPL guerrilla who defected in fall 1981 reported that during 1980 he had re- ceived 7 months of military training in Cuba, including instruction in scuba div- ing and underwater demolition. Soviet scuba equipment was used. The group trained as frogmen called themselves "combat swimmers" and were told that their mission was to destroy dams, bridges, port facilities, and boats. Cuba also gives political, organiza- tional, and propaganda support to the guerrillas. Cuban diplomatic facilities worldwide help guerrilla front groups with travel arrangements and contacts. The Cuban press agency, Prensa Latina, has handled communications for guer- rilla representation abroad. Cuba and the Soviet Union have pressed Com- munist parties and radical groups to support the insurgency directly, and through solidarity organizations with propaganda and facilities (office space, equipment, etc.). The Salvadoran insurgents have publicly stressed the importance of solidarity groups. A member of the FPL, Oscar Bonilla, who attended the Fourth Consultative Meeting in Havana of the Continental Organization of Latin American Students (OCLAE), a Cuban front group, told Radio Havana in August 1981 that OCLAE "has been the most important means of solidarity of all the peoples and has gotten us ready to form an anti-interventionist student front in El Salvador, Central America and the Caribbean. . . . We believe that it is good to carry out immediate plans for actions which will permit us to stop an imperialist intervention in El Salvador. In this respect, the students of Latin America will have to confront and attack U.S. interests so that the United States will see how the Latin American and Caribbean student movement responds to an aggression by im- perialism in El Salvador." With Soviet assistance, Cuba has or- chestrated propaganda to distort the realities of the Salvadoran conflict. Unattributed foreign media placements and efforts to organize protests against the Salvadoran Government and U.S. policy, which have accompanied official propaganda, stress the theme of U.S. in- "Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez tacitly admitted that Cuba was providing military training to Salvadoran guerrillas in an interview published in Der Spiegel on September 28, 1981. tent to intervene militarily in El Salvador. Unfounded claims and accusations originated by the Salvadoran guerrillas are routinely replayed to a regional and world audience by Cuba's Radio Havana or Prensa Latina, then echoed by the official Soviet Press Agency TASS, Radio Moscow, and Eastern European media. For example, a false report of a U.S. soldier killed in El Salvador that resounded widely in Cuban/Soviet propa- ganda during 1980 was traced finally to the Salvadoran Communist Party. This rumor was to support an even bigger lie: that hundreds of U.S. soldiers were in El Salvador, building U.S. bases, and herding peasants into Vietnam-style strategic hamlets." Guatemala. Castro has stepped up Cuba's support to Guatemalan guerrillas whom he has aided with arms and train- ing since he came to power. As elsewhere, Cuba has influenced divided extremist groups to unite and has conditioned increased Cuban aid on a commitment to armed struggle and a unified strategy. During 1980, discus- sions about a unity agreement were held among leaders of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), the Organization of Peo- ple in Arms (ORPA), and the dissident faction of the Guatemalan Communist Party (PGT/D). At the invitation of San- dinista leaders, representatives of the four groups met in Managua under strict security to continue discussions. In November 1980, the four organizations signed a unity agreement in Managua to establish the National Revolutionary Union (with a revolutionary directorate called the General Revolutionary Com- mand�CGR). Manuel Pineiro Losada, Chief of the America Department, and Ramiro Jesus Abreu Quintana, head of its Central American Division, repre- sented Fidel Castro at the signing cere- mony. Following the signing of the unity agreement, representatives of the CGR traveled to Havana to present the docu- ment to Castro. ORPA publicized the agreement in a communique issued "At the time these reports first ap- peared, the United States was providing neither arms nor ammunition to El Salvador. In January 1981, the United States respond- ed to the Cuban-orchestrated general offen- sive by sending some military assistance and later sent American military trainers, whose number never exceeded 55. There are no U.S. combatants, bases, or strategic hamlets in El Salvador. TASS continues to report falsely that "hundreds" of U.S. military per- sonnel are in El Salvador and participate in combat. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 November 18, 1980. All parties agreed it was significant that the unity agreement was the first such document signed on Central American soil. After this unity agreement was con- cluded, Cuba agreed to increase military training and assistance. A large number of the 2,000 or more guerrillas now ac- tive have trained in Cuba. Recent military training programs have included instruction in the use of heavy weapons. During the past year, arms have been smuggled to Guatemala from Nicaragua passing overland through Honduras. The guerrilla arsenal now in- cludes 50mm mortars, submachine guns, rocket launchers, and other weapons. Captured M-16 rifles have been traced to U.S. forces in Vietnam. On June 26, 1981, Paulino Castillo, a 28-year-old guerrilla with ORPA, told newsmen in Guatemala that he was part of a 23-man group of Guatemalans that underwent 7 months of training in Cuba, beginning around February 1980. His group was divided into sections for urban and rural combat training in explosives and fire- arms use. To get to Cuba, Castillo traveled to Costa Rica from Guatemala by public bus. In Costa Rica, a go-be- tween obtained a Panamanian passport for Castillo to enter Panama. In Panama, other contacts equipped him with a Cuban passport and he continued on to Cuba. Castillo returned to Guatemala via Nicaragua to rejoin the guerrillas. He later surrendered to a Guatemalan army patrol. Guatemalan guerrillas have col- laborated with Salvadoran guerrillas. In January 1981, the EGP, ORPA, FAR, and the PGT/D circulated a joint bulletin announcing the intensification of their activities in support of the general offen- sive in El Salvador. The Salvadorans in turn have provided the Guatemalans with small quantities of arms. Unity has not been fully achieved, as the four groups have not yet carried out plans to establish a political front group. The joint military strategy, however, is being implemented. The guerrillas have stepped up terrorist actions in an effort to provoke repression and destabilize the government. For example, the EGP took responsibility for placing a bomb in one of the pieces of luggage that was to have been loaded onto a U.S. Eastern Airlines plane on July 2. The bomb ex- ploded before being loaded, killing a Guatemalan airport employee. Costa Rica. Cuba took advantage of Costa Rica's strong popular and govern- mental opposition to Somoza's authoritarian government and of Costa Rica's open democratic society to estab- 8 lish and coordinate a covert support net- work for guerrilla operations elsewhere in Central America. The apparatus was established during the course of the Nicaraguan civil war and maintained clandestinely thereafter. Costa Rica was well disposed toward groups that op- posed Somoza, including the Sandinista guerrillas. Aid provided by Panama and Venezuela was openly funneled through Costa Rica to the Nicaraguan rebels. Cuba, however, kept its role largely hid- den. A Special Legislative Commission established in June 1980 by the Costa Rican legislature revealed Cuba's exten- sive role in arming the Nicaraguan guer- rillas. The commission determined that there were at least 21 flights carrying war materiel between Cuba and Llano Grande and Juan Santamaria Airports in Costa Rica.15 Costa Rican pilots who made these flights reported that Cubans frequently accompanied the shipments. Although Cubans were stationed at Llano Grande, their main operations center for coor- dinating logistics and contacts with the Sandinistas was set up secretly in San Jose and run by America Department official Lopez Diaz. The Special Legisla- tive Commission estimated that a minimum of 1 million pounds of arms moved to Costa Rica from Cuba and elsewhere during the Nicaraguan civil war, including anti-aircraft machine- guns, rocket launchers, bazookas, and mortars. The commission also estimated that a substantial quantity of these weapons remained in Costa Rica after the fall of Somoza in July 1979. The Special Legislative Commission concluded that after the Nicaraguan civil war had ended, "arms trafficking [began], originating in Costa Rica or through Costa Rican territory, toward El Salvador, indirectly or using Hon- duras as a bridge." Through 1980 and in- to 1981 traffic flowed intermittently through Costa Rica to El Salvador, directed clandestinely by the Cubans. In the summer of 1979, the Cubans and their paid agent, Fernando Carrasco Manes, a Chilean national residing in Costa Rica, along with several Costa Ricans previously involved in the logistics effort for the FSLN, agreed to continue smuggling arms to Salvadoran guerrillas. The Cubans arranged for ac- quisition of some of the arms and am- munition remaining in Costa Rica from the Nicaraguan airlift to supply the Salvadoran insurgents. riThe commission's report was issued May 14, 1981. This new Cuban operation was coor- dinated from San Jose, first from their secret operations center, then later directly from the Cuban Consulate. Th major coordinator, until his expulsion - from Costa Rica in May 1981 following the break in consular relations between Costa Rica and Cuba, was Fernando Pascual Comas Perez of the America Department. Comas worked directly for Manuel Pineiro and had the cover title of Cuban Vice Consul in San Jose. Cuban agents made arrangements to store arms for transshipment to El Salvador and to help hundreds of Salvadoran guerrillas pass through Costa Rica in small groups on their way to training in Cuba. Cuban operations have been facilitated by Costa Rica's three Marxist-Leninist parties, which have provided funds, safehaven, transportation, and false documents.' 6 Terrorism had been virtually unknown in Costa Rica until March 1981 except for scattered incidents of largely foreign origin. The first Costa Rican ter- rorists made their appearance in March when they blew up a vehicle carrying a Costa Rican chauffeur and three Marine security guards from the U.S. Embassy in San Jose. In April, four terrorists from the same group were captured after machine-gunning a police vehicle. In June, the group murdered three policemen and a taxi driver. Costa Rican authorities have arrested some 20 ac- cused terrorists and are continuing to in- vestigate leads linking them to South American terrorist groups such as the Argentine Montoneros, the Uruguayan Tupamaros, and Colombia's M-19, and to Cuba itself. Two of the accused ter- rorists are known to have received train- ing in the Soviet Union. Director of the Judicial Investigation Organization Eduardo Aguilar Bloise told a press conference August 12 that captured terrorist documents indicated that two Costa Rican peasants had been given "ideological/military training" in 16In a recorded interview broadcast by Radio Havana on June 16, 1981, Eduardo Mora, Deputy Secretary General of Costa Rica's Popular Vanguard Party (the Moscow- line traditional Communist party, the least disposed to violence of the country's several Marxist parties and splinter groups) ex- plained his party's position: "We establish ties with all revolutionary organizations in Cen- tral America. We have close ties and are will- ing to give all the aid we possibly can in accordance with the principles of proletarian internationalism because we believe that th struggle of the Central American people is the struggle of our own people." Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Cuba and returned to work in the Atlan- tic coastal zone of Costa Rica. The docu- ments indicate that the two were in uba from 8 to 12 months�possibly in 1978�and were financed by the terrorist group known popularly in Costa Rica as "the family." Aguilar said he did not dis- count the possibility that others had been trained in Cuba. Although most of Costa Rica's Marxist-Leninist parties have advocated a peaceful line in respect to Costa Rica, one group with close ties to Cuba�the Revolutionary Movement of the People (MRP)�while disavowing responsibility for terrorist acts, has spoken of them as "well intentioned." Some of the arrested terrorists are known to have belonged to the MRP at one time. On November 5, the Office of National Security an- nounced the discovery of a terrorist cell clearly connected with the MRP. Among the arms and terrorist paraphernalia confiscated was an Uzi submachinegun with silencer. Earlier, the authorities had confiscated a "plan for Guanacaste" from an MRP official which noted such objectives as "prevent the electoral proc- ess from developing in a festive at- mosphere" and "the taking of power by the armed people." The head of the 0nMRP has traveled many times to Cuba, d Cuba has given training to other RP leaders. Honduras. Cuba provided para-military training to a small number of Hondurans in the early 1960s, but relations with Honduran radicals were strained until the late 1970s. Cuba then resumed military training for members of the Honduran Communist Party (PCH) and integrated them into the "in- ternationalist brigade" fighting in the Nicaraguan civil war. After the war, PCH members returned to Cuba for ad- ditional training. Since then Cuba has concentrated primarily on developing Honduras as a conduit for arms and other aid to guer- rillas active elsewhere in Central America. In January 1981, Honduran officials discovered a large cache of con- cealed arms intended for Salvadoran guerrillas, which included M-16 rifles traced to Vietnam. Smuggled arms have continued to be intercepted. While considering Honduras a useful support base for insurgencies elsewhere, Cuba is also working to develop the capacity for insurrection within Hon- duras. In the normal pattern, Havana 0 as urged splintered extremist groups in onduras to unify and embrace armed niggle. While holding back from levels of support given to Salvadoran and Guatemalan guerrillas, Cuba has in- creased its training of Honduran ex- tremists in political organization and military operations. Cuba has also prom- ised to provide Honduran guerrillas their own arms, including submachine- guns and rifles. On November 27, Honduran authori- ties discovered a guerrilla safehouse on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa. Two guer- rillas were killed in the resulting shoot- out, including a Uruguayan citizen. Nicaraguans as well as Hondurans were captured at the house, where a substan- tial arsenal of automatic weapons and explosives was seized. Incriminating documents, including notebooks which indicate recent attendance in training courses in Cuba, were also confiscated. One of those arrested, Jorge Pinel Betancourt, a 22-year-old Honduran, told reporters the group was headed for El Salvador to join Salvadoran guer- rillas. Two additional guerrilla safe- houses located in La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula were raided on November 29, and authorities seized sizable arms caches, explosives, and communications equipment. These arms may have been destined for use within Honduras. The Caribbean Jamaica. In the late 1970s, Jamaica became a special target for Cuba. Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials developed close relationships with impor- tant members of the People's National Party, which governed Jamaica from 1973 until 1980. Cuban security person- nel trained Jamaican security officers in Cuba and Jamaica, including members of the security force of the office of the Prime Minister. Cuba also trained about 1,400 Jamaican youths in Cuba as con- struction workers through a "brigadista" program. Political indoctrination in Cuba formed part of this group's curriculum. A considerable number of these Jamaican youths received military train- ing while in Cuba, including instruction in revolutionary tactics and use of arms. During this same period, the Cuban diplomatic mission in Jamaica grew. Most of the embassy staff, including former Ambassador Ulises Estrada, were Cuban intelligence agents. Ulises Estrada, who had served as a deputy head of the America Department for 5 years, had a long history of involvement in political action activities and intelli- gence operations and went to Jamaica in July 1979, after playing a major role in Cuba's involvement in the Nicaraguan civil war. Cuba was instrumental in smuggling arms and ammunition into Jamaica. A Cuban front corporation (Moonex Inter- national, registered in Lichtenstein, with subsidiaries in Panama and Jamaica) was discovered in May 1980 to be the designated recipient of a shipment of 200,000 shotgun shells and .38 caliber pistol ammunition shipped illegally to Jamaica from Miami. Jamaican authori- ties apprehended the local manager of the corporation, accompanied by the Jamaican Minister of National Security and Cuban Ambassador E strada, as the manager was attempting to leave the country, in defiance of police instruc- tions, on a private plane. The manager subsequently paid a fine of U.S. $300,000 set by a Jamaican court. In 1980, weapons were reported stockpiled in the Cuban Embassy for possible use by Jamaicans during the election campaign. M-16 rifles then ap- peared in Jamaica for the first time and were used in attacks against supporters of the opposition Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) and the security forces. Over 70 of these weapons have been found by Jamaican authorities. Some of the M-16s found in Jamaica have serial numbers in the same numerical series as captured M-16s shipped to Salvadoran guerrillas from Vietnam. Ambassador Ulises E strada was withdrawn from his post in November 1980, at the request of the newly elected JLP government. In January 1981, the Jamaican Government terminated the "brigadista" program and recalled Jamaican students remaining in Cuba under this program. The government decided to maintain diplomatic relations but warned Cuba to stop its interference in Jamaican affairs. Cuba continued to maintain some 15 intelligence agents at the Cuban Embassy in Kingston. On Oc- tober 29, the government broke diplo- matic relations with Cuba, citing Cuba's failure to return three Jamaican fugitive criminals as the immediate cause for this action. On November 17, the govern- ment publicly detailed Cuba's role in pro- viding covert military training under the curtailed "brigadista" program. Guyana. In 1978, as many as 200 Cuban technicians, advisers, and medical personnel were stationed in Guyana. However, while claiming fraternal rela- tions with Guyana's Government, Cuba maintained contact with radical opposi- tion groups. Guyanese authorities suspected the Cubans of involvement in a crippling sugar strike. In August 1978, five Cuban diplomats were expelled for involvement in illegal activities. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Cuban military advisers have provid- ed guerrilla training outside Guyana to members of a small radical Guyanese op- position group, the Working People's Alliance. Five of the seven members of the Cuban Embassy are known or sus- pected intelligence agents. Grenada. Cuban influence in Grenada mushroomed almost immediate- ly after the March 1979 coup led by the New Jewel Movement of Maurice Bishop. Bishop and his closest colleagues were Western-educated Marxist radicals, and they turned for help to Fidel Castro, who proved willing to provide assistance. To allow close Cuban supervision of Grenadian programs, a senior intelli- gence officer from the America Depart- ment, Julian Torres Rizo, was sent to Grenada as ambassador. Torres Rizo has maintained intimate relations with Bishop and other People's Revolutionary Government ministers, such as Bernard Coard. The Grenadian Government has followed a pro-Soviet foreign policy line. Cuban and Grenadian voting records in international organizations have been nearly identical, so much so that they alone of all Western Hemisphere nations have voted against U.N. resolutions con- demning the Soviet invasion of Afghani- stan. Cuban aid to Grenada has been most extensive in those areas which affect the security of its client government and the island's strategic usefulness to Cuba. Cuba has advisers on the island offering military, technical, security, and propa- ganda assistance to the Bishop govern- ment. Many Grenadians have been sent to Cuba for training in these areas. Last year journalists observed Cuban officials directing and giving orders to Grenadian soldiers marching in ceremonies in St. George's. Cuba is aiding the construction of a 75-kilowatt transmitter for -Radio Free Grenada. Grenada's state-controlled press, enjoying a government-enforced monopoly, currently hews to a strict "revolutionary" line. Indications are that the new transmitter will continue this emphasis while providing facilities for beaming Cuban and Soviet-supplied propaganda into the Caribbean and South America. Cubas largest project in Grenada is the construction of a major airfield at Point Salines on the southern tip of the island. Cuba has provided hundreds of construction workers and Soviet equip- ment to build the airfield. This airfield, according to Grenadian Government statements, is required to bring tourism 10 to its full economic potential and will be used as a civilian airport only. Many questions have been raised, however, about the economic justification for the project. The Grenadian Government has ignored requests for a standard project analysis of economic benefits. The planned 9,800-foot Point Salines run- way, moreover, has clear military poten- tial. Such an airfield will allow opera- tions of every aircraft in the Soviet/ Cuban inventory. Cuba's MiG aircraft and troop transports will enjoy a greater radius of operation. The airport will give Cuba a guaranteed refueling stop for military flights to Africa. Bishop himself has given an implicit endorsement of future military use of the airfield. A March 31, 1980 Newsweek report quoted Bishop's comments to a U.S. reporter: "Suppose there's a war next door in Trinidad, where the forces of Fascism are about to take control, and the Trinidadians need external assistance, why should we oppose any- body passing through Grenada to assist them?" Dominican Republic. With its renewed commitment to armed struggle, Cuba's interest in the Dominican Republic has revived. Since early 1980, the Cubans have been encouraging radi- cals in the Dominican Republic to unite and prepare for armed actions. Cuban intelligence officials, like Omar Cordoba Rivas, chief of the Dominican Republic desk of the America Department, make periodic visits to the island. The Soviet Union, Cuba, and other Communist countries have mounted ex- tensive training programs for Dominican students. In July 1981, the Moscow-line Dominican Communist Party (PCD) for the first time publicized the Soviet scholarship program. Some 700 Dominican students are currently study- ing at Soviet universities, principally Patrice Lumumba University, with another 75 in five other Communist states (Bulgaria, Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, and Romania). The PCD itself selects the more than 100 students who begin the Soviet program each year. At the same time, the Soviet Union has been pressuring the PCD to unite with other extreme left organizations. The PCD and the pro-Cuban Dominican Liberation Party receive funds from both Cuba and the Soviet Union and send significant numbers of their members and potential sympathizers for academic and political schooling as well as military training in Communist coun- tries. Cuba also has given military in- struction to many members of small ex- tremist splinter groups like the Social Workers Movement and the Socialist Party. South America Colombia. Since the 1960s, Cuba has nurtured contacts with violent ex- tremist groups in democratic Colombia. During the 1970s, Cuba established full diplomatic relations with Colombia; Cuban involvement with Colombian revolutionaries was fairly limited, although Cuba provided some training to guerrilla leadership. Many leaders of the April 19 Movement (M-19), including the founder, Jaime Bateman�who also at- tended a Communist cadre school in Moscow�were trained in Cuba. Leaders of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Moscow-oriented Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) also received Cuban instruction. Cuban assistance to Colombian guer- rillas was stepped up after the February 1980 seizure of the Dominican Republic Embassy in Bogota. A number of diplo- mats, including the U.S. Ambassador, were taken hostage by M-19 terrorists. As part of a negotiated settlement, the terrorists were flown on April 17, 1980 to Cuba, where the remaining hostages were released and the terrorists were given asylum. During mid-1980, Cuban intelligen officers arranged a meeting of Colom- bian extremists, attended by representa- tives from the M-19, FARC, ELN, and other Colohibian radical groups, to discuss a common strategy and tactics. The M-19 had previously held talks with the Nicaraguan FSLN on ways to achieve unity of action among guerrilla groups in Latin America. Although the meeting did not result in agreement by Colombian guerrillas on a unified strategy, practical cooperation among the guerrilla organizations increased. In late 1980, the M-19 set in motion a large-scale operation in Colombia with Cuban help. In November, the M-19 sent guerrillas to Cuba via Panama to begin training for the operation. The group included new recruits as well as members who had received no prior political or military training. In Cuba the guerrillas were given 3 months of military instruction from Cuban army in- structors, including training in the use of explosives, automatic weapons, hand- to-hand combat, military tactics, and communications. A course in politics and ideology was taught as well. Members of the M-19 group given asylum in Cub after the takeover of the Dominican Republic Embassy also participated in the training program. Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 InFebruary 1981, some 100-200 earm-e'd M-19 guerrillas reinfiltrated into colombia from Panama by boat along the Pacific coast. The guerrillas' mission to establish a "people's army" failed. The M-19 members proved to be poorly equipped for the difficult countryside, and the Cuba-organized operation was soon dismantled by Colombian authorities. Among those captured was Rosenberg Pabon Pabon, the M-19 leader who had directed the Dominican Republic Embassy takeover and then fled to Cuba. Cuba denied any involve- ment with the M-19 landings but did not deny training the guerrillas." Cuba's propaganda support for Co- lombian terrorists was impossible to deny. When a group apparently con- sisting of M-19 dissidents kidnaped an American working for a private religious institute, Cuba implicitly supported the terrorists' action through Radio Havana broadcasts beamed to Colombia in February 1981, which denounced the in- stitute workers as "U.S. spies." Radio Moscow picked up the unfounded ac- cusation to use in its Spanish broadcasts to Latin America. The American was later murdered by the kidnapers.i8 0 Colombia suspended relations with Cuba on March 23, in view of the clear evidence of Cuba's role in training M-19 guerrillas. President Turbay commented in an August 13 New York Times inter- view: ". . . When we found that Cuba, a country with which we had diplomatic relations, was using those relations to prepare a group of guerrillas to come and fight against the government, it was a kind of Pearl Harbor for us. It was like sending ministers to Washington at the same time you are about to bomb ships in Hawaii." Chile. After Allende's fall in 1973, Castro promised Chilean radicals "all the aid in Cuba's power to provide." Al- though Cuban officials maintained regular contact with many Chilean ex- 17Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez explained in an interview pub- lished in Der Spiegel on September 28, 1981 why Cuba had not denied training the M-19 guerrillas: "We did not deny this because in the past few years many people came to our country for various reasons to ask for train- ing. We did not deny this desire. If a revolu- tionary for Latin America wishes to learn the technique and organization of resistance for his own self-defense, we cannot refuse in Otview of the brutal oppression. This also holds rue for the Salvadorans." 18The U.S. citizen killed, Chester Allen Bitterman, was working for the Summer In- stitute of Linguistics, a religious group which develops written forms of indigenous languages. iles, divisions among the exiles inhibited major operations. The Moscow-line Chilean Communist Party (PCCH), holding the position that revolutionary change could be accomplished by non- violent means, was critical of "left-wing forces" like the Movement of the Revolu- tionary Left (MIR) with which Cuba had close relations. Throughout the 1970s, members of the MIR received training in Cuba and in some cases instructed other Latin American revolutionaries. This training ranged from political indoctrination and instruction in small arms use to sophisti- cated courses in document fabrication, explosives, code writing, photography, and disguise. In addition, Cuban instruc- tors trained MIR activists in the Mideast and Africa. With its renewed commitment to armed struggle, Cuba increased its training of Chileans beginning in 1979. By mid-1979, the MIR had recruited several hundred Chilean exiles and sent them to Cuba for training and eventual infiltration into Chile. At the same time, members of the MIR who had been liv- ing and working in Cuba since Allende's overthrow began to receive training in urban guerrilla warfare techniques. The training in some cases lasted as long as 7 months and included organization and political strategy, small unit tactics, security, and communications. Once training was completed, Cuba helped the terrorists return to Chile, providing false passports and false iden- tification documents. By late 1980, at least 100 highly trained MIR terrorists had reentered Chile, and the MIR had claimed responsibility for a number of bombings and bank robberies. Cuba's official newspaper, Granma, wrote in February 1981 that the "Chilean Re- sistance" forces had successfully con- ducted more than 100 "armed actions" in Chile in 1980. By late 1979, the PCCH was re- evaluating its position in light of events in Nicaragua, where the fragmented Nicaraguan Communist Party emerged from the civil war subservient to the FSLN. In December 1980, PCCH leader Luis Corvalan held talks in Cuba with Fidel Castro, who urged Corvalan to establish a unified Chilean opposition. During the Cuban Party Congress that month, Corvalan delivered a speech which sketched a new party line calling for armed struggle to overthrow the Chilean Government and for coordina- tion of efforts by all parties, including the violent left. In January 1981, Cor- valan commended MIR terrorist acts as "helpful" and stated that the PCCH was willing not only to talk with MIR repre- sentatives but also to sign agreements with the group. Several days after this offer, Corvalan signed a unity agree- ment with several Chilean extremist groups, including the MIR. Until January 1981, when the new PCCH policy evidently had been ironed out and validated by the agreement for a broad opposition coalition, Corvalan's statements were issued from such places as Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Cuba, and Peru�but never from Moscow. Within 2 weeks of the agreement, how- ever, Moscow showed its implicit ap- proval of the policy change and began broadcasting in Spanish to Latin America�and to Chile in particular� PCCH explanations of the new policy and calls for mass resistance and acts of terrorism to overthrow the Chilean Government. Terrorist activities by MIR comman- dos operating in Chile have increased substantially during the past year. These have included increased efforts by MIR activists to establish clandestine bases for rural insurgency, killings of police- men, and a number of assassination at- tempts against high government officials. Argentina. The Cubans have a long history of association with, encourage- ment of, and active backing for ter- rorism in Argentina. The Cubans were linked to the two groups responsible for unleashing the wave of leftist terrorism that swept Argentina in the early and mid-1970s, the Montoneros and the Peo- ple's Revolutionary Army (ERP). Cuba backed these organizations with advice on tactics and instructions on recruiting operations and with training in Cuba in urban and rural guerrilla techniques. During the height of Argentine ter- rorism, the Cubans used their embasSy in Buenos Aires to maintain direct liaison with Argentine terrorists. The Argentine terrorists were vir- tually defeated by 1978. In that year, Castro permitted the Montonero na- tional leadership to relocate its head- quarters in Cuba. Today, the Montonero top command, its labor organization, and its intelligence organization, among other units, are all located in Cuba. The Cubans facilitate the travel and com- munications of Montoneros, supplying them with false documentation and ac- cess to Cuban diplomatic pouches. Mon- toneros have been among the Latin American guerrillas trained in guerrilla warfare over the past year in the Mid- east as part of a cooperative effort be- tween Palestinian groups and Cuba. Following the move of their high command to Havana, the Montoneros made repeated attempts to reinfiltrate 11 Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 Argentina. In late 1979, small groups of infiltrators eluded detection and were able to carry out several terrorist ac- tions, including four murders. Subse- quent attempts by the Montoneros to infiltrate terrorists in early 1980 proved unsuccessful. With Cuban support, Montoneros are active outside Argentina. Cuban- trained Montoneros were among the members of the "internationalist brigade" that Cuba supported in Nicaragua in 1979. This connection was highlighted when Montonero leader Mario Firmenich attended the first an- niversary of the July 1979 victory, wear- ing the uniform of a Sandinista com- mander. Montoneros have been active elsewhere as well. Montoneros largely staffed and administered Radio Noticias del Continente, which broadcast Cuban propaganda to Central and South America from San Jose until it was closed by the Costa Rican Government in 1981, after war materiel was dis- covered on its installations. Uruguay. After the failure of the urban insurgency organized in the early 1970s by the National Liberation Move- ment (MLN-Tupamaros), several hun- dred Tupamaros went to Cuba. During the mid-1970s, Cuba provided some of them with training in military and ter- rorist tactics, weapons, and intelligence. Several of these former Tupamaros subsequently assisted Cuba in running intelligence operations in Europe and Latin America. Some participated in the Cuban-organized "internationalist brigade" that fought in the Nicaraguan civil war. Cuba continues to pro}iide propa- ganda support for the Tupamaros and the Uruguayan Communist Party. Radio Havana reported on June 30, 1981 that the leader of the Communist Party of Uruguay attended a ceremony "in soli- Approved for Release: 2018/10/01 C05168213 clarity with the Uruguayan people's struggle" at the headquarters of the Cuban State Committee for Material and Technical Supply in Havana. Pro-Cuban Uruguayan leaders are given red carpet treatment when they visit Havana and are usually received by at least a member of the Cuban Politburo. IV. POSTSCRIPT Cuba's renewed campaign of violence has had a negative impact on Cuba's relations with its neighbors. Cuba's policies abroad and its reaction to emigration pressures at home have reversed the trend in Latin America toward normalization of relations. Although the Castro government has developed close ties to Nicaragua and Grenada, Cuba finds itself increasingly isolated throughout the Americas. Peru nearly broke relations and removed its ambassador in April 1980, when the Cuban Government encour- aged Cubans eager to leave the island to occupy the Peruvian Embassy. After more than 10,000 Cubans crowded into the embassy compound, Castro thwarted efforts by concerned governments to develop an orderly departure program and opened the port of Mariel to emigra- tion, also expelling many criminals and the mentally ill, and ultimately allowing more than 125,000 people to leave under sometimes perilous conditions. But Cuba still refuses to issue safe conduct passes to the 14 Cubans who remain cloistered in the Peruvian Embassy in Havana to- day. Cuba's neighbors were further shocked when Cuban MiG 21s sank the Bahamian patrol boat "Flamingo" on May 10, 1980 in an unprovoked attack in Bahamian coastal waters. Subsequently, four Bahamian seamen were machine- gunned while trying to save themselves after their vessel sank. Their bodies were never recovered. U.S. Coast Guar aircraft were harassed by Cuban MiGs while searching for survivors at the re- quest of the Bahamian Government. Relations between Venezuela and Cuba deteriorated badly in 1980, prin- cipally over the asylum issue, to the degree that Venezuela removed its am- bassador from Havana. In November 1980, Jamaica expelled the Cuban Am- bassador for interference in Jamaica's internal affairs and in October 1981 broke diplomatic relations. Colombia suspended relations in March 1981 over Cuba's training of M-19 guerrillas. Cuba's handling of an incident in which a group of Cubans demanding asylum forcibly occupied Ecuador's Embassy in Havana prompted Ecuador to remove its ambassador from Cuba in May 1981. Also in May, Costa Rica severed its ex- isting consular ties with Cuba, expelling Cuban officials active in coordinating support networks for Central American insurgents. Today, outside the English-speaking Caribbean, only Argentina, Panama, Mexico, and Nicaragua conduct relative- ly normal relations through resident am- bassadors in Havana. Use of Panama a transit point for Colombian guerrilla however, led Panama to reassess its relations with Cuba and resulted in sharp public criticism of Cuba's "mani- fest disregard for international stand- ards of political co-existence" by a high Panamanian Government official. 111 Published by the United States Department of State � Bureau of Public Affairs Office of Public Communication � Editorial Division � Washington, D.C. � December 1981 Editor: Norman Howard � This material is in the public domain and may be reproduced without permission; citation of this source is appreciated. Bureau of Public Affairs United States Department of State Washington, D.C. 20520 Official Business If address is incorrect please indicate change. imp. Do not cover or destroy this address label. 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