CUBA
AFTER OCHOA
OR "THEY SHOOT DRUG TRAFFICKERS, DON'T THEY?"
By Karen Lee Wald (originally published 1990)
===================================
(A few words updating this essay, May 10, 2003.)
The current situation made me think about the Ochoa case: although it wouldn't
seem so at first glance, there are many similarities. First, Cubans are once
again torn between their aversion to having to use the seldom-used death penalty
and their belief that if they don't, many more lives will be lost. In the case
of Ochoa, they later found that the CIA had been monitoring, if not provoking,
those contacts with drug-runners and was just waiting for the right moment to
use that as an excuse to attack Cuba. Similarly, the US has been stepping up its
provocations of Cuba since Bush came into office in the hope that Cuba or Cubans
would respond in some way that would justify an intervention at this time.
Another mass migration, or the continuation of hijackings that the US government
could claim (as it has done) are a "threat to US National Security"
would be all that would be needed for the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell clique to
unleash their storm troopers. So the Cuban government felt it needed to take
drastic measures, and most Cubans on the island probably feel less sympathy for
those currently incarcerated -- who probably WERE collaborating with the US --
and even for those who were executed than they did for Ochoa, who had been a
national hero.
It's hard for most Americans to understand how Cubans would feel about those
hijackers because they didn't see the images of those men holding knives and
machetes to the throats of the passengers on the ferry, threatening to kill them
or throw them overboard to the sharks one by one if their demands were not met.
That kind of behavior doesn't elicit much sympathy from the general population
anywhere in the world. But most US and foreign news articles completely omit
reference to this -- although they would be harping on it over and over if the
shoe were on the other foot -- so Americans can't understand why the government
acted so "drastically".
Karen
Lee Wald
May 10, 2003
================================
CUBA AFTER OCHOA
OR "THEY SHOOT DRUG TRAFFICKERS, DON'T THEY?"
By Karen Lee Wald
Havana
When it all began, it looked like just another series of events in Cuba's
three-year campaign to root out corruption, inefficiency, Privilege and other
sorts of "wrong-doing" in order to produce a better, brighter
socialist society. Its end is not yet in sight.
In mid-June, two top Cuban government officials, one civilian, one Military,
were removed from office under a cloud of accusations of Misconduct. The
situations were apparently unrelated. One dealt With Diocles Torralba, minister
of transportation. His removal came as no surprise, given the sorry state of
public transportation, and a lifestyle that had already raised many Eyebrows. If
anything, the question was "why did it take so long To remove him."
stories of his flagrant misuse of public funds and Ostentatious gift-giving
(including houses and cars), scandalous Behavior at private parties and similar
tid-bits of gossip Circulated about Torralbas for some time, making people
wonder how He had managed to hold onto his post in this period of
"rectification."
But the investigation on similar charges of division general Arnaldo Ochoa,
another Sierra Maestra veteran who headed the Cuban forces in Angola, uncovered
corruption extending to until then unimaginable levels, and turned this bit of
"rectification" into The biggest scandal in the thirty year history of
the revolution.
The cases of Ochoa and Torralbas at first seemed unrelated, and were reported as
such. Although General Ochoa had been criticized repeatedly for manifesting too
much direct concern for economic rather than military matters in the various
countries where he was posted, the deposed general had always justified his
activities by saying he was looking out for Cuba's economic interests. He was
always believed -- a sign of the trust and high regard accorded him because of
his past.
In part, too, this belief was probably due to his apparently modest life-style.
No one ever saw Ochoa flaunting luxury automobiles, living in mansions, sporting
jewelry or new clothes. On his vacations in Cuba he behaved like any other
citizen -- "even waiting on line at the grocery store"-- insist his
friends and neighbors.
But somehow Ochoa did step out of line -- way out of line. The original list of
accusations against Arnaldo Ochoa included references to "dissipation and
corruption, " "corrupting officers under his command, "
"improper use of funds and resources, Embezzlement" as well as the
vaguer claims of moral impropriety. But the gravest accusations were saved for
last: what Granma termed the "unprecedented" action by Ochoa and
officials of the Ministry of the Interior "who are said to have made
contacts with international drug traffickers, reached agreements with them...
and possibly even cooperated with them in some ..."
Noting that these actions could have been the basis for "the Insidious
campaigns against the revolution by [US] imperialism, " Which the
government and most people had simply written off as anti-Castro propaganda, the
editorial promised a complete investigation of the charges and a detailed
accounting to the people of its findings.
Trying to end on a positive note, the editorial concluded: "although
extremely surprising and bitter for our people, these events demonstrate that
although grave defects of a moral as well as physical order can occur among
individuals, in our country Absolutely nobody, no matter how great his merits,
nor how high he may be in the hierarchy, can violate the laws and principles of
the revolution with impunity."
As the investigation unfolded, it became clear that the scandalous Behavior
attributed to Ochoa didn't stop there. The discovery that 14 high-level
officials of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) And Ministry of the
Interior (MININT) security forces were engaged In a variety of illegal and
corrupt actions, including involvement with international drug traffickers, was
the most devastating -- And for awhile, the most demoralizing -- event in three
decades. And the harsh sentences meted out -- the firing squad for former
General and war hero Arnaldo Ochoa, MININT colonel Tony de La Guardia and their
two top aides, and 10 to 30 years for the rest -- is by no means the end of the
story. Only a thorough, all-encompassing house-cleaning leaving no stone
unturned and no official - no matter how highly-placed -- immune can repair the
damage done by these fourteen individuals. What hangs in the balance is no less
than the survival of the revolution itself.
The 14 defendants were initially investigated on charges of carrying out illicit
business deals and black marketing in the countries where they were based, in
the case of the far officers, or through businesses set up to get around the us
embargo, in the case of MININT.
Arnaldo Ochoa, general in charge of the Cuban military mission in Angola,
third-ranking military leader in the country, and close confidant of President
Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, minister of the armed forces, one of two men
designated "hero of the Republic, " was in every way Cuba's shining
star. Part of the rebel Force that overturned the Batista dictatorship in 1959,
he had until now an uninterrupted and unblemished military career. for Cubans
who pride themselves on their national independence and Their internationalist
concern for helping third world countries, he was the symbol of everything good
and pure in the Cuban Revolution.
Tony de La Guardia and his twin brother Patricio also fought with the "Fidelistas"
in the 1950s, and went on to reach the top levels of the ministry of the
interior, the institution which controls the police and all of the country's
security forces. Like Ochoa, they were considered among "the best and the
brightest" of the Cuban revolution.
To a lesser degree, the same could be said about each of the men and one woman
who were involved with Ochoa or the La Guardia brothers. All or almost all had
long, notable histories in defense of their country and its ideals. All
considered themselves revolutionaries (and at their trial, insisted they still
do). All of them confessed and criticized their actions -- some in a spirit of
cooperating with the security people who until that moment had been their
friends and colleagues, others only when confronted with the incontrovertible
proof of their actions and the testimony of their alleged accomplices or
subordinates.
It took almost no time for Bush administration spokesmen and the anti-Castro
Cuban exiles in Miami and Washington to air charges of political intrigue,
uprisings in the armed forces, and threatened coups d'etat, on the one hand, or
the idea of Ochoa and friends being used as a scapegoat for a crime Fidel Castro
actually authorized. They would have liked to build a campaign around these new
"political prisoners, " but the attitude in the world just now is not
ripe for gaining support for international drug traffickers. The ideal would
have been to convince the world that these men were really political victims of
Castro's Machiavellian designs. Failing this, that he too was implicated.
To Cubans, this made little or no sense. If Ochoa, La Guardia or any of their
group had been a "pro-perestroika faction" within the Armed forces, as
claimed by the wishful-thinkers in Miami, someone Inside Cuba would have heard
about it. That was never an element Considered by rumored about on the island.
If Fidel and Raul Castro considered these men political opponents, the easiest
way to dispose of them without arousing public indignation would have been to
accuse them of counterrevolutionary activities. There would have been quick
popular support for their incarceration or eradication. But the government
eschewed this easy way out -- and instead, accused them of crimes that would be
most embarrassing for the government on an international level. After years of
irately denying that anyone in Cuba was in any way involved in international
drug traffic, the last thing Fidel Castro would have invented was that some of
his most trusted military and defense aides were doing just that.
The trial itself put an end to any such rumors for most people inside Cuba. The
details of the operations, how and when people became involved, and the
revelation of a special unit within the Ministry of theInterior engaged in
authorized smuggling of blockaded articles into Cuba went a long way toward
explaining how These men could have gotten away with what they did without
higher authorities becoming aware. After hearing the testimony, even Western
diplomats from countries traditionally hostile to Cuba expressed doubt that the
Cuban president knew what these men were doing. The government was faulted not
for having authorized these activities, but for having so little control and
accountability of such officers, that they could do what they did. One of the
main criticisms voiced inside the country: that there was so little control that
high officials could decide to live above the law and get away with it -- a
situation which this trial and the severe sanctions were designed to bring an
end to.)
Most Cubans believed that all of the accused committed high treason against the
far, MININT, the people, the country, and most of all against Fidel Castro. They
tended not to ask whether Castro was guilty, too -- which few would have
believed -- but rather, "how could they do that to Fidel?! How could men
with a history like theirs have gone bad?" and "what's wrong with our
system that such flagrant abuses could go unnoticed for nearly three
years?"
In his statements to the court during the military tribunal which convicted and
ultimately executed him, Ochoa vehemently denied the Miami claims that there had
been political intrigue against the leadership of Fidel Castro and ridiculed the
statement made over Radio Marti that he had been drugged. The latter claim was
based in part on pictures of him with his head down and eyes glued to the ground
the first day of his trial. Explaining that posture, Ochoa said, "If you
could say shame is a drug, I was drugged".
He labeled anti-Castro Cuban exiles such as Huber Matos and Rafael del Pino, who
made these charges, as "traitors" and "dogs who bark at their
masters' command."
Although most Cubans were horrified when they learned what their former heroes
had done, attitudes among the general population flip-flopped several times
during the trial and afterward as to whether or not they should be given the
severest sanction: the death penalty. A sizable majority advocated the death
penalty when they first heard the charges against the accused. But many had
second thoughts after viewing the televised proceedings of the trials. When he
testified Ochoa appeared as a charismatic figure who came across as a sincerely
repentant and courageous person who had lived modestly and carried out all his
dealings in the mistaken belief he could use the money to help the army he
commanded and the revolution in general. This created great ambivalence among
the Cuban people, who admired his courage even while saying his crimes were
unforgivable. No one felt Ochoa or the others should go free, but many had
misgivings about the death penalty.
It was only after all members of the Council of State, including President Fidel
Castro, explained their reasons for refusing to commute the death penalties,
that most people in the country were convinced of the necessity (if not
necessarily the desirability) of this action. Those reasons included the fact
that Ochoa and most of the others had -- contrary to the impression they
initially tried to give -- benefited materially from their actions. In addition
to a variety of consumer goods, all but one had money stashed away in their
homes or in foreign bank accounts.
But more telling than demonstrations of their personal greed was the actual and
potential harm these officers did to the institutions responsible for defending
the revolution and its leaders. Involving members of the armed forces and
internal security in drug dealing, even if only indirectly, not only eroded
Cuba's prestige internationally but seriously damaged the confidence the Cuban
people had in these institutions.
This was part of the basis for the charges of treason that led to the death
penalty. The other, more concrete reason was that their actions were believed to
have compromised the very security of the country. Given the CIA's direct
involved in international drug trafficking and the probability it had evidence
of their participation, Ochoa, La Guardia et al., made themselves easy targets
for US blackmail.
Yet for Cuba internally, the trial went even beyond this. men and women who had
been illegally benefiting from illicit business negotiations and living a
lifestyle far beyond the means of the average Cuban should have stood out like
sore thumbs in a Revolutionary society like Cuba's. The fact that they didn't
was an indication of how far the abuse of revolutionary principles and values
had gone. For too long now, officials of a certain level, whether military or
civilian, have been able to indulge in certain privileges, materially or
otherwise, with little or no criticism voiced. In this sense, there was a direct
relation between the dismissal and investigation of the minister of
transportation and the trial of officers accused of high crimes.
The military court martial was less a trial than a public demonstration that
such crimes will not be tolerated; that, as the official newspaper Granma stated
in an editorial, there is no impunity for anyone, no matter at what level, the
Prosecuting Attorney -- Cuba's justice minister Juan Escalona, serving in his
capacity as brigadier general in the army reserve -- raised these and other
political questions in his frequent diatribes against the defendants during the
four day court martial.
Escalona insisted that the actions of these men, more than just crimes of greed
and corruption, were treason to Cuba because they undermined the prestige not
only of the government but of the very forces responsible for defending the
country. In addition, the trial forced the government to reveal many of the
activities and mechanisms of these agencies, including very sensitive ones aimed
at breaking the us economic blockade against Cuba by bringing in medical
supplies, computers and other products covered by the embargo.
It was the fact that they were already carrying out such Authorized smuggling,
combined with the high level of trust the Castro brothers placed in them, that
made it possible for the de La Guardia group to successfully carry out 19
drug-transshipment Actions without anyone in Cuba raising questions about what
was in The boxes -- marked "computers" and "tobacco" -- that
were flown In on small planes and re-loaded onto miami-bound launches.
None of the defendants were accused of actual drug-dealing, but of Taking
commissions --totaling several million dollars over three years -- for allowing
the Colombian dealers to use Cuban airports and territorial waters for refueling
and reloading. They had pointedly refused to allow the Colombians to set up a
cocaine factory inside Cuba, as members of the cartel had requested. This was
probably due less to a notion of "drawing the line" than to their
recognition that they could not have gotten away with it. Although the
Colombians obviously made the request believing that the top leadership of the
country, including Fidel Castro, knew all about these deals, La Guardia and
others knew this wasn't the case. They'd never asked for approval of their
transactions with the drug cartel because they knew they wouldn't get it; they
assumed --correctly for awhile -- that no one would be the wiser if They
secretly introduced this element into their authorized Smuggling operations. But
actually bringing coca into the country and producing cocaine would have been a
whole new ballgame in which their chances for maintaining secrecy were slim. For
awhile, they stalled the Colombians, eventually offered some excuse as to why it
couldn't be done.)
Escalona's first point of attack was the unauthorized trading in Cuban products
for diamonds, gold, ivory and dollars engaged in by General Ochoa and his
subordinates when he was chief of the Cuban military mission in Angola, and
defrauding the Nicaraguan government by taking large sums of money in exchange
for weapons he never produced and was never authorized to sell.
Charging commissions for business deals with countries that are Cuba's allies,
and engaging in black market negotiations with them for food or weapons, he
contended, could seriously damage Cuba's relations with friendly countries such
as Angola and Nicaragua, where these actions took place.
Regarding Ochoa's unauthorized "business ventures", Escalona Railed:
"it's hard to imagine a greater shame for our internationalist combatants
than to learn from the mouths of the protagonists themselves that the head of
the Cuban military mission in Angola was selling sugar, wheat, fish and salt on
the black market for a few crumbs of money, on the pretext that it was to
improve the living conditions of the troops, and which was really going into his
bank account in Panama....it's no less than making money off the hunger of the
Angolan people, who have suffered enough from foreign aggression....it's
criminal to speculate at the cost of such misery."
For Fidel Castro, who summed up his reasons for not commuting the death
sentences at the end of the trial, the problem of Ochoa's misbehavior in Angola
was even greater. Cubans and Angolans were fighting and dying in the historic
battles of Cuito Cuanavale while Ochoa and his aides were engaged in their
"business deals, " he said. If another general had not been put in
command in southern Angola, he charged, Ochoa's irresponsible behavior -- among
other Things, he is said to have missed a crucial operations meeting and to have
consistently underestimated the strength of the South African forces -- could
have meant the loss of that decisive battle, which forced South Africa to
abandon its attempts to overthrow the Angolan government and to finally agree to
the Independence of Namibia.
But clearly the real sore point was the drug trafficking -- something the Cuban
government took pride in eliminating when it overthrew the Batista dictatorship,
and has held up as a banner of its revolutionary purity ever since. Almost any
of their other crimes might have merited no more than dismissal from their
posts, But narcotics has long been anathema to the Cubans, who associate it with
the degradation they felt they suffered when Cuba was Considered the us mafia's
playground for gambling, dope and prostitution.
Escalona, who as justice minister
had participated in a series of UN meetings regarding the drug trade, told Ochoa
during questioning that he had thus seen "the consequences of drug
consumption" in countries such as the United States, where drug addiction
is of epidemic proportions. "Didn't you ever imagine, " he asked the
former general, "what opening a way for drugs meant in terms of the death
or degradation of hundreds or thousands of citizens, of young people, even
children of the United States -- on the people of the United States?"
Regarding Ochoa's contention that he had planned to let the Colombian cartel
launder some of its drug money by investing in Cuba's tourist industry, Escalona
practically shouted: "Do you think that this revolution deserves the
indignity of developing its tourism based on money stained by drugs, stained by
the blood and degradation of god knows how many hundreds of citizens from around
the world? Didn't you ever think of that?"
Even more infuriating to the revolutionaries was the fact that these high
officials gave the impression both to their subordinates and to the drug
traffickers that they were carrying on their activities in the name of the Cuban
government.
Although in the trial itself Ochoa and others admitted they had never informed
their superiors nor themselves believed they were carrying out an authorized
activity when they expanded their actions into the drug field, the government's
position is: "What if the enemy, instead of us, had caught you? Who then
would have believed that this was not an activity initiated or condoned by the
highest level of the Cuban government?"
But even further, the drug-related actions exposed the country to real risk.
Assuming the CIA was monitoring (if it did not in fact lure the Cubans into
becoming involved in Colombian drug dealing to entrap them) the government
argued that if men at such high level as Ochoa and the La Guardia brothers had
at some point in the future been blackmailed by the CIA with evidence of their
drug dealings, the entire military defense and security apparatus of the country
would have been vulnerable.
There are other disturbing aspects, most of all the fact that people who had
dedicated decades to fighting for revolutionary Ideals, often risking their
lives, could have become so thoroughly corrupted by the lure of money and
consumer goods -- a problem not limited to those involved in this case.
The more far-reaching aspects of this scandal still plague most Cubans. Has the
effort to bring hard-currency into the economy Through "mixed
enterprises" and tourism so thoroughly corrupted a sector of the population
that even the most valiant, heroic defenders of the revolution could fall prey
to temptations such as This? What else have people involved in these
"businesses" been doing? Isn't the fact that high officials --business
or government leaders, especially those whose history dates back to fighting
with Fidel in the hills -- often live ostentatiously a temptation For others to
follow their lead?
The more optimistic, from government officials to people interviewed in the
street, say that the country will come out Stronger after this "house
cleaning" is completed. But that of course depends on the government not
stopping with these 14.
To indicate its intentions to carry out just such a "clean sweep, "
The central committee dismissed Interior Minister Jose Abrantes, who was not
implicated in the scandal but had failed to detect that it was going on.
Appointed in his place is far general Abelardo Colome, a member of the Central
Committee's Politburo, And Raul Castro's first deputy in the armed forces. (It
was the FAR's counter-intelligence units, not MININT's, that ultimately
uncovered and prosecuted the Ochoa and De La Guardia groups.)
Colome's job now is to thoroughly investigate the causes of the scandal and take
all necessary measures to insure that it never happens again. Although
dissidents here view this as putting more power into the hands of the Castro
brothers, it is being warmly received by others as a sign that the government
means business. Interestingly, this view has also been repeated by some members
of the Bush administration. XXXXX
Resignations and dismissals of many other officials, civilian and military,
followed that of Abrantes. The message is clear: corrupt practices and
unjustified, ostentatious "high living" is not to be accepted by
anyone.
For all its negative repercussions internally and the blot on Cuba's reputation,
the incident could actually have long-term positive results that go far beyond
just prosecuting and punishing a handful of corrupt officers. One of these is to
demonstrate that Cuba is sincere when it says it will take all necessary
measures against international drug trafficking. (In addition to the trials, the
Cuban government has warned that it will shoot down any small planes that refuse
to identify themselves while using Cuba's air corridors -- a known route for
drug smugglers heading from Colombia to Miami. That, however, may be easier to
proclaim than to carry out, given Cuba's lack of sophisticated radar equipment
for detecting such small craft. The US has urged the Cuban government to
exercise extreme caution in carrying out this threat, to avoid risk of shooting
down harmless passenger planes with faulty radio equipment. That resulted in a
misunderstanding when both Cuban MIGs and a US Coast Guard plane tried to force
down a small, unidentified plane flying without lights one night, reportedly
enroute from Colombia to Miami. The Cuban planes withheld their fire, and lost
the plane in the darkness. Some US wire services later reported that the Coast
Guard complained the Cuban planes interfered with their attempt to intercept the
plane.)
Another, is that it could actually lead to cooperation between the United States
and Cuba in what both espouse as a primary goal: stopping the drug trade. While
many officials in the Bush Administration are taking a "wait and see"
attitude, others say they are considering asking the Cuban government to
cooperate by turning over the testimony in the Ochoa-de La Guardia case to a
Federal court in Miami that is currently prosecuting two of the Colombian
drug-runners. The two men were implicated by the defendants in the Ochoa trial,
and those involved with the Miami case say it appears some of the testimony in
Havana could be very helpful to the prosecution if such cooperation actually
took place, that could be a major first step in repairing the still-frigid
relations between Havana and Washington.
END