In a note released by the Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX), Cuba said that any resolution ought to be “acceptable for both sides, taking into account Cuba´s humanitarian concerns in relation to the case of the three Cubans from the group known as the Cuban Five, who have continued to be unjustly imprisoned in the United States for more than 15 years,” said the note.

Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero have been imprisoned in the U.S. since 1998. They are part of the Cuban Five, which included Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez, who are back in Cuba after having fully served their sentences.

The statement, signed by the MINREX Director General for the United States, Josefina Vidal, pointed out that Cuba is aware of and concerned by the April 8 press release from Washington stating that “Alan Gross, a USAID contractor incarcerated in Cuba

for four years and four months, began a hunger strike last week.”

The statement emphasizes that Gross has received dignified and respectful treatment, and ever since his arrest has been kept at a hospital, not because his health condition requires such a thing, but because it is a place where he can be guaranteed specialized care by highly qualifed doctors and medical staff.

Mr. Gross is in good physical condition and his health is normal and stable, the note said. His chronic ailments, typical for his age, are under control and are being medically treated. He has received visits from his wife and attorney, with whom he also maintains regular email and telephone contact, as well as with other family members and friends, in addition to receiving monthly visits from the U.S. consul and diplomats, and visits from political and religious leaders, the note added.

Gross was arrested, tried, and convicted for having violated Cuban law, by implementing a subversive program financed by Washington to establish illegal concealed communications systems that relied on non-commercial technology.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Relations, the USINT Chief, diplomats, consular officials, and the doctor and the nurse assigned to the USINT were present at the meeting along with members of the team charged with attending to Gross.

During the meeting, the Cuban specialists delivered a current report about the health of the U.S. citizen, including the results of a biopsy performed on October 24, 2012 on the mass behind his right shoulder, confirming that it is not cancerous.

The biopsy was negative for neoplasic cells, with the lesion showing itself to be constituted of isolated text to which Prensa Latina had access.

According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, this test could not be performed earlier due to the refusal of Gross, convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 15 years for the crime of “Actions against the Independence or Territorial Integrity of the State.”

The Cuban medical team also confirmed that Mr. Gross’s general state of health is normal and he is receiving adequate treatment for his ailments, which include chronic issues typical of his age and from which he suffered prior to his arrest, said the statement.

The source added that the U.S. citizen serving a prison sentence here performs a voluntary regimen of systematic physical exercise and follows a balanced diet of his choosing, which has allowed him to eliminate his prior condition of obesity.

It also added that Gross has weekly telephone contact with his wife and family and receives monthly consular visits.

(Progreso Weekly)

2:30 PM – Departure time, the most excruciating part of visiting Gerardo Hernandez. A prison guard announced: “Visiting hours are over.” Gerardo lined up against the wall with the other inmates. We stood with wives, children and mothers. Finally, the electronically controlled, heavy metal door opened. Gerardo held up a triumphant fist. We did the same. He stayed in Hell (13 years now). We left.

We drove from the Victorville Penitentiary to the Ontario California airport, discussing the absurdity of five Cubans (one on precarious parole) who helped the United States fight terrorism but remain locked in federal penitentiaries while Luis Posada Carriles, who orchestrated the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger plane (73 died), dines in Miami’s finest restaurants? In between visits to his proctologist Posada and fellow geezers continue plotting anti-Cuba violence.

Miami Federal Court judges will decide on Gerardo’s appeal, which presents new facts and evidence: Gerardo’s trial lawyer now admits he inadequately represented him; new documents show payment by the U.S. government to Miami-based “journalists” who offered negative stories about the accused Cubans, thus tainting the trial atmosphere. Finally, the U.S. government has still refused to deliver its “secret” map showing the exact point where on February 24, 1996, Cuban MIGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes. The Cubans claim the incidents occurred over Cuban airspace, i.e., no crime took place. Washington insisted the planes got hit in international air space, but the NSA said they could not release their crucial diagram: “national security.” Gerardo played no part in the drama – no matter where the shoot down occurred.

We agreed U.S. Cuba policy bordered on the absurd. For example, the State Department placed Cuba on its terrorist list although the U.S. has made Cuba a victim of terrorist attacks; Cuba has not reciprocated. But Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued: “The United States should not negotiate with a state sponsor of terrorism.”

This related to her objection to any U.S. humanitarian approach to get Alan Gross released. Convicted in Cuba for activities related to a USAID regime change policy, Gross must either serve his fifteen year sentence or wait until the U.S. military “liberates” the island. Ros-Lehtinen called on people to assassinate Fidel Castro (see Landau’s WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP).

This rhetoric hardly serves Gross’ interests. Thanks to Ileana he might stay in prison until age 75. He misses his family, as do the Cubans in U.S. prisons. Like Alan, they also have close relatives with serious illnesses. When my mother died in 2009, “I wasn’t in Cuba to bury her.”

Gerardo told us he and Adriana, now 42, want children. So does another member of the five, Fernando Gonzalez and his wife. The U.S. denies visas to their wives. Time is running out. Gerardo’s face showed a flash of anguish.

The Five’s cause gets little publicity. Not so the case of Alan Gross, an American contractor sentenced to 15 years in Cuba for activities designed to undermine Cuba’s government. The Gross and Cuban Five cases, however, are different. Gerardo received two consecutive life sentences plus fifteen years for conspiring to co

(Traducido por Granma Internacional)

The Department of State and its destabilizing agency USAID project interventionist operations attempting to use the Internet as an instrument of infiltration and intelligence within Cuban national territory

This has been confirmed on the Cuba Money Project website by U.S. journalist and investigator Tracey Eaton, who published a document identified with these U.S. special service agencies, dated January 11, 2011, which reveals how “ideas” are being solicited from non-governmental organizations and specialized businesses interested in carrying out projects related to the use of the Internet “in Cuba and in other nations.”

The document was published shortly before the trial in Havana of U.S. citizen Alan Philip Gross, working under contract for USAID, for his illegal activities.

Proposals could be submitted through February 7. “The Department of State has not specified – and surely, it won’t – what organizations will implement these projects,” writes Eaton, a former correspondent in Havana for the Dallas Morning News.

Budgets that range from $500,000 to eight million are available for these projects, for a total which could reach $30 million, according to her study.

Moreover, the money comes from the 2010 federal budget and not the next year’s.

The Department of State, in a clarification which appears to refer directly to the Alan Gross case or previous intelligence operations, details that the eligible organizations must “have experience of working in hostile environments.”

The focus of these operations, called web-based circumvention technology, is precisely to avoid and disrupt the usual systems of detection (firewalls and filters) used to protect computers from multiple forms of illicit activity on the web, established by legislation in all countries.

The strategy includes a “training program” to develop a “network of instructors” who would undertake operations with “threatened organizations.” Read: organizations operating illegally.

The organizations and businesses invited to submit proposals must be able to “train bloggers, citizen-journalists and civic organizations” and promote the use of new communication person-to-person technologies and “social networks.”

The program even suggests a “defense fund” for activists with legal problems related to hacking and “cyber-intrusion.”

In addition to Cuba, the request for proposals refers to China, Mayanmar, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, all countries which have refused to submit to U.S. domination, utilizing the usual rhetoric about “helping digital activists” – a well-known strategy for recruiting agents and informants practiced by U.S. intelligence services.

“This document contains exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said in a specialized magazine,” according to the U.S. journalist and professor in her revealing investigation.

(En español)

The Maryland company that hired American development worker Alan Gross won more than $2.7 billion in USAID contracts from 2000 to the third quarter of 2009, statistics show.

Development Alternatives Inc., or DAI, sent Gross to Cuba as part of a USAID-financed democracy program. Cuban authorities accused Gross of setting up an illegal satellite communications network and sentenced him on Friday to a 15-year prison term.

DAI, based in Bethesda, raked in $2,720,391,038 in U.S. Agency for International Development contracts from 2000 to 2009, according to FedSpending, which tracks government spending.

The nine companies that followed were:

• CHEMONICS INTERNATIONAL INCORPORATED – $1,647,101,126
• BEARINGPOINT, INC - $994,453,511
• RESEARCH TRIANGLE INSTITUTE - $781,069,203
• BERGER LOUIS GROUP INC - $680,280,412
• COFFEY INTERNATIONAL LTD – $445,549,179
• JOHN SNOW INC (JSI) – $424,500,839
• MACRO INTERNATIONAL INC – $396,961,113
• TETRA TECH, INC. – $340,521,186
• L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS – $278,752,145

Top 10 USAID contractors from 2000 to 2009. Source: FedSpending.org

FederalAssistance.gov says American aid to Cuba focuses on “providing humanitarian assistance to prisoners of conscience and their families, strengthening civil society, supporting issue-based civic action movements and coalitions, and promoting fundamental freedoms, especially the freedom of expression and freedom of the press.”

Chart by ForeignAssistance.gov