CUBAN ARMED FORCES AND THE SOVIET MILITARY PRESENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R001800100004-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 7, 2007
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: REPORT

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UNCLASSIFIED
Cuban Armed Forces and the Soviet Military Presence
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CUBA'S RENEWED SUPPORT FOR VIOLENCE IN LATIN AMERICA
CONTENTS
PREFACE
SUMMARY
I. POLICIES
II. METHODS
III. CASE STUDIES
CENTRAL AMERICA
15
-- Nicaragua
15
-- El Salvador
18
-- Guatemala
21
-- Costa Rica
23
-- Honduras
26
THE CARIBBEAN
27
-,Jamaica
27
-- Guyana
28
Grenada
28
-- Dominican Republic
30
SOUTH AMERICA
31
Colombia
31
Chile
33
Argentina
34
Uruguay
35
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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 involvement in other countries.
This study of Cuban activites in Latin America and
the Caribbean is being issued in the interest of contri-
buting to better public understanding of U.S. foreign
policy and developments in the region.
The focus of this study is Cuba's activities
in the Americas. It does not attempt to give a description
of conditions in the countries in which Cuba is active,
or to analyze why violent groups develop, 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 internationalize
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 activities that are
either publicly known or can be revealed without jeopar-
dizing intelligence sources and methods. Cuban involve-
ment is-not limited to the examples contained in this
study.
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SUMMARY
A country-by-country examination of Cuba's activi-
ties in Latin America and the Caribbean makes clear
that Cuba has renewed its campaign of the 1960's to
promote armed insurgencies. In particular, Cuba has
stepped up efforts to stimulate violence and destabilize
its neighbors, turning away from its earlier policy
of strengthening normal diplomatic relations in the
hemisphere.
Since'1978, Cuba has:
-- worked to unite traditionally splintered radical
groups behind a commitment to armed struggle
with Cuban advice and material assistance;
-- trained ideologically committed cadres in
urban and rural guerrilla warfare;
-- supplied or arranged for the supply of weapons
to support the Cuban-trained cadres' efforts
to assume power by force;
-- encouraged terrorism in hope of provoking
indiscriminate violence and repression in
order to weaken government legitimacy and
attract new converts to armed struggle; and
-- used military aid and advisors to gain influence
over guerrilla fronts and radical governments
through armed pro-Cuban Marxists.
Unlike Che Guevara's attempts during the 1960's,
Cuban subversion today is backed by an extensive secret
.intelligence and training apparatus, modern military
forces, and a large and sophisticated propaganda net-
work. Utilizing agents and contacts nurtured over
more than twenty years,'the Castro government is providing
ideological and military training and material and
propaganda support 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 govern-
ments elsewhere 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.
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Cuba's new drive to promote armed insurgency
does not discriminate between democracies and dictator-
ships. And attempts by Cuba to destabilize governments
occur in spite of the existence of'diplomatic ties.'
This long-range campaign. is directed by the Cuban
Communist' Party which oversees far-flung 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 campaign would not be possible
without Soviet help. Soviet assistance, now totalling
over $8 million a day, enables Cuba to maintain the
best equipped and largest per capita military forces
in Latin America and to channel substantial resources
abroad. In return, Cuba usually is careful.not to
jeopardize ongoing . 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
hidden. For instance, during 1981 alone:
-- In Nicaragua, Cuba has quietly increased its
presence to 5,000 personnel, including more
than 1,500 security and military advisors.
-- In El Salvador, Cuba's key role in arming
the Salvadoran guerrillas was exposed and
Castro admitted supplying arms.
-- In Costa Rica, a Special Legislative 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 attempting 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 relations
with Cuba. During the last two years, Colombia, Costa
Rica and Jamaica suspended or broke relations with
Cuba. Venezuela, Peru,. and Ecuador withdrew their
ambassadors from Havana.
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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 economic inequities which have generated
frustrations among a number of people. Sustained
economic growth over the past 20 years and resilient
national- institutions,, however, have limited the appeal
of radical groups. But in some countries, particularly
the small nations of Central America, dislocations
resulting. 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 subjected already weak institutions
to additional 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 solutions imposes obstacles to
economic progress, democratic development and self-
determination in countries faced with growing economic
difficulties. The spiralling cycle of violence and
counterviolence which is central to Cuba's policy
only exacerbates the suffering of ordinary people
and makes necessary adjustments 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.
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I. POLICIES
When it first came to power, the Castro regime
had its own theory of how to spread "revolution: to
reproduce elsewhere 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 1960's,
the Castro regime gradually reined in its zealots.
Without abandoning its ties to radical states and
movements or its ideology, Cuba began to pursue normal
government-to-government relations in the hemisphere.
By the mid-1970's 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 ambitions. First in Africa, and now
in Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba's policy
has again shifted to re-emphasize intervention.
On July 26, 1980, Fidel Castro declared that
the experiences of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile,
and Bolivia teach us that there is no other way than
revolution, that there is no other "formula" than
"revolutionary armed struggle."
Castro's statement was an attempt to justify
publicly what Cuban agents had been doing secretly
since 1978: stepping 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 continents Marxist revolution could be achieved.
by establishing armed focal points (focos).in several
countries. Operating in rural areas, small bands
of guerrillas could initiate struggles that would
spread throughout the continent.
In 1959, Castro aided armed expeditions against
Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. During
the early and mid 1960's, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela,
Peru, and Bolivia all faced serious Cuban-backed attempts
to develop guerrilla focos.
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In seeking indigenous groups with which to coop-
erate, the Cubans rejected the orthodox Latin American
communist parties, which they regarded as ineffectual.-
Instead, they lent their support to more militant
groups dedicated to armed violence even when their
Marxism was not fully articulated.
The Soviet Union was suspicious of Cuba's policy
of inciting armed violence, preferring to work through
established Moscow-line communist parties. Disagreement
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 revolution-
ary internationalism.
None of the Latin American insurgencies fomented
by Havana, however, 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 conformed to
the Soviet approach of fostering state-to-state rela-
tions with several Latin American countries.
The Turn to Africa. In the mid-1970's, Cuba
renewed its penchant for direct intervention, not
in Latin America, but in Africa.(1)
-- In Angola, 20,000 Cuban troops, supported
by Soviet logistics and materiel, assured
the supremacy of the Popular Movement for
the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which had
1 Cuba's military and political activities in Africa
are intense and wide-ranging. Cuba still maintains
expeditionary forces of at least 15-19,000 in Angola
and 11-15,000 in Ethiopia. Cuba has military and
security advisor contingents in.a number of other
African countries and in South Yemen.
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the strongest ties to Moscow of the three
movements competing for power after Portugal's
withdrawal.
-- In Ethiopia, the integration of Soviet and
Cuban operations was even more complete, with
the Soviets providing overall command and
control, materiel, and transport for 13-15,000
Cuban troops fighting against Somali forces.
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 constraints not binding on Cuba, Havana
could portray its actions as an outgrowth of its own
foreign policy of support 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 over $3 billion annually, 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 announced
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
4 and 5 times the world price for Cuban sugar.(2)
In return, Cuba champions the notion of a "natural
alliance" between the Soviet bloc and the Third World
in the Non-Aligned Movement. At the Cuban Communist
Party Congress in December 1980, Castro explicitly
2 According to the World Bank, Cuba's per capita
annual growth rate averaged minus 1.2% between 1960-
78. Cuban economic performance ranked in the lowest
5% worldwide and was the worst of all socialist coun-
tries. Only massive infusions of Soviet aid have
kept consumption levels from plummeting. Cuba today
depends more heavily on sugar than before 1959. The
industrial sector has been plagued by mismanagement,
absenteeism, and serious shortages in capital goods
and foreign exchange. The economic picture is so
bleak-that in 1979, and again in October 1981, the
Cuban leadership had to. warn that 10 to 20 more years
of sacrifice lie ahead.
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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.
II. METHODS
Even when pursuing an open policy in the 1970's
of establishing normal diplomatic relations with a
number of Latin American countries, Cuba retained
its clandestine ties with remnants of the insurgents
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 personal security
and trained many leaders of the Chilean Movement of
the Revolutionary Left (MIR).
Cuba's renewed campaign to promote insurgencies
draws on these contacts 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 struggle through
advanced training of local guerrilla cadres, sustained
aid and advice, and extensive propaganda activities.
The foco approach of the 1960's -- when a Cuban-sponsored
team in the field was considered enough to spark insurrec-
tion -- has given way to a more sophisticated strategy
involving extensive commitments and risks.
Soviet Support. A major difference from the
1960's is that, instead of throwing up obstacles,
the Soviet Union generally has backed Cuban efforts
to incorporate non-doctrinaire groups into broad
political-military fronts dedicated to armed struggle.
Particularly in Central America, Soviet ties to local
communist 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 to
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selectively discredit governments-and build support
for armed opposition groups.
Allowing Havana to take the lead in the-hemispliere
enables Moscow to maintain a low profile and cultivate
state-to-state relations and economic ties with major
countries'like Brazil and Argentina.
Cuba, in turn, is generally cautious not to under-
cut the Soviet Union where the Soviets have established
valued relationships. In Peru, for example, Cuba
has been careful to exercise restraint to avoid pre
judicing the status of the 300 Soviet officials there
or jeopardizing the Soviet Union's arms supply arrangement.
Central Control. Most of the covert operations
in support of this strategy are planned and coordinated
by the America Department of the Cuban Communist Party,
headed by Manuel Pineiro Losada. The America Department
emerged in 1974 to centralize operational control
of Cuba's covert activities. The Department brings
together the expertise of the Cuban military and the
General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) into a far-
flung 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 Caribbean -- in at least five recent instances
in the person of the Ambassador or Charge d'Affaires.
America Department officials frequently-serve as employ-
ees of Cuba's official press agency, Prensa Latina,
of Cubana Airlines, the Cuban Institute of Friendship
With People (ICAP), and other apparently benign organi-
zations. When too great an identification with Cuba
proves counterproductive, Cuban intelligence officers
work through front groups, preferably those with non-
Cuban leadership.(3)
3 Cuba maintains some front organizations set u
p
in the 1960's. One of these, the Continental Organization
of Latin American Students, still holds irregular
congresses of student leaders from Latin America and
the Caribbean (the most recent was held in Havana
in August 1981) and publishes a monthly-journal, which
is distributed by the Cuban government..
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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 surrounding cities. In addition to the language
and customs of the area to which they are assigned,
and typical intelligence operations such as infiltration
procedures and photography techniques, the Cubans
are instructed in handling explosives. To disguise
their true occupation, the intelligence agents are
also instructed in civilian skills such as automotive
mechanics, carpentry and heavy equipment operation.
Armed Struggle. The new Cuban offensive relies
heavily on violence. In outline, Cuba's strategy
is to:
unite traditionally splintered radical groups
behind a commitment to armed struggle with
Cuban advice and material assistance;
train ideologically committed cadres in urban
and rural guerrilla warfare;
supply or arrange for the supply of weapons
to support the Cuban-trained cadres' efforts
to assume power by force.
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
-- use military aid and advisors 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 emphasizes
certain tactics over others. In pursuing its long-
term strategy, Cuba concentrates 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
insurgencies 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 particular country.
For example, Cuba attempts to avoid activities which
could jeopardize its relations with the Mexican govern-
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ment since Castro seeks Mexico's support to avoid
isolation in the hemisphere.(4)
Propaganda. Cuba's extensive'cultural exchange
and propaganda activities are tailored to support
covert operations and elicit support for armed struggle.(5)
For example, during the past year, Cubans have used
Mexico as a base for coordination of propaganda on
behalf of insurgents in El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Colombia. Radio Havana and other Cuban media recently
have publicized statements by Chilean Communist Party
leaders urging unity of the Chilean left, and calling
for armed action to topple Chile's government. Radio
Havana has directed broadcasts to Paraguay urging
the overthrow-of the Paraguayan government.
4 Although Cuba is not involved in actions directly
threatening to Mexican internal stability, Cuba has
taken advantage of Mexico's open society and its exten-
sive presence there -- Cuba's Embassy in Mexico City
is its largest diplomatic mission in the hemisphere
-- to carry out support activities for insurgencies
in other countries. Mexico is a principal base for
Cuban contacts with representatives of several armed
Latin American groups on guerrilla strategy, logistical
support, and international activities.
5 Prensa Latina the
press agency of the Cuban
Government, has field offices in 35 countries, including
eleven different Latin American and Caribbean countries,
and combines news gathering and propaganda dissemination
with intelligence operations. Radio Havana, Cuba's
shortwave broadcasting service, transmits over 350
program hours per week in eight languages to all points
of the world. Cuba also.transmits nightly medium-
wave Spanish-language broadcasts over "La Voz de Cuba,"
a network of high-powered transmitters 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 disinformation to distort
news reports transmitted to the region, especially
those concerning places where Cuban covert activities
are most intense.
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Sports competitions, youth and cultural festivals,
and special scholarships to Cuba provide channels
to identify potential agents for intelligence and
propaganda operations. In Ecuador, Cuban Embassy
officers in Quito used their ties with Ecuadorean
students to try to orchestrate pro-Cuba demonstrations
when the'government of Ecuador threatened to suspend
relations after Cuba's forcible and unauthorized occupa-
tion in February 1981 of the Ecuadorean 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 specifi-
cally to military training, including one in Pinar
del Rio province and another near Guanabaco, east
of Havana. The camps can accommodate several hundred
trainees. Groups from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala,
Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, Grenada, the Dominican
Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Chile, and Uruguay have
been trained in these facilities during the past 'two
years.(6)
Recruits are normally provided false documentation
(sometimes Cuban passports) by Cuban agents in third
countries and are flown to Cuba on civil aircraft
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. (7)
Once in Cuba, trainees generally are taken immedi-
ately to the guerrilla training camps where they usually
6 Latin Americans are not the only trainees. In
a May 1978 Reuters interview published in Beirut,
Abu Khalaf, a leader of the military branch of El
Fatah, confirmed that Palestinian agents have received
training in Cuba since the late 1960's. Palestinian
organizations have reciprocated by training various
Latin American groups in the Middle East with Cuban
assistance. Libya, which hosted a meeting of Latin
American "liberation movements" January 25-February 1,
1979, also has trained some Latin American extremists.
7 Public exposure in March 1981 of the use of Panama
as a transit point for Colombian guerrillas trained
in Cuba led to sharp criticism of Cuba by the Panamanian
government. Panama imposed greater controls on activi-
ties of exiled Central and South Americans, and the
transit of guerrillas through Panama appears to have
ceased, at least temporarily.
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are grouped according to nationality and the organiza-
tion 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 frequently tied closely to operational
requirements (the M-19 guerrillas that 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 curriculum.
Many Cuban instructors are active military officers
and veterans of Cuban expeditionary forces in Africa.--
Soviet personnel have been reported at these camps,
but they apparently do not participate directly in
the guerrilla training.
Political Training. Each year Cuba offers hundreds
of scholarships to foreign students. All Cuban mass
organizations operate schools in organizational work
and indoctrination-open to carefully selected foreign
students.(8) In addition, some 11,000 non-Cuban secondary
8 Courses in agitation and
propaganda open to foreign-?
ers 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 Association 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 Training School, its highest
educational institution. The Cuban press reported
graduation cermonies 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 organiza-
tions 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 Granma labeled their
presence "a beautiful example of proletarian interna-
tionalism." Courses of instruction at the Nico Lopez
school, which is chaired by senior party leaders,
include "political training for journalists," "political
training for propagandists," economics, and ideology.
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school students, mostly teenagers, were enrolled in
1980 in 15 schools on the Isle of Youth alone. Cuba
does not publicize complete foreign enrollment statis=
tics, nor does it release the names of those'trained'.
From the Eastern Caribbean alone, close to 300 students
are currently in Cuba studying. technical and academic
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 occurred 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 multi-
faceted 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 organiza-
tions, commercial and cultural entities, and front
groups.
This extensive apparatus is designed to support
one objective: a systematic, long-range campaign to
destabilize governments.
III. CASE STUDIES
The Cuban activities described in the case studies
which follow must be considered to understand developments
within the particular countries in question. However,
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.
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CENTRAL AMERICA
Nicaragua
In July 1979, internal and external factors converged
to bring about the triumph of the anti-Somoza insurrection
and the subsequent domination 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 1970's 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 disrupt-
ing 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 1960's. 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
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.condi-
tioned on effective unity. During the XI World Youth
Festival in Havana in late July 1978, the Cubans an-
nounced that the unification of the three factions
9 Ulises Estrada was given his first ambassadorial
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.
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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 concentrated on building
a supply network for channelling arms and other supplies
to guerrilla forces. International sympathy for the
struggle against Somoza provided a convenient facade
for Cuban operations. In preparation for the first
FSLN offensive in the fall of 1978, arms were flown
from Cuba to Panama, transhipped to Costa Rica on
smaller planes, and supplied to Nicaraguan guerrillas
based in northern Costa Rica. To monitor and assist
the flow, the America Department established a secret
operations center in San Jose. By the end of 1978,
Cuban advisors were dispatched to northern Costa Rica
to train and-equip the FSLN forces with arms which
began to arrive direct from Cuba. FSLN guerrillas
trained in Cuba, however, continued-to return to Nicaragua
via Panama.
In early 1979, Cuba helped organize, arm, and
transport an "internationalist brigade" to fight along-
side FSLN guerrillas. Members were drawn from several
Central and South American extremist groups, many
of them experienced in terrorist activities. Castro
also dispatched Cuban military specialists to the
field to help coordinate the war efforts. Factionalism
threatened Sandinista unity again in early 1979, and
Castro met personally with leaders of three FSLN fac-
tions to hammer out a renewed unity pact.
When the insurgents' final offensive was launched
in mid-1979, Cuban military advisors from the Department
of Special Operations, a special military unit, were
with FSLN columns and maintained direct radio communi-
cations to Havana. A number of Cuban advisors 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 the center, Julian
Lopez Diaz, became Cuban Ambassador to Nicaragua.
One of his America Department assistants in San Jose,
Andres Barahona, was redocumented 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 economi-
cally. But to.ensure that the FSLN could move to
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dominate 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 advisors, teachers, and medical personnel
work at all levels of the military and civilian infra-
structures.(10) Of this number, more than 1500 military'
and security advisors are actively providing military
instruction and combat training; instruction in intelli-
gence and counterintelligence activities; instruction
on security protection for the FSLN leadership 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 USSR, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. This has
included tanks, light aircraft, helicopters, heavy
artillery, SAM's, 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 neighboring countries. The Cuban Ambassador
to Nicaragua and other America Department officials
frequently meet with Central American guerrillas in
Managua to advise them on tactics and strategy. Indivi-
dual Sandinista leaders have participated in such
meetings and have met independently with Guatemalan
and Salvadoran insurgents. The FSLN also has cooperated
in a joint effort by Cuba and Palestinian groups to
provide military training in the. Mideast to selected
10 The very quantity of Cuban advisors 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 aca-
demic 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 1200 teachers in February. By November
1981, however, all 2,000 Cuban teachers had returned
to Nicaragua.
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Latin American extremists. Some Sandinistas were
themselves trained by the PLO, 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 guerrillas 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 serving as a political conduit
between Salvadoran extremists and communists outside
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. from Cuba were kept low as the Cubans insisted
on a unified strategy as the price 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 command assumed the
name of the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU).
During this period, Cuba also coordinated the develop-
ment 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 summer of 1980. The
Cubans influenced the guerrillas to launch a general
offensive in January 1981. ,After the offensive failed,
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guerrilla leaders traveled to Havana in-February 1981
to finalize a strategy to "improve our internal military
situation" by engaging in a "negotiating maneuver"
to gain time to regroup.(11)
Cuba provided few weapons and ammunition to Salva-
doran 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.(12) 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 occurred. The arms
flow continues via clandestine surface and air routes.
In addition, the Cubans over the past year have estab-
lished a network of small ships to deliver arms to
Salvadoran insurgent groups.
Cuba also assists the Salvadoran guerrillas in
contacts with Arab radical. states and movements to
arrange military training and financing for arms acquisi-
tions. 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 coordinates
the training of a relatively small number of Salvadoran
guerrillas in Palestinian camps in the Mideast.
11 A guerrilla document outlining this strategy
was found in Nicaragua in February 1981. Guerrilla
representatives later confirmed its authenticity to
Western Europeans with the disclaimer that the strategy
elaborately developed in the paper had been rejected.
12 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'him that Cuba had shipped arms
to the guerrillas. In discussions with several Inter-
Parliamentary Union (IPU) delegations at the September
1981 IPU conference in Havana, Castro again conceded
that Cuba had supplied arms.
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Cuban training of Salvadoran guerrillas increased
sharply in 1980 as Cuba concentrated on building a?
trained army able to mount major offensives. A typical
three-month training program inclule-d courses in:
guerrilla tactics; marksmanship and weapons use; field
engineering; demolition; fortification construction;
land navigation; use of artillery and mines. One
observer reported seeing groups up to battalion size
(250-500 men) under instruction, suggesting that some
guerrillas trained as integral units.(13)
Cuba has provided selected guerrillas more inten-
sive training on specialized subjects. A former FPL
guerrilla who defected in fall 1981 reported that
during 1980 he had received 7 months of military train-
ing in Cuba which included instruction in scuba diving
and underwater demolition. Soviet scuba equipment
was used. The group trained as frogmen called them-
selves "combat swimmers" and were told that their
mission was to destroy.dams, bridges, port facilities
and boats.
Cuba also gives political, organizational and
propaganda support to the guerrillas. Cuban diplo-
matic facilities worldwide help guerrilla front groups
with travel arrangements and contacts. The Cuban
press agency, Prensa Latina, has handled communications
for guerrilla representation abroad. Cuba and the
Soviet Union have pressed communist 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 Consulta-
tive Meeting in Havana of the Continental Organization
of Latin American Students (OCLAE), a Cuban front
group, told Radio Havana in August 1981 tha t-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,
13 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.
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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 imperialism in El Salvador."
With Soviet assistance, Cuba has orchestrated
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. intent
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
propaganda during 1980 was traced finally to the Salva-
doran 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. (14)
Guatemala
Castro has stepped up Cuba's support to Guatemalan
guerrillas whom he has aided with arms and training
since he came to power.
As-elsewhere, Cuba has influenced divided extremist
groups to unite and conditioned increased Cuban aid
on a commitment to armed struggle and a unified strategy.
During 1980, discussions about a unity agreement were .
14 At the time these reports first a
, ppeared the
U.S. was providing neither arms nor ammunition to
El Salvador. In January 1981 the U.S. responded to
the Cuban-orchestrated general offensive by sending
some military assistance and later sent American mili-
tary trainers, whose numbers 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 personnel are in
El Salvador and participate in combat.
 Approved For Release 2007/03/08: CIA-RDP84B00049R001800100004-3
held among leaders of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor
(EGP), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), the Organization
of People in Arms (ORPA), and the dissident faction
of the Guatemalan Communist Party (PGT/D). At the
invitation of Sandinista 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 Revolu-
tionary Command -- 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 ceremony. Following
the signing of the unity agreement, representatives
of the CGR traveled to Havana to present the document
to Castro. ORPA publicized the agreement in a communique
issued 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 concluded, Cuba
agreed to increase military training and assistance.
A large number of the 2,000 or more guerrillas now
active 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 includes 50 mm
mortars, submachine guns, rocket launchers, and other
weapons. Captured M-16 rifles have been traced to
O.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 seven months of
training in Cuba, beginning around February 1980.
His group was divided into sections for urban and
rural combat training in explosives and firearms use.
To get to Cuba, Castillo travelled to Costa Rica from
Guatemala by public bus. In Costa Rica a go-between
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 collaborated with
Salvadoran guerrillas. In January 1981, the EGP,
ORPA, FAR and the PGT/D circulated a joint bulletin
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announcing the intensification of their activities
in support of the general offensive 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 O.S. Eastern Airlines plane on July 2.
The bomb exploded before being loaded, killing a Guatemalan
airport employee.
Costa Rica
Cuba took advantage of Costa Rica's strong popular
and governmental opposition to Somoza's authoritarian
government and of Costa Rica's open democratic society
to establish and coordinate a covert support network
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 opposed 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 hidden.
A Special Legislative Commission established
in June 1980 by the Costa Rican Legislature revealed
Cuba's extensive role in arming the Nicaraguan guer-
rillas. The Commission determined that there were
at least 21 flights carrying war material between
Cuba and Llano Grande and Juan Santamaria Airports
in Costa Rica.(15)
Costa Rican pilots who made these flights reported
Cubans frequently accompanied the shipments. Although
Cubans were stationed at Llano Grande, their main
operations center for coordinating logistics and contacts
with the Sandinistas was set up secretly in San Jose
.and run by America Department official Lopez Diaz.
The Special Legislative Commission estimated that
a minimum of one million pounds of arms moved to Costa
Rica from Cuba and elsewhere during the Nicaraguan
15 The Commission's report was issued May 14, 1981%
r
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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 Sombza
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 Honduras as a bridge." Through
1980 and into 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 Illanes, 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 acquisi-
tion of some of the arms and ammunition remaining
in Costa Rica from the Nicaraguan airlift to supply
the Salvadoran insurgents.
This new Cuban operation was coordinated from
San Jose, first from their secret operations center
then later directly from the Cuban Consulate. The
major coordinator, until his expulsion from Costa
Rica in May 1981 following the break in consular rela-
tions 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 facili-
tated by Costa Rica's three Marxist-Leninist parties,
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which have provided funds, safehaven, transportation
and false documents.(16)
Terrorism had been virtually unknown in'Costa
Rica until March 1981 except for scattered incidents
of largely foreign origin. The first Costa Rican
terrorists 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 twenty accused terrorists and are continuing
to investigate leads linking them to South American
terrorist groups such as the Argentine Montoneros,
the Uruguayan Tupamaros, Colombia's M-19 and to Cuba
itself. Two of the accused terrorists are known to
have received training 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/mili-
tary training" in Cuba and returned to work in the
Atlantic coastal zone of Costa Rica. The documents
indicate that the two were in Cuba from 8-12 months
-- possibly in 1978 -- and were financed by the terror-
ist group known popularly in Costa Rica as "the family."
Aguilar said he did not discount the possibility that
others had been trained in Cuba.
While 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 Revolution-
ary Movement of the People (MRP) -- while disavowing
responsibility for terrorist acts, has spoken of them
16 In 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) explained his party's position.
"We establish ties with all revolutionary organiza-
tions in Central America. We have close ties and
are willing to give all the aid we possibly can in
accordance with the principles of proletarian inter-,
nationalism because we believe that the struggle of
the Central American people is the struggle of our
own people."
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as "well intentioned. "Some of the arrested terrorists
are know to have belonged to' the MRP at one time.
On November 5 the Office of National Security announced
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 process from
developing in a festive atmosphere" and "the taking
of power by the armed people." The head of the MRP
has traveled many times to Cuba and Cuba has given
training to other MRP leaders.
Honduras
Cuba provided paramilitary training to a small
number of Hondurans in the early 1960's, but relations
with Honduran radicals were strained until the late
1970's. Cuba then resumed military training for members'
of the Honduran Communist Party_(PCH) and integrated
them into the "internationalist brigade" fighting
in the Nicaraguan civil war. After the war, PCH members
returned to Cuba for additional training.
Since then Cuba has concentrated primarily on
developing Honduras as a conduit for arms and other
aid to guerrillas active elsewhere in Central America.
In January 1981, Honduran officials discovered a large
cache of concealed arms intended for Salvadoran guer-
rillas, 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 Honduras.
In the normal pattern, Havana has urged splintered
extremist groups in Honduras to unify and embrace
armed struggle. While holding back from 'levels of
support given to Salvadoran and Guatemalan guerrillas,
Cuba has increased its training of Honduran extremists
in political organization and military operations..
Cuba has also promised to provide Honduran guerrillas
their own arms, including submachine guns and rifles.
On November 27, Honduran authorities discovered
a guerrilla safehouse on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa.
Two guerrillas were killed in the resulting shootout,
including an Uruguayan citizen. Nicaraguans-as well
as Hondurans were captured at the house, where a substan-
tial arsenal of. automatic weapons and explosives were
seized. Incriminating documents, including notebooks
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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 guerrillas. Two additional guerrilla
safehouses located in La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula
were raided on November 29, and authorities seized
sizeable arms caches, explosives and communications
equipment. These arms may have been destined for
use within Honduras.
THE CARIBBEAN
Jamaica
In the late 1970's, Jamaica became a special
target for Cuba. Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials
developed close relationships with important members
of the People's National Party (PNP) which governed
Jamaica from 1973 until 1980. Cuban security personnel
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 1400
Jamaican youths in Cuba as construction 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 training while in Cuba, including instruction
in revolutionary tactics and use of arms.
During this same period, the Cuban diplomatic
mission in Jamaica grew in size. 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 five years, had a long history of involvement
in political'action activities and intelligence opera-
tions, 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 ammuni-
tion into Jamaica. A Cuban front corporation (Moonex
International, registered in Lichtenstein, with subsid-
iaries 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 ammuni-
tion shipped illegally to Jamaica from Miami. Jamaican
authorities apprehended the local manager of the corpor-
ation.as he was attempting to leave the country, in
defiance of police instructions, on a private plane
accompanied by the Jamaican Minister of National Security
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and Cuban Ambassador Estrada. 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 elections campaign. M-16 rifles then appeared
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 seventy
of these weapons have been found by Jamaican authori-
ties. Some of the M-16's found in Jamaica have serial
numbers in the same numerical series as captured M-16's
shipped to Salvadoran guerrillas from Vietnam.
Ambassador Ulises Estrada 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 interfer-
ence in Jamaican affairs. Cuba continued to maintain
some fifteen intelligence agents at the Cuban Embassy
in Kingston. On October 29, the government broke
diplomatic relations with Cuba and cited Cuba's failure
to return three Jamaican fugitive criminals as the
immediate cause for this action. On November 17,
the government publicly detailed Cuba's role in providing
covert military training under the curtailed "brigadista"
program.
Guyana
In 1978, as many as 200 Cuban technicians, advis-
ors, and medical personnel were stationed in Guyana.
However, while claiming fraternal relations with Guyana's
government, Cuba maintained contact with radical opposition
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.
Cuban military advisors have provided guerrilla
training outside Guyana to members of a small radical
Guyanese opposition group, the Working People's Alli-
ance. Five of the seven members of the Cuban Embassy
are known or suspected intelligence agents.
Grenada
Cuban influence in Grenada mushroomed almost
immediately after the March 1979 coup led by the New
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Jewel Movement of Maurice Bishop. Bishop and his
closest colleagues were Western-educated Marxist radi-
cals, and they 'turned for help to Fidel Castro, who
proved willing to provide assistance:
To allow close Cuban supervision of Grenadian
programs,?a senior intelligence officer from the America
Department, Julian Torres Rizo, was sent to Grenada
as ambassador. Torres Rizo has maintained intimate
relations with Bishop and other People's Revolutionary
Government (PRG) 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 identi-
cal, so much so that they alone of all Western Hemi-
sphere nations have voted against O.N. resolutions
condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Cuban aid to Grenada has been most intense in
those areas which affect the security of its client
government and the island's strategic usefulness to
Cuba. Cuba has advisors on the island offering mili-
tary, technical, security and propaganda assistance
to the Bishop government. 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 cere-
monies 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 mono-
poly, 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.
Cuba's largest project in Grenada is the construc-?
tion of a major airfield at Point Salines on the southern
tip of the island.. Cuba has provided hundreds of
construction workers and Soviet equipment to build
the airfield. This airfield, according to PRG state-
ments, is required to bring tourism 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 Saliyes runway, moreover, has clear military
potential. Such an airfield will allow operations
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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 anybody passing through
Grenada to assist them?"
The 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
radicals 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 coun-
tries have mounted extensive 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 studying 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 pressur-
ing the PCD to unite with other extreme left organiza-
tions. The PCD and the pro-Cuban Dominican Liberation
Party (PLD) 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
countries. Cuba also has given military instruction
to many members of small extremist splinter groups
like the Social Workers Movement (MST) and the Socialist
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SOUTH AMERICA
Colombia
Since the 1960's, Cuba has nurtured contacts
with violent extremist groups in democratic Colombia.
During the 1970's, 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 attended 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 guerrillas was
stepped up after the February 1980 seizure,of the
Dominican Republic Embassy in_Bogota. A number of
diplomats, 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
to Cuba, where the remaining hostages were released
and the terrorists were given asylum.
During mid-1980, Cuban intelligence officers
arranged a meeting of Colombian extremists attended
by representatives from the M-19, FARC, ELN, and other
Colombian 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 members
who had received no prior political or military training.
as well as new recruits.. In Cuba the guerrillas were
given three months of military instruction from.Cuban,
army instructors, 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 Cuba after the takeover
of the Dominican Republic Embassy also participated
in the training. program.
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In February 1981, some 100-200 armed M-19 guer-
rillas reinfiltrated into Colombia from Panama by
boat along the Pacific coast. The guerrillas' mission
to establish a "people's army".failed. The 1-19 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 involvement with the
M-19 landings, but did not deny training the guerrillas.(17)
Cuba's propaganda support for Colombian terrorists
was impossible to deny. When a group apparently consist-
ing of M-19 dissidents kidnapped 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 institute workers as "U.S. spies."
Radio Moscow picked up the unfounded accusation to
use in its Spanish broadcasts' to Latin America. The
American was later murdered by the kidnappers. (18)
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 interview: "...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."
17 Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafae-1 Rodriguez
explained in an interview published 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 training. We did not
deny this desire. If a revolutionary for Latin America
wishes to learn the technique and organization of
resistance for his own self-defense, we cannot refuse
in view of the brutal oppression. This also holds
true for the Salvadorans."
18 The J.S. citizen killed, Chester Allen Bitterman,
was working for the Summer Institute of Linguistics,
a religious group which, develops written forms of
indigenous languages.
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Chile
After Allende's fall in 1973, Castro promised
Chilean radicals "all the aid in Cuba's power to provide."
Although Cuban officials maintained regular contact
with many Chilean exiles, 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 Revolutionary Left (MIR)
with which Cuba had close relations.
Throughout the 1970's, 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 sophisticated courses in document fabrica-
tion, explosives, code writing, photography, and dis-
guise. In addition, Cuban instructors 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 living 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 seven 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 identification 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 offi-
cial newspaper Granma wrote in February 1981 that
the "Chilean Resistance'! forces had successfully con-
ducted more than 100 "armed actions" in Chile in 1980.
By late 1979, the PCCH was reevaluating 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
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a new party line calling for armed struggle to overthrow
the Chilean government and for coordination of efforts
by all parties, including the violent left. In January
1981, Corvalan commended MIR terrorist acts as "helpful"
and stated that the PCCH was willing not only to talk
with MIR representatives but to sign agreements with
the group. Several days after this offer, Corvalan
signed a unity agreement 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 two weeks of the agreement, however, Moscow
showed its implicit approval 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 commandos 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 policemen, and a number of
assassination attempts against high government officials.
Argentina
The Cubans have a long history of association
with, encouragement of, and active backing for terrorism
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-1970's,
the Montoneros and the People'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 terrorism,
in the early and mid-1970's, the Cubans used their
embassy in Buenos Aires to maintain direct liaison
with Argentine terrorists.
The Argentine terrorists were virtually defeated
by 1978. In that year, Castro permitted the Montonero
national leadership to relocate its headquarters in
Cuba. Today, the Montonero top command, its labor
organization, its intelligence organization, among
other. units, are all located in Cuba. The Cubans
facilitate the travel and communications of Montoneros,
supplying them with false documentation and access
to Cuban diplomatic pouches. Montoneros have been
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among the Latin American guerrillas trained in guerrilla
warfare over the past year in the Mideast as part
of a cooperative effort between Palestinian groups
and Cuba.
Following the move of"their high command to Havana,
the Montoneros made repeated attempts to reinfiltrate
Argentina. In late 1979, small groups of infiltrators
eluded detection and were able to carry out several
terrorist actions, including four murders. Subsequent
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 anniversary of the July 1979 victory,
wearing the uniform of a Sandinista Commander. 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 materials were
discovered on its installations.
Uruguay
After the failure of the urban insurgency organized
in the early 1970's by the National Liberation Movement
(MLN-Tupamaros), several hundred Tupamaros went to
Cuba. During the mid-1970's, Cuba provided some of
them with training in military and terrorist tactics,
weapons and intelligence. Several of these former
Tupamaros subsequently assisted Cuba in running intelli-
gence operations in Europe and Latin America. Some
participated in the Cuban-organized "internationalist
brigade" that fought in the Nicaraguan civil war.
Cuba continues to provide propaganda 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 solidarity with the Uruguayan peoples' 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.
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IV. POSTSCRIPT
Cuba's renewed campaign of violence has had a
negative impact on Cuba's relations with its'neighbo'rs.
Cuba's. policies abroad and its reaction to emigration
pressures at home have reversed the trend in Latin
` -laerica 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 ambassa-
dor in April 1980, when the Cuban government encouraged
Cubans eager to leave the island to occupy the' Peruvian
Embassy. After over 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 emigration, also
expelling many criminals and the mentally ill, and
ultimately allowing over 125,000 people to leave under
sometimes perilous conditions. But Cuba still refuses
to issue safe conduct passes to the 14 Cubans that
remain cloistered in the Peruvian Embassy in Havana
today.
Cuba's neighbors were further shocked when Cuban
MiG 21's 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 Guard aircraft were harrassed
by Cuban MiG's while searching for survivors at the
request of the Bahamian government."
Relations between Venezuela and Cuba deteriorated
badly in 1980, principally over the'asylum issue,
to the degree that Venezuela removed its ambassador
from Havana. In November 1980, Jamaica expelled the
Cuban Ambassador 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 existing consular
ties with Cuba, expelling Cuban officials active in
coordinating support networks for Central American
insurgents.
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Today, outside the English-speaking Caribbean,*
only Argentina, Panama, Mexico, and Nicaragua conduct
relatively normal relations through resident ambassadors
in Havana. Use of Panama as a'transit point-for Colombian
guerrillas, however, led Panama to reassess its relations
with Cuba, and resulted in sharp public criticism
of Cuba's' "manifest disregard for international standards
of political co-existence" by a high Panamanian government
official.