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No. 21 |
November 7, 2021 |
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CONTENTS • Cuba Takes All-Sided Measures to Reopen Its Borders • CIA Attempt to Foment "Colour Revolution" Exposed • Canadian Official Circles Repeat Twitter Disinformation • Role
Played by Twitter and Instagram in • Facebook Papers and Subversion in Cuba - M.H. Lagarde -
• The Case of the Organizer of the "March for Change" • Video
Support Revolutionary Cuba! Oppose Foreign Interference in Cuban Affairs! Cuba Takes All-Sided Measures to
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On November 15 Cuba will reopen its economy and once again permit foreign travel and tourists from abroad, accompanied by the necessary measures to ensure the safety of Cubans and foreign visitors.
To facilitate access to travellers, quarantine requirements upon arrival were eliminated as of November 7, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing at airports as of November 15. In addition to regular travel documents, tourists will only be required to carry a vaccination passport or proof of a negative PCR test result obtained within 72 hours prior to arrival.
Cuba will receive more than 400 weekly flights in all its airports as of November 15, Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodríguez said at a press conference. This includes up to 147 weekly flights from the United States. The minister explained that all airlines' requests have been attended to.
Rodríguez explained that the 10 international
airports in Cuba have been conditioned for safe
transit, while optimizing the efficiency of health
measures without neglecting travellers' health. He
highlighted new elements such as the availability
of Internet in all airports, with 30 minutes free
of charge, and pointed out that work is being done
to digitize arrival procedures.
Starting November 15, Cuba will also authorize
the docking of recreational vessels in its
territorial waters. Viazul, a bus company which
connects several tourist destinations in Cuba,
will also resume its services.
More than a million students are scheduled to return to school on November 15, the same day the country opens up to international tourism, which had been limited by flight restrictions and the closure of hotels and restaurants in much of the island.
In the downtown and historic areas of Havana, hotels and restaurants have opened their doors to attract some of the 100,000 visitors that the authorities expect by the end of the year, Cuba's peak tourist season. In the first half of 2021, the country received just 21.8 per cent of the tourism captured in the same period of 2020 (1.2 million visitors). By 2022, the government expects two million tourists, still a far cry from the four million who came annually before the pandemic. "We are going for a controlled and staggered reopening with a guarantee that by November 15, 90 per cent of the population or more" will be vaccinated, Tourism Minister Juan Carlos García said recently.
As of October 30, 7.3 million Cubans out of a total population of 11.2 million (64.9 per cent of the population) have been fully vaccinated, with Cuban-produced vaccines. Recognition of these vaccines by the World Health Organization is pending. The authorities plan to immunize the entire population by the end of the year.
CIA Attempt to Foment
"Colour Revolution" Exposed
Cuban people stand in defence of the
Revolution in a mass rally in Havana July 17,
2021.
Ample evidence has come to light of the latest attempt by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in combination with well-known counter-revolutionary groups to foment a so-called colour revolution in Cuba. A first attempt at inciting anarchy and chaos in the streets of Cuba to provide a pretext to "warrant" a foreign invasion "to restore order and democracy," failed on July 11th when the Cuban leadership and people united in defence of revolutionary Cuba.
On Monday, November 1, Dr. Carlos Leonardo Vázquez provided information on the TV news channel CubaSi on how similar attempts are being made to undermine the reopening of the Cuban economy post-pandemic on November 15. He acquired the information directly as an agent working for Cuban security services under the name "Fernando."
He exposed the activities of one Yunior García who claims to head the "Archipiélago collective" which is the organizer of the so-called "March for Change" in Cuba on November 15. The evidence shows these activities are directly linked to U.S. intelligence agencies, counter-revolutionary groups and U.S. think-tanks promoting political subversion.
TML Monthly is providing below a summary of Dr. Vázquez's account on CubaSi.
Vázquez participated with Yunior García in training courses for political leaders in the service of foreign interests. In 2019 they came together at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. University of Saint Louis, where the role of armed forces in a transition process was one of the main subjects. One of the speakers attending the meeting was Richard Young, an expert in public protests as a method of political and social change. Young referred to the new forms of "civic activism" to seek to establish "a fundamentalist and privatizing capitalism."
The TV news program also aired a conversation between Yunior García and Ramón Saúl Sánchez Rizo, a terrorist linked to organizations such as Alpha 66, Omega 7, the National Liberation Front of Cuba and the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU).
Other disclosures came from Saily González, spokeswoman for the Archipiélago platform in the central province of Villa Clara, who acknowledged support and advice from Omar López, director of Human Rights of the Cuban American National Foundation.
Dr. Vázquez specified that the intention of the November 15 demonstrations is "to set off chaos and social disobedience." On the grounds of information which verifies that this is the case, municipal governments on the island of Cuba have prohibited the demonstrations as being unconstitutional.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians and Quebeckers to make sure MPs and news media in this country are not used to condone the activities of those whose aim is to foment violent protests to achieve the aims of the United States to take over Cuba. They do this by declaring that the protesters are Cubans who are fighting for freedom against an allegedly repressive and corrupt regime. They hide the source of Cuban scarcity in food, medicines, building materials, parts and so on, which is the brutal U.S. blockade which is illegal and a crime under international law. The fact that the protests are consciously and invariably organized to disrupt public order and create anarchy and violence is kept hidden. Instead the actions of the security forces in Cuba to maintain law and order are said to be proof of a repressive, authoritarian regime and constitute proof that a foreign invasion is warranted to defend human rights. CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians and Quebeckers to inform themselves about this modus operandi and oppose it.
To read and sign the petition to the Government of Canada against the U.S. war on Cuba click here.
Hands Off Cuba!
No Phony "Colour Revolution" Against Cuba!
No Foreign Interference in Cuban Affairs!
Respect Cuban Sovereignty!
Cuba Is a Safe Destination -- Visit Cuba!
Canadian Official Circles Repeat
Twitter Disinformation
Cuba solidarity
action in Montreal, October 31, 2021
Canadian official media are past masters at
repeating counter-revolutionary U.S. propaganda to
promote the need for regime change and the need
for foreign intervention to defend "democracy" and
"human rights."
The approach is to cover up that the events were engineered from abroad with the intent of causing chaos and a state of anarchy and violence. By declaring that the government should deal with the events on the basis of dialogue, they deny that those fomenting the anarchy and violence are not interested in having discussion about anything. Towards this end, Global Affairs Canada vents the false idea that the events were a matter of grassroots Cubans speaking out against the government in acts of political dissent.
On July 13, Prime
Minister Trudeau made a short statement. First he
said, "Canada has always stood in friendship with
the Cuban people," which is true and what everyone
wants Canada to do. But then a pernicious
character was revealed when, instead of opposing
those who seek to interfere in Cuba's internal
affairs, he said: "We have always called for
greater freedoms and more defence of human rights
in Cuba. We will continue to be there to support
Cubans in their desire for greater peace, greater
stability and greater voice in how things are
going."
He should support as much for the Canadian people before accusing others of not giving their people a voice in how things are going. Instead, on July 15, the Prime Minister said, "We're deeply concerned by the violent crackdown on protests by the Cuban regime. We condemn the arrests and repression by authorities of peaceful demonstration."
Again, he should say as much about the RCMP and
police forces in Canada and his own government for
dealing violently with demonstrators and those who
dissent by doing their duty to uphold rights when
the government fails to do so. "We stand, as we
always will, with the people of Cuba who want and
deserve democracy, freedom and respect," Trudeau
said.
So do all Canadians, Mr. Trudeau, but they do so by defending their right to defend themselves against foreign interference, subversion and invasions in defence of the democracy and freedom they have established for themselves.
On July 13 CBC News posted an agency image from U.S. media with the caption: "Poverty and the pandemic have converged in Cuba, to create unbearable circumstances that people were protesting in the capital over the weekend. They're demanding more freedom, while their president blames the situation on U.S. sanctions." Besides repeating twitter lies about the unfolding events in Cuba, the news item quoted former Canadian ambassador to Cuba Mark Entwistle noting that the demonstrations were unusual in that they are spreading across the country "not led by any kind of intellectual or cultural elites." "'And for the first time, they're calling for the removal of the government,' said Entwistle, who was ambassador from 1993-97," the CBC wrote.
Like Global Affairs and Trudeau, Entwistle and the CBC failed to say who precisely, besides the Biden administration and the NATO allies, was calling for the removal of the government.
No to Foreign Interference in
Cuba's Internal Affairs!
Hands Off Cuba!
Role Played by Twitter and Instagram in
Inciting Fake News about Cuba
"I have irrefutable evidence that the majority of users who took part in this campaign were in the United States and that automated systems were used to viralize the content, without being penalized by Twitter," Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez stated on July 13 following the failed July 11 attempt at fomenting a counter-revolutionary rebellion in Cuba. Evidence of this unconventional warfare against Cuba was irrefutable. Even U.S. official media such as Newsweek published the evidence of the use of fake accounts and bots to spread false news about what was going on in Cuba and incite violence in that country.
Spanish disinformation expert Julián Macías Tovar, the director of Pandemia Digital, found that around 2,000 Twitter accounts were created on July 10 and 11 that used the hashtag #SOSCuba. He analyzed more than two million tweets using the hashtag. His research and logs of the tweets and retweets can be found on Twitter.
Macías Tovar reported that the hashtag was first used on July 5, with the first tweet coming from Spain. This account posted over 1,000 tweets on July 10 and 11. Evidence shows that by using automated systems posting at the rate of five retweets per second, the number climbed to 100,000 on July 9, 500,000 on July 10, 1.5 million on July 11 and two million on July 12.
While the first tweets came from Spain, they involved the Miami mafia, as well as others such as an individual from the reactionary Argentinian organization Fundación Libertad known to have carried out similar campaigns against the former Bolivian president Evo Morales and the current president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
Fake images flooded social networks in several countries, using thousands of newly created accounts. Instagram alone had some 120,000 photos using the hashtag. Images from all over the world were used under the pretext that they were photos of anti-government protests in Cuba. These included photos from Egypt during the Arab Spring in 2011 and Cuba's May Day celebrations in 2018. Photos of the Cuban people in the streets defending revolutionary Cuba were also presented as anti-government protests, and reprinted by major U.S. media.
Fake news reports were spread including the absurd claims that Raúl Castro had fled to Venezuela, that a provincial Communist Party secretary had been "captured" by protestors, and that Venezuela would be sending troops to Cuba. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called it "media terrorism."
"It's clear that there are bots involved in the conversation about what's going on in Cuba," Sam Wooley, project director for propaganda research at the University of Texas at Austin's Centre for Media Engagement, told Newsweek.
What can be clearly seen is that first protests were called and orchestrated from the U.S., using some Cuban artists recruited by the U.S. which has been pouring millions of dollars into providing "grants" for Cuban artists. Then false accounts of the events were constructed and spread through social media using the fake accounts and bots, and picked up by the official media in various countries including Canada. False claims that people were being killed or "disappeared" were circulated, followed by acts of vandalism. At the same time, almost all Cuban public media were subject to intermittent attacks with denial of services.
There is widespread agreement among academics who study social media that Twitter and Facebook are rife with "influence operations." This refers to the use of fake accounts and multiple accounts with one user to create a deluge of tweets and "shares" through automated systems or bots. This "engagement" is presented as arising from real people and as mass participation used to establish what is "trending."
Not only are fake accounts used to manufacture "engagement," but followers can be purchased, either entirely fake ones or by using the names of real people without their knowledge or consent. The New York Times reported in 2018 that as federal and state authorities were investigating the sellers of artificial followers and other fraudulent social media engagements, more than a million followers disappeared from the accounts of dozens of prominent Twitter users, including a member of the Twitter board of directors. The people losing followers had purchased them from a company called Devumi.
Facebook Papers and Subversion in Cuba
The publication of the so-called Facebook Files, a compendium of documents published by a consortium of 17 media outlets, including CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, once again puts the finger on the sore spot regarding the role of the hate vending machine that the popular social network has become.
The new revelations added detail to the leaks by former company employee Frances Haugen published in October 2021 in the Wall Street Journal and repeated in sessions before the U.S. Congress and the British Parliament.
It is now known that the company's policy of putting its profits first when it comes to disinformation, lack of control and absence of internal precautionary measures, influenced the violence of the Trumpist hordes that stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2020.
According to the documents, after the U.S. presidential election of November 2020, the company fell into neglect and deactivated the precautionary measures that had been taken to prevent election day chaos. Many of the workers who in the months leading up to the elections had been part of the prevention team against fake news and hateful content, took leaves of absence or changed positions, and dozens of adopted rules were reversed.
The new revelations show that the social network barely dedicates resources to combat false information outside the United States, and its effectiveness is almost nil in developing countries such as India, currently the country with the most Facebook users in the world.
A report prepared by the company itself indicates that in 2020, 84 per cent of the actions against false information on Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook) occurred in the U.S., despite the fact that the vast majority of users are outside the U.S.
Among other information, the "papers" offer more details about the lack of resources allocated by the company to eliminate hate speech, and indicate that two years ago Facebook reduced the time that human moderators spend reviewing user complaints regarding hate speech.
But nothing, at least so far, has been said in the new documents about the use of Facebook as a media weapon against those nations that are not to the liking of the U.S. government.
The denunciation of such corporate behavior was already made a few years ago by another former employee of the company, Jaron Lanier, in his book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. In the chapter entitled "The Arab Spring" the author notes:
"The Arab Spring was an occasion for hearty self-congratulation in Silicon Valley. We claimed it as our glory at the time. 'Facebook Revolution' and 'Twitter Revolution' were common tropes back then.
"We gathered in front of big screens watching kids in Tahir Square in Cairo taking on a despotic government and we were in love. We celebrated as ordinary citizens used social media to tell NATO where to target strikes. Social media put a modern army at the fingertips of ordinary users."
Although ten years have passed since the Arab Spring, Facebook's policy in this regard has not changed much, at least as far as Cuba is concerned.
This is corroborated by someone who seems to agree with the use of Facebook as an instrument of incitement to hatred and terrorism: Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez.
According to this so-called expert on the subject, a character invented during the Bush administration to serve as a megaphone for anti-Cuban propaganda on social networks: "When the protests began in Cuba on July 11, Facebook accounts and their ability to broadcast live demonstrations were the key elements for a people that had been muzzled for more than a century to find their voice. The confluence that had been created in cyberspace, in a country where the right of association is severely limited, broke the barrier of mistrust and fear that had paralyzed citizens until then."
And in her commentary published by the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, as if to leave no one in doubt of the subversive role the Facebook hate machine plays against Cuba, she adds:
"Social networks and instant messaging services have remained the fundamental stage of rebellion. The Archipiélago platform, the main organizer of the civic march called for November 15, has used the potential of the digital group to unite more than 30,000 members. For them, Facebook has been the only possibility to meet and debate."
The "civic march" to which the also "independent journalist" alludes, claims to be a new edition of the "rebellion," that is, of the violent actions that took place last July 11 in Cuba, called via Internet by the "voice" of the imperial master with the purpose, in an opportunistic and cowardly manner in the midst of a world pandemic, of increasing and justifying the blockade that the U.S. has maintained against Cuba for more than sixty years. Another attempt to implement, at some point successfully, an Arab Spring on the island.
Their faith in the ability of Facebook algorithms to hack minds with the merchandise of hate is shared by the anti-Cuban annexationist mafia of Miami, which after the events of July 11 has not ceased to ask President Biden, in addition to a military intervention on the island, to implement a plan to offer free Internet to Cubans to supposedly combat the "censorship" of the "regime" in Havana.
In reality, since the days of the Iranian Green Wave, the blogger and her friends in Miami -- with the help of the "impartial" voracity of profits from Facebook and other social networks -- dream of bringing about "regime change" on the island and the prosperity of the "peaceful democracies" that today prevail in countries such as Libya and Syria.
(CubaSi.cu, November 1, 2021. Translated from original Spanish by TML.)
The Creation and Actions of a Counter-Revolutionary
The Case of the Organizer of the
"March for Change"
"Yunior is seeking confrontation with the armed forces, with MININT," is how "Agent Fernando" defines the plans of the leader of the Archipiélago platform, adding that "we are seeing in Yunior the creation and actions of a counter-revolutionary."
Material released
by Razones de Cuba reveals the identity
of agent Fernando, from the state security organs,
who participated with Yunior García Aguilera in a
workshop on "The role of the armed forces in a
process of transition," sponsored by the North
American Saint Louis University, on its Madrid
campus.
Carlos Leonardo Vázquez González, a doctor, first degree specialist in general comprehensive medicine and specialist in oncology, was for 25 years agent Fernando. "I am a Cuban, a revolutionary, a Martiano, and most importantly a Fidelista. I am sitting here today to make this public denunciation to the people of Cuba so that they do not allow themselves to be deceived by leaders created by How-To manuals, because Cuba will never be taken over by the great enemy to the North."
On October 12, the Administrative Council of Old Havana denied the request of citizen Yunior García Aguilera to hold a march for supposedly peaceful purposes scheduled for November. Using as a pretext that it was a civic initiative, conceived simultaneously for the whole country, he based his request on article 56 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba.
This article states that "The rights of assembly, demonstration and association, for lawful and peaceful purposes, are recognized by the state provided that they are exercised with respect for public order and in compliance with the precepts established by law."
The text of the Constitution also explicitly states in article 45 that "The exercise of the rights of individuals is limited only by the rights of others, collective security, general welfare, respect for public order, the Constitution and the law."
The material made public by Razones de Cuba explains that "The march for change," as this illegal and counter-revolutionary action is called, constitutes an attempt to generate a climate of insecurity, destabilisation and ungovernability, on the very day that the country opens its international borders and more than 1,600,000 students return to school.
At the beginning of 2018, Yunior traveled to Argentina to participate in an event coordinated by the project "Time for change and the new role of the armed forces in Cuba." On the website of the Torcuato Di Tella University, the project's coordinating centre, the objectives are set out, among them: "To continue the study of the FAR [Revolutionary Armed Forces -- Ed.], both through interviews, analysis of the information circulating, contacts by email to be able to adequately transmit possible scenarios and supposed allies in the future to activists."
According to the website, another of the objectives is to "cooperate with Cuban actors so that they can generate activities that allow them to link up with FAR members open to the processes of change." Another aim of the course was to "encourage civil society actors to disseminate knowledge and activities about the FAR."
According to Razones de Cuba, at this meeting the leader of Archipiélago spoke with academics Ruth Diamint and Laura Tedesco, the architects of the "Dialogue on Cuba" project.
The "staging" that García Aguilera is developing began much earlier than the playwright would like to admit. Dr. Carlos Leonardo Vázquez González has evidence saying, "In September 2019 we participated in an event on the role of the armed forces in a transition process."
The participants were all Cubans -- Vázquez González recounts -- from different sectors: doctors, journalists, historians. "Yunior García Aguilera was there at that workshop [...] This workshop in which I participated, is part of a project that is being carried out by experts from different parts of the world. There are many organizations that are financed by the United States, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Institute for Freedom (IPL), People In Need, CADAL [a non-government organization registered in Buenos Aires purporting to defend human rights -- Ed.], whose objective is to overthrow the Cuban Revolution."
In the course, Richard Young, an expert from the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, gave a lecture on the new forms of civic activism "which translates into the establishment of a fundamentalist and privatizing capitalism," according to the material released.
At the same workshop, sponsored by the U.S.-based Saint Louis University, with a campus in Madrid, participants met with Felipe González Márquez, who was president of Spain from 1982 to 1996, leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). In 1983, he created so-called anti-terrorist liberation groups responsible for kidnappings, torture and assassinations.
Another of those summoned was the counter-revolutionary Manuel Cuesta Morúa, who since 2014 has been working for the NED. Cuesta Morúa orchestrated the provocative plans against the summits of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Havana and the Summit of the Americas in Panama in 2015.
Carlos Leonardo Vázquez recalls that during the workshop, Yunior told Cuesta that he "admired him as a political dissident and that they could get in touch at some point to discuss some issues."
"Yunior García Aguilera's prominence began at the Saint Louis University, where he emotionally declared that on his arrival in Cuba he was going to devote himself to the counterrevolution," declared Dr. Carlos in the material provided by Razones de Cuba.
On the night of November 26, 2020, the Archipiélago leader posted on his Facebook wall, "Cuba, and what do we do now?," a phrase that has an analogy with the words pronounced by the playwright Václav Havel, defender of the hegemonic aims of the United States, who said "Something must be done." The next day [Yunior] appeared in front of the Ministry of Culture to "call on creators and intellectuals who are dissatisfied with the management of the institutions of the sector to disrespect the law," behind a supposed artistic position.
In the context of the events of 11 July, Yunior García went to the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television to make a 15-minute public intervention, following the unconventional warfare manuals applied in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Yugoslavia.
Another typical element of the so-called soft coups is the affiliation and activism of people of culture. The media are also a key part of the fabric of the coup, fostering discontent and distrust of the government and its policies, as well as boosting the morale of the insurgents.
What is a colour revolution? "To provoke chaos and disobedience in society, as well as to provoke international organisations to impose sanctions that could lead to military intervention and the establishment of an alternative government," Vázquez González pointed out.
One of the actors in the current rhetoric of aggression against Cuba is Ramón Saúl Sánchez Rizo, a notorious terrorist linked to organisations such as Alpha 66, Omega 7, Coordinación de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas (CORU) and the Frente Nacional de Liberación de Cuba. In 1982, he was accused of participating in the assassination attempt against Raúl Roa Kourí, Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations.
In early 1995, he joined the naval flotillas of the organization Cuba independiente y democrática, which have violated Cuban territorial waters on many occasions. He is currently president of the "Democracy Movement." Although the leader of Archipiélago denies his links with subversive organizations or agencies financed by the U.S. government, since 2017, he has been identified by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an organization directed until March 2021 by William Joseph Burns, current director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Likewise, well-known far-right figures such as Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar and Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat support the (November 15) march.
On October 12, Yunior García himself acknowledged to teleSUR his relationship with Timothy Zúñiga Brown, chargé d'affaires at the Washington Embassy in Havana, but omitted to mention his links with Alexander Augustine Marceil, a Cuban Affairs officer at the U.S. State Department who has carried out temporary missions in countries in conflict such as South Sudan, Kenya and Mexico. Marcelli has visited Cuba three times between 2019 and 2021, and on his arrival in Havana he has met with members of the internal counterrevolution.
For her part, Saily González Velázquez, spokesperson for the Archipiélago platform in Villa Clara acknowledges the support offered by the Cuban-American National Foundation. In another interview, she said that "what I am doing is informing myself with people like Omar López, other people who are advising us on the subject of peaceful resistance and non-violent struggle."
It should be noted that Omar López Montenegro is the human rights director of this foundation, protector of the terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch Ávila, perpetrators of the bombing of the Cubana de Aviación plane that killed 73 passengers, including the youth fencing team.
"He is calling for a march that he says is peaceful, but he knows it is not. Because in the paramilitary workshop where we participated there were two generals. What Yunior García Aguilera is looking for is a confrontation between the Armed Forces and the people, and we will not allow that," said Dr. Carlos Leonardo Vázquez González.
(Translated from the original Spanish by TML.)
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