|
STATEMENT from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
Another U.S. government theft of
Cuban funds frozen in that country
THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs
has learned that on November 27 in the United
States, Cuban funds were stolen for the fourth time
from money illegally frozen in U.S. banks after the
triumph of the Revolution, under the so-called
“Regulations for the Control of Cuban Assets,”
passed on July 8, 1963, establishing, among other
steps, the freezing of Cuban assets in the United
States as part of the illegal and cruel policy of
blockade against Cuba.
This shameless theft was carried
out to satisfy legal rulings on spurious lawsuits
filed against our country in U.S. courts by U.S.
citizens Janet Ray Weininger and Dorothy Anderson
McCarthy. These plaintiffs received a total of
$72,126,884 from Cuban funds frozen in bank accounts
of the National Bank of Cuba and the Cuban
Telecommunications Enterprise (EMTELCUBA). In both
cases, U.S. federal courts upheld the rulings issued
by a Florida state court.
One of the suits against Cuba was
filed in the 11th Judicial Circuit Court for
Miami-Dade County, a Florida state court, by Janet
Ray Weininger, the daughter of American pilot Thomas
Willard Ray, falsely alleging that he was summarily
executed on April 19, 1961 during the mercenary
invasion of Playa Girón.
In reality, he was a pilot who an
aggressor from the United States, a CIA agent who
was shot down during the invasion and whose body
remained preserved at the Cuban Institute of Legal
Medicine for 18 years because the U.S. government
concealed his identity and refused to admit to his
U.S. citizenship, in order to not acknowledge its
direct responsibility in that failed invasion.
Finally, after steps taken by the Ray family and
after the U.S. government admitted to the pilot’s
identity and citizenship, it was possible to hand
over his body to his family in 1979.
In response to the other lawsuit,
filed by Dorothy Anderson McCarthy, the
abovementioned state court accepted charges of the
supposed torture and extrajudicial execution of U.S.
citizen Howard F. Anderson without any proof, and
when in reality, he was a U.S. citizen who was tried
on April 18, 1961 by the Revolutionary Court of
Pinar del Río in Case No. 97 of that year for his
subversive activities on behalf of the U.S.
government and against the Cuban people, and
sentenced to the death penalty.
Anderson had been detained by
State Security forces on March 26, 1961, a few weeks
before the Bay of Pigs invasion, for being a member
of a group of former soldiers at the services of the
dictatorship, members of the terrorist groups
“Anti-communist Civic Association” (ACA) and
“Democratic Revolutionary Front” (FRD), which were
preparing armed uprisings, implementing instructions
from the CIA. Eight tons of weapons were seized from
Anderson’s group, which had buried them on the
southern coast of Pinar del Río, and which had been
brought to Cuba on February 22, 1961 by a boat with
U.S. registration, in a CIA-directed operation.
Investigations confirmed that Anderson, who was
using the pseudonym “Lee” in Cuba, was the CIA’s
liaison with the abovementioned counterrevolutionary
organizations in Cuba.
During the processing of the
lawsuits against Cuba that have now resulted in
another theft of our frozen funds, the U.S.
government acted with total complicity with the
plaintiffs, arguing that U.S. law permitted the use
of those funds to satisfy the rulings favoring the
plaintiffs, and therefore that the Treasury
Department could not place the slightest obstacle in
the way, and even exempted them from obtaining
licenses to be able to take possession of the funds.
These actions against Cuba are
based on the arbitrary and politicized manipulation
of the U.S. government designation of our country as
a supposed “state sponsor of international
terrorism,” as well as a distorted interpretation of
U.S. laws themselves.
It is totally unacceptable for
the Cuban state to be accused of the commission of
supposed acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens. On
the contrary, it has been precisely acts of
terrorism and armed attacks against Cuba,
perpetrated from that country, that have caused
thousands of deaths and serious physical and
psychological injuries to Cuban citizens, as well as
extensive damages and economic harm to our country.
These and other, similar lawsuits
filed in U.S. courts lack validity and legitimacy
for Cuba, given they are based on totally false and
manipulated arguments, constituting legal
aberrations that can only be accommodated by and
sustained on the irrational and hostile U.S.
government policies toward Cuba.
The Cuban state has repeatedly
exposed the illegal actions by successive U.S.
administrations using Cuban funds illegally frozen
in that country. In the past, these funds have been
stolen by the decision or consent of several
presidents and by the U.S. Congress itself, on the
dates of October 2, 1996; February 12, 2001; and
April 29, 2005, to “compensate” representatives of
the terrorist mafia in Miami, particularly the
families of pilots from the counterrevolutionary
organization “Brothers to the Rescue” who were shot
down on February 24, 1996 for repeatedly violating
our airspace.
With the recent attack on Cuban
financial assets frozen in U.S. banks, a total of
$170,233,536 in funds has been stolen from our
country.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
accuses the U.S. government of making yet another
unilateral decision to steal Cuban financial assets
and therefore flagrantly failing to comply with its
obligations to protect and watch over the absolute
integrity of those funds, which belong to Cuban
institutions.
The Cuban government does not
recognize the jurisdiction of U.S. courts to judge
the Republic of Cuba. Neither the U.S. government
nor the legal agencies of that country have the
legitimate right to hand over frozen Cuban funds to
terrorist groups or to families of U.S. citizens
involved in aggression against our country, thus
directly encouraging this type of activity.
The Cuban government condemns
these most recent attacks on Cuban funds frozen in
the United States, given that they constitute
actions in violation of international law and are
yet another expression of the criminal U.S.
government policy of blockade and hostility against
our country.
Cuba will never renounce its
right to demand that full responsibility should be
taken by the U.S. government for the theft down to
the last cent of funds that are legitimately ours.
Havana, January 10, 2007 |
