The Untold Story of the Cuban Five (Part VI)
Indictment a la carte

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada — President of the National Assembly of People’s Power

• More than seven months after the Cuban Five were arrested and indicted a new charge was brought by the U.S. government. Again, the charge was one of "conspiracy", but this time to commit murder in the first degree and it was brought specifically against one of the Five, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.
The new indictment appeared after a public campaign in Miami actively promoted by "journalists" on the U.S, government payroll, including reports on meetings in public places attended by well-known Cuban exile leaders, U.S. prosecutors and FBI officials, in which the accusation against Gerardo was openly discussed. This turned into a clear demand by the most violent groups in the city and was a central focus of the local media.
The government acquiesced to the demand and introduced a Second Superseding Indictment whose essential new feature was the addition of this "crime" to the list of charges against Gerardo.
This was a political concession to anti-Cuban terrorists, who were seeking revenge for the downing by the Cuban Air Force on February 24, 1996 of two light aircraft (the Model O2 used by the U.S. Air Force first in the war on Vietnam and later in El Salvador, as was concretely the case with these two) piloted by members of a violent anti-Cuban group, an event that took place two years before the Cuban Five were detained, when those aircraft were within Cuban airspace.
In fact, the timing was very suspicious. According to information provided by the government during the trial, the FBI had discovered the real nature of Gerardo’s revolutionary mission in Miami and was monitoring his communications with Havana for at least a couple of years prior to the downing of the light aircraft. If that incident was a result of a "conspiracy" in which Gerardo was a key participant, why wasn’t he arrested in 1996? Why was this issue not even mentioned in September 1998, when he was first detained and indicted?
The light aircraft belonged to a group headed by José Basulto, a veteran CIA agent involved in a large number of paramilitary actions from 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and a series of assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. In the 20 months that preceded the incident, this group had penetrated Cuban airspace 25 times, each one of which was denounced by the Cuban government.
After many diplomatic démarches the U.S. government wanted to seem receptive. It initiated an investigation into those flights, asking for Cuba’s help in providing details of previous provocations, acknowledging their receipt and expressing gratitude for them.  On February 24, 1996 those administrative proceedings had not been completed, but subsequently Mr. Basulto had his pilot’s license withdrawn the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and can no longer fly (at least legally).
The provocateurs had blatantly announced that they were going to continue making illegal flights within Cuba’s airspace and even proclaimed that the island, which at that time was suffering its worst crisis – worse in economic terms than that of the Great Depression, according to a UN report – was not capable of responding to their illegal incursions. In January, Mr. Basulto brought with him from Miami a NBC TV crew, who filmed and broadcast how they overflew downtown Havana dropping propaganda and other materials. Cuba made public its decision not to tolerate any further provocations, sent the appropriate notifications to all concerned, including the U.S. government, the State Department and the FAA, which, in its turn, advised Basulto and his group to refrain from such flights.
The alleged "conspiracy" was in itself a monumental stupidity, incomprehensible to any rational mind. The hypothesis was that the Cuban government had decided to provoke an all-out war with the United States, a military confrontation that obviously would have resulted in a terrible blow not only for the Cuban government, but for the entire nation and its people. In any crime motivation is always a key factor, a decisive cue. What could have been Cuba’s motivation for provoking an event of that type precisely at that moment, 1996, of greatest risk for the survival of our country, without allies or friends in a world and a hemisphere under the total control of the United States?
Cuba did exactly the opposite. Time and time again, it denounced every provocation to the FAA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, the UN institution responsible for such matters) and sent dozens of diplomatic notes to the State Department. But Cuba went further than that. It made every effort to reach the highest level of the U.S. administration, the White House, trying to prevent more incidents.
The January 1998 issue of The New Yorker, dedicated to Cuba on the occasion of the Pope’s visit, included a serious article in which a fairly objective account of those efforts on Cuba’s part can be found. (Carl Naguin, Annals of Diplomacy Backfire, The New Yorker, January 26, 1998, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998 )
Yes, there was a conspiracy to provoke the tragedy of February 24, 1996. But it was the entire and exclusive work of the same Miami groups that have unleashed a half-century terrorist campaign against Cuba, the same gang that later kidnapped Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old boy. Deeds from which they have always emerged with impunity. •