Speaking at the University of California Center in Washington. The following is an abridged version of a talk I gave about my forthcoming book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five, on April 18, 2012 at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C.. *** I am a […]
“Shootdown,” an excerpt from Stephen Kimber’s forthcoming book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five is now available as an ebook from Amazon. http://amzn.to/HWl12l The excerpt unfolds the critically important episode of the shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft over the Straits of Florida in February 1996—from Brothers’ […]
- 04/16/2012
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“Orlando Bosch, a prominent Cuban exile militant charged and then acquitted in the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976, died in Miami Wednesday.” The Miami Herald, April 27, 2011. Orlando Bosch’s release from a Miami jail in 1990 marked the beginning of a decade of renewed attacks on Cuba by exile militants. This excerpt […]
In this, the first of a three-part video from Cubavision, Salvadoran Francisco Chavez Abarca talks about—and reenacts—a number of his missions to Cuba to plant bombs at tourist facilities during the mid-1990s: For more on who Chavez Abarca is and the story of his involvement in the 1997 hotel bombing campaign, check out The Gordito […]
On September 10, 1997, Cuba officially announces the arrest of Raúl Cruz León, a Salvadoran mercenary, in connection with the bombing that killed Fabio Di Celmo. But there’s more the Cubans don’t announce… The day before—at the direction of his Cuban interrogators—Cruz León telephoned Francisco Chávez Abarca, the Salvadoran who’d hired him for the bombing […]
- 09/10/2010
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Luis Posada brags about his role in the hotel bombings that killed an Italian-Canadian tourist in this telephone conversation secretly recorded by Cuban State Security. Venezuela September 5, 1997 “Paco,” the voice at the other end of the phone demanded, “are you up to date on all this?” Luis Posada Carriles Paco was Francisco Pimentel, […]
- 09/05/2010
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Havana September 4, 1997 5:30 p.m. Copacabana explosion site It had been a good day. Four bombs. At $2,000 a bomb, that was $8,000. Not to forget the thousand Gordito still owed him from the last trip. Cruz León would be able to pay off his debts and have plenty left over for other, better […]
- 09/04/2010
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One of the fascinating sidebars to the story of the Cuban Five is the cameo role Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez played in the unfolding drama that led to the arrest of the Five in September 1998. In this excerpt from the manuscript-in-progress, Fidel Castro asks his friend ‘Gabo’ to undertake an important secret […]
Francisco Chavez Abarca Francisco Chavez Abarca—the Salvadoran man arrested at Caracas International Airport on Thursday (July 1, 2010) and accused of plotting to “provoke violence and destabilization” in the lead-up to Venezuela’s legislative elections in September—was one of the keys player in the 1997 Havana hotel bombing campaign orchestrated by anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles. […]
- 07/05/2010
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STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
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