The ‘selfless friendship’ of the Cuban Five solidarity movement

In the sweet afterglow of last month’s historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, much has been made of the pivotal roles played by Pope Francis, the Canadian government, New York Times editorialists, various American politicians and their aides, even “sperm diplomacy.” All that is true, of course, but there are other narratives in […]

Now it’s official!

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT KNOWN that I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, clause I, of the Constitution, and in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, do hereby commute the aforesaid total prison sentence of the said GERARDO […]

The Cuban Five free at last. The week that was.

On December 17, 2014, the United States and Cuba reached an historic deal. The United States agreed to return Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero — the remaining three members of the Cuban Five — to their families and homeland in exchange for a previously unknown Cuban national who has spent much of the […]

Transcript of my Interview with “The Taylor Report” on CIUT Radio

Radio show interview transcribed by Joan Malerich. Phil Taylor (PT): Stephen Kimber, are you there sir? Stephen Kimber (SK) : I am. PT: How are you? SK: Very Good. SK: It’s great to talk to you. I have interviewed lawyers, and I have interviewed members of the family of the Cuban Five on this show and I was under the impression that […]

What Lies ‘should be on shelves in every library’

“Despite the venom and at least attempted overt censorship directed at his work in Miami—which may be inconsequential compared to the ‘benign neglect’ so far shown by most national media in the U.S.—it is clear that Kimber did not drink anybody’s Kool-Aid. He has however, spent three years doing the most exhaustive research and writing […]

Seeing the world from the other side changes… everything

Imagine you could turn back the clock to before 9/11, I suggest to American audiences when I read from my most recent book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five. What if the United States had had its own intelligence agents inside Al Qaeda? What if those agents had uncovered the […]

What Lies wins nonfiction prize

Stephen Kimber’s book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five, has won the 2014 Evelyn Richardson Award for Nonfiction at Canada’s East Coast Literary Awards. The Five were members of a Cuban intelligence network sent to Florida in the 1990s to infiltrate Miami exile groups plotting terrorist attacks against Cuba. […]

The US State Department responds to my four-year-old FoIA Request… sort of

When I arrived back in Halifax on September 14, 2014 from giving talks in Washington about the case of the Cuban Five, there was an envelope waiting for me. It was from the “U.S. Department of State” and there was a sticker on the manila envelope that warned: “To be opened by addressee ONLY.” The […]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the new head of the US Interest Section and the implications for the case of the Cuban Five

One of the key moments in the story of the Cuban Five occurred on the morning of May 6, 1998, when Nobel-prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez arrived at the White House in Washington carrying a secret message from Cuban President Fidel Castro. That message — about an exile terrorist plot to blow up an airplane […]

Bayou of Pigs: Cuba, the United States and Washington’s unrequited obsessive compulsion

Bayou of Pigs By Stewart Bell HarperCollins 344 pages (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4434-2764-7 In early April, the Associated Press reported that USAID — the United States Agency for International Development, whose website advertises its lofty goal “to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential” — had concocted a hare-brained […]