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 27, 2005, an American immigration court turned down alleged Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles’ request for political asylum in the United States. Blood on the floor at the Copacabana. The following day, however, the same judge ruled Posada couldn’t be deported because he might face “torture” in Venezuela, which had requested his extradition […]
- 09/25/2010
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After attending a briefing from the Cuban Five’s lawyer, Leonard Weinglass, Lawrence Wilkerson, who had served as a military aide and later senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, wrote in The Havana Note on September 19, 2007: “As a military officer for 31 years, I occasionally encountered Cuba. In exercises, I recall […]
- 09/19/2010
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On September 16, 1968, Orlando Bosch was arrested for firing a bazooka at a Cuba-bound Polish ship in Miami harbour. Orlando Bosch Convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the onetime pediatrician—who, more significantly, was trained in using explosives by the CIA—was paroled in 1974. He then fled the country rather than answer questions […]
- 09/16/2010
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September 11/98 René González recalls the uneventful night before the FBI smashed in his door. René González “The day before the arrest was a regular day. I was preparing to start flying to Bahamas with a small company operated by a friend out of Opalocka airport—the same place where the Bay of Pigs brigade was […]
- 09/11/2010
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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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René González Sehwerert told me he “wasn’t surprised at all” when the United States government reached a swift deal this summer to swap 10 freshly captured Russian spies for four Russians who’d been convicted of passing their country’s state secrets to the U.S. Pass Go. Get out of Jail Free. Go home. Sing patriotic songs […]
Gerardo31 “[Gerardo] Hernández’s sister Isabel first learned that he had been put in the ‘hole’ … when she went for a visit at the U.S. maximum security prison in Victorville, California, July 24. She was only allowed to talk to him by phone, separated by a thick glass partition, while he was kept handcuffed… “Hernández […]
- 08/07/2010
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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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