Panel discussion followed by Q&A
with acclaimed journalists Keith Bolender & Stephen Kimber

7pm, Thursday, February 7
Room 302, Dalhousie Student Union Building
6136 University Avenue

Since the early 1960s, few other countries have endured more acts of terrorism against civilian targets than Cuba. The US has had its hands in much of these terror attacks. The impact on the Cuban civillian population has been enormous, with over 1,000 documented incidents resulting in more than 3,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries.

Keith Bolender and Stephen Kimber will examine different facets of this tragic history. Drawing on his groundbreaking book, Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba (2010), Bolender will tell the story from the Cuban side by giving voice to the victims on the island. Bolender allows the victims to articulate the atrocities the Cuban people have suffered – which largely originate from Cuban counter-revolutionaries based in the US, often with the active help of the CIA. Voices From The Other Side includes first-person interviews with more than 75 Cuban citizens who have been victims of these terrorist acts, or have had family members or close friends die from the attacks.

In his forthcoming book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five (2013), Stephen Kimber, chronicles the story of the case of five Cuban intelligence agents sent to penetrate Cuban-exile terrorist groups in Miami. Their mission was to prevent terrorist acts. However, they were arrested and sentenced to long-terms in prison. As former U.S. diplomat Wayne Smith observes: “Kimber follows the Cubans as they are assigned to the United States as undercover agents, not to work against the U.S. but to gather information on exile terrorist activities against Cuba. The Cuban government then invited representatives of the FBI to come to Havana to receive and discuss the evidence of these terrorist activities and plans gathered by the agents. The meeting took place in June of 1998. The Cubans then waited for the United States to take action against the exile terrorists. But none was taken. The only action, rather, was the arrest of the Cuban Five, they who had provided much of the evidence turned over to the FBI.”

Keith Bolender is a freelance journalist who worked for more than 10 years with the Toronto Star. He has written extensively on Cuban matters for a variety of North American publications. He is a member of the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), on their Roster of Experts for Cuban Affairs. He currently lectures at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies on American Foreign Policy and the Cuba Revolution.

Stephen Kimber is an award-winning Canadian journalist and writer. The author of one novel and seven books of nonfiction, he is a Professor of Journalism at the University of King ‘s College in Halifax, Canada, where he specializes in nonfiction.

Sponsored by the Canadian Network on Cuba, Nova Scotia Cuba Association & Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group.