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May 28, 2002
Norman Madarasz
France,
Brazil, the Politics
of the World Cup
May 27, 2002
Dave Marsh
Why I Voted for Nader:
Ticketmaster's Stranglehold
on Music and Politics
Robert Fisk
The Coming
Firestorm:
Bush's Crazed Remarks
May 26, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
Diary of a Northwest Trip:
Why Reds Live Longer
May 25, 2002
Chris Floyd
General
Principles:
Unmasking Colin Powell
Gavin Keeney
All Politics is Local? The Unbearable
Lightness of NGO's
Jeffrey St. Clair
A Hero
of Our Time:
Stephen Jay Gould
May 24, 2002
Edward Hammond
Documents Prove Pentagon Violated
Bioweapons Act
Mark Weisbrot
Bush
Administration Scandals:
Beginning of the End?
Feingold / Corzine
Halt Executions Nationwide
Bill Christison
Former
CIA Analyst:
Big Changes Needed in
US Intelligence Agencies
May 23, 2002
Dean Baker
Attack of the Clowns:
The Real Bush is Back
Susan Abulhawa
Israel
and South Africa:
Apartheid's Accidental Prophecy
Uri Avnery
Sharon the Great Reformer?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Travails
of a Middle Eastern Migrant: Accosted at the Border
May 22, 2002
Brian J. Foley
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
Gavin Keeney
Bete Noire
Enron & the Great Game
Fran Shor
Follow the Money
Bush, bin Laden & Carlyle
May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
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Cockburn
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The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
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Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
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A Pocket Guide to
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May
28, 2002
The
Problems of an Under Secretary of State
Fidel Castro, Bioterrorism and
the Elusive Quote
by Nelson P. Valdes
Last May 6, John R. Bolton, Under Secretary for
Arms Control and International Security, gave a presentation
at the conservative Heritage Foundation entitled "Beyond
the Axis of Evil: Additional Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction."
Bolton's thesis was based on two basic points: First, that Cuba
had the capacity to produce bio-products that could be used for
terrorist against the U.S. And secondly, that the Cuban government
had announced its commitment to do precisely so. The scientific
community throughout the world, as well as newspapers and former
President Jimmy Carter from Cuba, had challenged the Bush administration
to show the evidence. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, even
had to downplay Bolton' s charges.
However, no one has questioned Bolton's
accusation that the Cuban government actually wants to bring
harm to the United States. The Under Secretary for Arms Control
and International Security said that last year, Fidel Castro
visited Iran, Syria and Libya and that "at Tehran University,
these were his words: 'Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each
other, can bring America to its knees. The U.S. regime is very
weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up.'"
One would assume that the United States
government with all of its monitoring capabilities would be able
to produce those words. Well, Fidel Castro never said those words
either in Teheran or anywhere else. I have secured all the transcripts
of all the public statments made by the Cuban leader while visiting
Iran, and there is nothing that midly resembles the alleged quote.
Mr. Bolton, nonetheless, has recycled an invented and false quote
that has been used by rightwing Cuban exiles in the last 12 months.
I have been particularly interested in
that quote because I have studied Cuba in general and Fidel Castro
in particular since 1969. The so-called quote simply did not
fit with his political style nor his syntax. Moreover, I am the
director at the University of New Mexico of the Program of Academic
research on Cuba, and I also preside over the non-profit organization
Cuba research & Analysis Group. Both institutions produce
a daily service that monitors information on Cuba. Thus, when
Fidel Castro went to the Middle East we monitored the media from
there as well as from Cuba.
Neither the Iranian news service (IRNA),
nor the Cuban media carried the alleged Castro statement. Nor
could it be found in files of the BBC Monitoring Service or the
U.S. government's Foreign Broadcasts Information Service.
The Nuevo Herald in Miami published the
AFP version (attributing it to AP) with the title "CASTRO
PRONOSTICA EN IRAN LA CAIDA DE EU" (Castro Forecasts the
Downfall of the US). It then made the rightwing press circuit.
And by October 10, 2001 Nancy San Martin in the Miami herald
cited the quote. I wrote to her at the time to secure a source.
She replied, "You may be interested in the UM paper, which
also was included in the article and can easily be obtained from
the Institute for Cuban & Cuban American Studies." Thus,
I contacted the University of Miami and the above mentioned "Institute"
(which just received one million dollars from the Bush administration).
From the Institute I received the paper Castro and Terrorism
- A Chronology written by by Eugene Pons with a foreword by Jaime
Suchlicki (director of the Institute). On the front page the
famous quote appeared. The source provided was Agence France
Presse, May 10, 2001.
Actually AFP had two different cables
with the quote one sent on May 9th and another on the 10th. When
I asked the Institute to provide me with an original Spanish
version, I received a note that stated that "As you are
probably aware, many news sources from Cuba have modified their
original publications to meet current anti-terrorism/violence
issues, therefore making it much harder to track down" -
which is, to say the least a very odd explanation. After all,
print materials do not disappear from libraries and the Google
in the Internet has a nifty procedure called "cache"
that allows you to see pages that have been deleted. Obviously
the story was getting ever more interesting.
With the exception of the two cables
from AFP, none of the wire services represented in Iran at the
time carried such a statement from Fidel Castro. Although I have
contacted AFP they have not provided evidence that the quote
was accurate, nor do we know yet the identity of the person who
wrote the story. Did he/she understand Spanish while stationed
in Teheran?
On May 10, 2002 from Havana President
Fidel Castro, went on record to deny that he ever made the statement
attributed to him. Who is historically accurate? John Bolton
or Fidel Castro? Tne answer is clear: Fidel castro is accurate.
But the question then is, how come the Under Secretary of State
used a quote that obviously the intelliegnce service knew Fidel
castro did not make?
Jimmy Carter asked the Under Secretary
to offer evidence of the charge that Cuba was involved in bio-terrorism,
perhaps we could add our humble request that he also provide
us with the original recording that shows Fidel Castro stating
that he wants to bring the United States to its knees. The evidence
does not exist.
Nelson P Valdes
is a professor of Sociology University of New Mexico. He can
be reached at: nvaldes@unm.edu
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