Cuba Informatie Project

By RENÉ GONZÁLEZ SEHWERERT - When I met Ramón Saúl Sánchez, in early 1995, he was gaining notoriety in Miami political circles through a somewhat peculiar variant of pacifism, born of particular, inexplicable circumstances.

The city was in crisis. During the month of May, the immigration accords had been signed which would allow secure emigration for some 20,000 Cubans a year. The ghetto exploded. Those who days before had defended the right of Cubans from the island to risk their lives in fragile rafts, in order to reach the promised land, rebelled now that the promised land had opened its doors to those from ‘over there’ – allowing them the right to emigrate without endangering their lives.

How the supposed defenders of the rights of balseros to ‘freedom’ suddenly became fierce opponents of these same people’s freedom to travel comfortably on a plane would be inexplicable for any rational person, but this is an issue to be addressed in another essay of a sociological nature.

The fact is that amidst the chaos, the blocking of highways and other protest demonstrations provoked by the immigration accords, Ramoncito, as his friends call him, returned to public life after a stint in prison, where he had served a sentence for refusing to testify about crimes in which he had participated -including the murder of Cuban diplomats – as a member of the Abdala and Omega-7 organizations.

During these protests and street disturbances, the peculiar pacifist tactic I referred to earlier emerged. What made it so unique was its purpose: to create an international incident between Cuba and the United States which would then escalate into an armed conflict. Thus the ridiculous flotillas emerged – simply illegal incursions into Cuban territory by boats registered in the U.S. demanding the contrived and hypocritical right to return which, as of 2004, was denied by the U.S. government, despite their complaints. (This could be the subject of another article, as well.)

The propagandistic success of the first flotilla – in July of 1995 – increased Ramoncito’s popularity in a ghetto with few heroes, preventing him from acknowledging the utter failure of the two which followed in September and November of that same year. That was how we came to meet some months later, gathered around a map planning another ambitious fiasco with provocations to occur simultaneously at three different places in Cuba and, on this occasion, to include an actual landing.

One of the proposed landing sites would be in the area of Nipe and as we identified possible options on the map, Ramón Saúl’s finger paused on a symbol of a sunken ship, not far from Guincho Cay, north of Ciego de Ávila. Departing from his usual reserve, he admitted something interesting – something I suppose he will now regret. “This is the boat we ourselves sunk.”

We then heard him describe how in the 70’s, as part of an assault group, he captured the boat during the night, left the crew adrift and set the boat on fire to sink it.

In that era, occasionally visiting the oasis of pacifism, the offices of the Democracy Movement, was a tall, graying, 50-ish man, who Ramón said was “a true patriot, one of the good ones” who, for tactical reasons, couldn’t be closely linked to the pacifist group. El Maestro (the teacher), as Ramoncito also called him, was a figure who came and went until I stopped seeing him, at least for some time before I was arrested.

The next time I saw him was in a photograph of a Miami gathering forming a support group for Luis Posada Carriles and three other terrorists of Panamanian origin. Reynold Rodríguez – El Maestro, according to Ramón Saúl Sánchez – was one of them.

On September 11, 2011, the United States of America – or just America, as they like to call themselves – discovered terrorism. (Or they lost their innocence, as some erudite idiot in the service of the imperial media said, coining the phrase.)

It appeared that in the indiscriminate wave of domestic repression that followed, no terrorist would be left loose in America. After all, thousands of innocents had disappeared from public view for much more trivial reasons, such as their ethnic origin.

That was how the law came knocking on Ramón’s door. His terrorist past meant trouble for him under the Patriot Act. We found out that he could suffer the same fate which, according to the President, the country reserved for those who committed acts of terrorism – that is, people like Ramoncito. Press releases said that he would be subjected to a legal process which would determine his status in America, the empire, just like that.

That was too much to expect. Believing that the U.S. government would treat their own terrorists just like any other would be like believing the syrupy story about lost innocence.

Ramón Saúl Sánchez stays, just like his teacher Reynold, Posada and so many others. Terrorism against Cuba will continue to be a secret well-kept from any self-respecting, free press. Our victims might not have even existed, just as the innocent victims in Iraq and Pakistan are disappearing every day, buried by criminal indifference.

But Cuba will not disappear like one more victim. The suicidal empire which is trying to make that happen will face the moral strength of our people and, with that, their last adventure. Its terrorists will have their swan song, along with the empire which created them, along with the abominable crime against humanity that is terrorism.

Letter written by René on December 16, 2004 from the U.S. Federal Correctional Institution in Edgefield, South Carolina, to the Capitán San Luis publishing house.

(Source: Granma International)