Another unknown but critical fact about the intensified economic war being carried out against Cuba is the theft of Cuban telecommunications revenues that are held and controlled in the United States. These include the hundreds of millions of dollars that Cuba had in Chase Manhattan bank, now JP Morgan Chase bank.
Due to the “Law for the Protection of Victims of Trafficking and Violence,” signed by Clinton in the late 1990s, U.S. citizens have the right to sue for the seizure of Cuban assets. There has been a spate of lawsuits that boggle the mind—in their illegality —that no U.S. court would allow in any other case.
In January 2007, $91 million was awarded in U.S. court to families of two CIA agents who died during the Bay of Pigs invasion. [One was Thomas “Pete” Ray, who piloted a B-26 bomber over Cuba and died when he was shot down. Another man, Howard Anderson, was executed in April 1961 after being convicted of smuggling weapons into Cuba during the invasion.] $72.1 million of those awards was paid out to the families on Nov. 27, 2007.
Also in January 2007, the family of Robert Fuller, executed for counterrevolutionary activity in 1960, was awarded $400 million.
In May 30, 2007, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien awarded the admitted CIA agent Gustavo Villoldo the outrageous amount of $1 billion. Villoldo claimed—without providing any proof or evidence—that his father was driven to suicide by Fidel Castro and Che. His father was a wealthy car dealer who owned property in Cuba that was confiscated by the new revolutionary leadership.
In April 2008, the siblings of Rafael Del Pino Siero were awarded $253 million in Miami-Dade court. Del Pino was involved in counterrevolutionary actions in 1959, was imprisoned and died 18 years later.
On Aug. 22, 2009, Sherry Sullivan sued the Cuban government for $21 million in a Maine county court for the supposed assassination of her father, Geoffrey Sullivan, even though he died when his military plane was shot down over Cuba. Sherry Sullivan’s court document blatantly admits, “Sullivan and Rorke [a journalist/CIA operative] had ‘participated in various anti-Castro covert operations in Central America and Cuba’ including ‘Operation Mongoose,’ the covert-action sabotage and subversion program against Cuba initiated in November 1961 and the widely-publicized April 1963 bombing of the former Esso oil refinery in Havana, Cuba, as well as collateral activities in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.”
Judge James King awarded the families of the pilots of Brothers to the Rescue $138 million, and Jose Basulto won an almost $1.5 million judgment, even though his plane’s invasion of aerial space created the crisis that led to the shoot down in 1996.
Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban 5 uscubachi@yahoo.com
Chicago ALBA Solidarity 