FRFI 219 February / March 2011

Cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed the ugly face of US diplomacy in Latin America: funding subversive groups, propaganda campaigns and military support for right-wing regimes. The main targets are the countries in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), especially Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and pre-coup Honduras. Murray Andrews reports.

For over 50 years the US government has engaged in a dirty war against the Cuban government. It has implemented a vicious blockade, supported terrorist groups and sabotaged the revolutionary government wherever possible. This has long been known, but rarely admitted. The WikiLeaks cables are changing this.

Cables written by the US Interests Section (USIS) in Havana reveal that US diplomats have been actively supporting counter-revolutionary groups on the island in an attempt to overthrow the socialist government. In November 2006 the USIS held a meeting to encourage efforts to overthrow the Cuban government. 63 government opponents were shown a documentary about the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic. The film, made by a US producer linked to the Pentagon, CIA and State Department, aimed to encourage a ‘colour revolution’ against the Cuban government, a tactic promoted by US interests in Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and other countries. The principle underlies US imperialist strategy, aimed at overthrowing the revolutionary government and implementing a US-friendly client state in its place.

In December 2010, Michael Palmy, head of the USIS from 2005 to 2008, said he feared WikiLeaks publishing cables related to his conversations with Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, one of a group of blogger opponents of the Revolution ‘who do not want to be lumped with the dissident community’ (USIS cable, 25 September 2009), but are clearly part of it. USIS cables reveal that Sanchez, whom Time magazine listed among the top 100 most influential people in 2008, met with the US Sub Secretary of State of Latin American Affairs, Bisa Williams, the highest-ranking US government official to visit the island for decades, in her apartment in September 2009.

However, a cable dated 15 April 2009 revealed US frustration at the strength of popular support for the revolutionary government. USIS head Jonathan Farrar declared that there is ‘very little evidence that the mainline dissident organisations have much resonance among ordinary Cubans’. Indeed, he declared that ‘the traditional dissident movement is not likely to supplant the Cuban government.’ According to that cable the ‘dissident’ movement is consumed by internal conflict and preoccupied with money: ‘The greatest effort is directed at obtaining enough resources to keep the principal organisers and their key supporters living from day to day’. Farrar admits that ‘informal polls we have carried out among visa and refugee applicants have shown virtually no awareness of dissident personalities or agendas’. The US is also disappointed with the inability of the Catholic Church to play the role it did in subverting socialism in Poland, as it had ‘capitulated’ to the Cuban government (2008 cable).

One cable revealed that the US was desperate to find ‘human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess, which has become a key feature of the regime’s foreign policy and its self-congratulatory propaganda’– a reference to 38,000 Cuban health care professionals providing free services in poor communities around the world. From the US embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, a cable entitled ‘Cuba/Venezuela Axis of Mischief’ asserted that Cubans have ‘infiltrated’ all levels of the Venezuelan state. The cable’s author, William Brownfield, former US ambassador to Venezuela, described the sources for this claim as ‘anecdotal reporting’, ‘less reliable claims’ and ‘unconfirmed sensitive reporting’ – all from high-profile opposition leaders including ex-governor and fugitive Manuel Rosales, big business executives and anti-Chavez journalists.

On 31 January 2008, a USIS official cabled a made-up story that Michael Moore’s film Sicko was banned in Cuba to prevent a ‘popular backlash’ by Cubans because it depicts ‘facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them’. In reality, the film was screened throughout the country and broadcast on national television on 25 April 2008. Michael Moore called the made-up cable ‘a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality’ and exposed lazy journalism from the likes of The Guardian which published the lie as truth in 17 December 2010.

Attacking ALBA

Honduras joined ALBA in August 2008. President Zelaya was removed in a right-wing coup in June 2009. A cable sent from the US embassy in Tegulcigalpa, Honduras, had ‘no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup...Roberto Micheletti’s assumption of power was illegitimate’. Nonetheless, the US administration refused to publicly recognise that a ‘coup’ had taken place. Doing so would oblige them, under USUS has supported the coup regime and the sham elections held in an attempt to claim legitimacy. law, to cut ties and multi-million dollar contracts with the country. The

Nicaragua joined ALBA in January 2007. A May 2008 cable from the US embassy in Managua recorded $1 million US funding for right-wing forces in Nicaragua to oppose President Daniel Ortega. Ortega is more than familiar with US-sponsored subversion, following US funding of the Contras in the 1980s who defeated the revolutionary Sandinista government.

Venezuela, which founded ALBA with Cuba in 2004, is the key target. A cable from January 2005 details a meeting with Venezuelan Archbishop Baltazar Porras, who requested US assistance to ‘contain’ President Chavez. Porras publicly supported the US-backed coup in 2002. In 2008, the US embassy in Caracas cabled a request for support from the US Department of Defence in bombarding Venezuelans with anti-Chavez propaganda, to ‘influence the information environment within Venezuela’. A cable from the US embassy in Chile in 2007 outlined a ‘contention plan’ against Chavez, including a ‘psychological ops’ programme and military support for US-backed governments in the region.

The policy of co-opting Latin American regimes has been highlighted by the releases. A cable from the US embassy in Lima, Peru, asserting the cooperation of the Peruvian government, details a ‘wish list’ peppered with US military aid for the Peruvian military. Other cables reveal requests from regional leaders for help in overthrowing the Chavez government, with one October 2009 document revealing that Mexican President Felipe Calderon was ‘trying to isolate Venezuela through the Rio Group’. Unsurprisingly, chief amongst these leaders is the ex-President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe. A cable dated December 2007 details a meeting between US Congress members and Uribe, where he ‘likened the threat Chavez poses to Latin America to that posed by Hitler in Europe’. Another reports on a January 2008 meeting where Uribe encouraged military action against Venezuela to overthrow Chavez. Uribe is no long President, but his Minister of Defence has taken over.

This is the tip of the iceberg, but as Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia upload the material onto their own websites the fuller picture will be revealed. US imperialism cannot escape being exposed for what it is, in the words of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya: ‘the world policeman; tribunals of the Holy Inquisition of the 21st century, more barefaced and bloodthirsty than ever in the history of humanity.’