Chronicle on Cuba - January 2008

Security

January 17: Cuba has extended its intelligence-gathering capabilities beyond the United States and Latin America to places where vital US interests are at stake -- like Iran, Turkey, India and Pakistan -- a former top US counterintelligence official told US lawmakers.  Chris Simmons, a former counterintelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said a series of intelligence setbacks for Cuba between 1995 and 2003 -- such as the dismantling of a network of spies in Miami, the closure of an intelligence center in Canada and the arrest of former DIA Cuba analyst Ana Montes in 2001 -- forced Cuba to tighten its intelligence operations. Today Cuba puts trusted top intelligence operatives in charge of key embassy postings and operates more with allies like Iran and Venezuela, Simmons said in a briefing organized by Miami Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Simmons, who worked on Cuba for the DIA for a dozen years, has founded the Cuban Intelligence Research Center, based in Leesburg, Virginia. (The Miami Herald, 18/1/08)

January 27: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua to form a military alliance under the Bolivarian Agreement (ALBA) to guard against attacks from the US. Chavez said that US military support for Colombia to help fight guerrillas and drug traffickers is a threat to Latin American unity, according to an e-mailed statement from the Information Ministry. “Interfering with Bolivia, Nicaragua or Cuba is also interfering with Venezuela,'' Chavez said during his weekly "Alo Presidente'' television program, citing his allies in the region and ALBA member states. "This is about reestablishing the concept of unity.'' Chavez on January 26 said Colombia, the US's staunchest Latin American ally, is trying to provoke a war with Venezuela and planning "aggression'' against him. (Bloomberg, ABN, BBC, 27/1/08)

January 28: In Camaguey, the Cuban East Army began a year-long period of military training exercises called Defense Preparedness 2008. The ceremony was presided over by Commander of the Revolution Guillermo García Frías. Army Corps General Álvaro López Miera, Vice-Minister and Chief of the General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), as well as other high-ranking FAR and Ministry of the Interior officers were also in attendance. (Granma, 29/1/08)