Rios Montt was convicted for crimes committed against Guatemala’s Maya Ixil indigenous population during his 17-month de facto rule in 1982 and 1983 following a military coup. On Friday, May 17, the trial court (Tribunal Primero de Sentencia Penal, Narcoactividad y Delitos contra el Ambiente de Mayor Riesgo “A”) released its final 718-page judgment, describing in detail the foundation for Rios Montt’s conviction.

During the course of the trial, more than 90 witnesses testified of indiscriminate massacres, rape and sexual violence against women, infanticide, the destruction of crops to induce starvation, the abduction of children, and the forcible displacement and relocation of surviving populations into militarized “model villages”. Experts also provided foren sic, military, sociological and other testimony and analysis.

The verdict came 30 years after the crimes and 13 years after the complaint was brought by survivors to the Public Ministry for investigation and prosecution.

The Constitutional Court, in its judgment on Monday, overturned the verdict and annulled the final days of the trial—sending the trial back to where it was on April 19. (On April 19, the tribunal had heard all prosecution witnesses, but still awaited the presentation of some of the defense witnesses, closing arguments and, of course, the final verdict and sentence.) The Constitutional Court also ordered the official suspension of the trial pending the full resolution of certain legal challenges raised by the defense.

At least for now, the Constitutional Court ordered that the same trial court – Presiding Judge Yassmin Barrios and her associates Pablo Xitumul and Patricia Bustamante – reconvene to consider the case. It gave the tribunal 24 hours to comply “exactly” with these orders or risk dismissal from their posts and the possibility of civil or criminal sanction. In its judgment, the Constitutional Court did not acknowledge explicitly that the trial had already completed, concluding with a conviction.

The decision stemmed from a constitutional challenge (amparo) raised by Rios Montt’s defense attorneys at the very end of the trial. In response to an earlier challenge, both the Constitutional Court and a Guatemalan appeals court ordered the trial court to remedy a due process violation from the opening day of the trial—the expulsion of Rios Montt’s newly-appointed defense attorney on the middle of that first day, leaving him represented only by the attorney for his co-accused for several hours, until his prior defense attorneys returned to his side on the morning of the second day. (See below for more information.)

In the challenge at issue in Monday’s Constitutional Court judgment overturning the verdict, Rios Montt asserted that the trial court had not in fact complied with the orders of the appeals court concerning this due process violation, even though the appeals court had recognized the trial court as having fully complied, in a judgment issued by the appeals court just the day before the release of the verdict. (Rios Montt’s challenge was, in effect, a challenge to the appeals court’s finding that the trial court implemented fully the appellate court’s order.)

Media sources reported last week that the Constitutional Court was delayed in issuing its ruling because of division among the judges of the court. That division was evident in the judgment released on Monday. Three of five judges – Hector Perez Aguilera (the President of the Court), Alejandro Maldonado and Roberto Molina – supported the ruling, while Judges Mauricio Chacon and Gloria Patricia Porras filed strong dissenting opinions.

Judge Chacon, in his dissent, affirmed that there was nothing that rose to a level of a constitutional violation that should be dealt with in this extraordinary way, through anamparo; criticized the Constitutional Court’s remedy as disproportionate, particularly as the trial court already issued a sentence; and objected to the actions of Rios Montt’s defense attorney as intentionally obstructionist. He regretted that the Constitutional Court now rewarded these obstructionist efforts with an annulment of the verdict, with the Constitutional Court blaming the trial court judges when their actions “did not invoke anything that suggested a lack of impartiality.” (“…no invoco nada a cerca de la falta de imparcialidad de los integrantes de dicho tribunal.”) Judge Chacon also identified the decision of the Constitutional Court as detrimental to judicial certainty in Guatemala

Judge Porras, for her part, criticized the majority’s decision for “leaving the victims’ constitutional right of access to justice unprotected.” (“…el Tribunal Constitucional, al resolver sobre la anulación y suspensión de las actuaciones del Tribunal de Sentencia, está dejando desprotegidas a las víctimas de su derecho constitucional de acceso a la justicia.”)

Guatemalan lawyers have described the appropriate mechanisms for a challenge to the verdict as through a “special appeals” process (la apelacion especial, described in Articles 415-22 of the Guatemalan Criminal Procedural Code) available within the ten days following the issuance of the trial court’s final judgment. The ten-day window for Rios Montt’s appeal thus began on Friday. Because of this, some have contested that the Constitutional Court did not have jurisdiction to rule here, prior to the filing of a “special appeal” and the release of a judgment from the appellate court.

However, the Constitutional Court reported various times last week that it was still considering legal challenges from Rios Montt that were pending from when the trial was still in session. Rios Montt’s attorney highlighted that, on the day that the guilty verdict was released, it had 12 interim legal challenges pending; it filed various more subsequent to the announcement of the verdict. Prosecutors and civil parties have consistently asserted that the defense strategy has relied excessively on constitutional challenges (amparos) to delay or obfuscate the trial.

During the past week, with the Constitutional Court asserting that it was on the verge of issuing rulings which could annul the verdict, there was tension in Guatemala related to the trial; forceful and repeated calls from CACIF, Guatemala’s powerful business association, for the verdict to be overturned; and explicit threats made by Rios Montt’s lawyer of national paralysis if the Constitutional Court did not rule in Rios Montt’s favor, as well as bomb threats at the Constitutional Court and other government offices.

Rios Montt had been transported from the trial court to Matamoros Prison after the verdict, on Friday, May 10, to begin to carry out his sentence. However, by Monday, May 13, he had been transported to a military medical facility (el Centro Medico Militar) on account of hypertension and other medical problems. The Constitutional Court judgment means he will likely not return immediately to Matamoros Prison.

Background of the Judgment

The origins of the Court’s judgment on Monday are defense challenges to the trial court’s actions on March 19, 2013, the first day of the trial.

Francisco Garcia Gudiel appeared for the first time as Rios Montt’s attorney on the opening day of the trial, notifying the court that Rios Montt had substituted him that morning for his entire defense team. Garcia Gudiel then proceeded to mount various legal challenges to the continuation of the trial. All were rejected by the trial court.

Garcia Gudiel’s final legal challenge that day was a motion to recuse two of the tribunal judges—presiding judge Yassmin Barrios for enmity, and her associate judge Pablo Xitumul for amity. The tribunal ruled that Rios Montt was precluded procedurally from seeking a recusal at that stage. The trial court then ordered Garcia Gudiel’s expulsion and compelled the attorney for Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, Rios Montt’s co-accused, to defend him if Rios Montt was unable or unwilling to introduce his own chosen counsel who would accept the makeup of the tribunal.

The following morning, when Rios Montt did not come to court with an attorney, Judge Barrios stated that she would seek public defense counsel if Rios Montt did not bring in chosen counsel. The general quickly stepped out to make a phone call and one of his prior counsel soon re-appeared at his side to represent him. Others subsequently re-joined his defense team.

This series of events was the source of various legal challenges. On March 26, the Third Chamber of Guatemala’s Court of Appeals (Sala Tercera de la Corte de Apelaciones) initially denied that the trial court violated Rios Montt’s constitutional rights on the first day of the trial.

On appeal, the Constitutional Court, on April 22, 2013, ruled in favor of Rios Montt,suspending the trial court’s ruling. Judge Chacon, who dissented from Monday’s judgment, also dissented from the April 22 ruling—asserting that Garcia Gudiel inserted himself into the case, improperly, in order to force the expulsion of two of the judges. (“…asumió la defensa con el objeto especifico de provocar la separación de los jueces que ya intervenian”).

In the interim, the Third Chamber also reversed its earlier ruling. On April 18, the Third Chamber ordered provisionally that the trial court re-incorporate Garcia Gudiel as defense counsel for Rios Montt; and suspend the trial temporarily to allow for resolution of this issue. It left to the trial court the immediate crafting of an appropriate remedy.

The Constitutional Court reviewed the Third Chamber’s April 18 judgment. In two May 3 decisions, the Constitutional Court upheld the Third Chamber’s decision. The same two judges dissented from that decision as dissented today. At the time, Judge Porras asserted that there was no violation of a fundamental right given the remedies already ordered, and highlighted the potential for constitutional challenges (amparos) to be abused. Judge Chacon described the remedy ordered as “manifestly disproportionate”.

On May 6, the Third Chamber again recognized a constitutional violation—this time in a final, rather than provisional, judgment. It ordered the trial court to reincorporate Garcia Gudiel as attorney for Rios Montt and suspend the trial until the recusal motion posed by Garcia Gudiel was responded to.

According to the Constitutional Court’s judgment released on Monday evening, the trial court continued in spite of the suspension order issued on April 18.

However, the trial court did in fact suspend the trial on April 19 for the resolution of various issues. When the trial court eventually reconvened on April 30, it reinstated Garcia Gudiel as Rios Montt’s defense counsel and, as a remedy for the due process violation found by the Constitutional Court, the trial court also re-read the indictment to Rios Montt, and set aside the testimony of the witnesses heard during the first afternoon when Rios Montt did not have his own defense attorney present.

On May 8, following the May 6 decision of the Third Chamber, the trial court also heard again, and rejected on substantive grounds, Garcia Gudiel’s renewed motion for the recusal of Judges Barrios and Xitumul.

After receiving a report from the trial court, following another complaint from Rios Montt’s attorneys, the Third Chamber concluded in a May 9 decision – the day before the trial court announced its verdict – that the trial court did indeed comply with the Third Chamber’s May 6 judgment by re-incorporating Garcia Gudiel as defense counsel for Rios Montt and hearing and considering the recusal motion.

The Constitutional Court judgment arises from Rios Montt’s challenge (ocurso en queja) to this May 9 judgment—Rios Montt essentially asked the Constitutional Court to rule that the Third Chamber was wrong to accept that the trial court complied with its orders. The Constitutional Court did so, “setting aside” that judgment and issuing the orders described above.

Originally published here: http://www.riosmontt-trial.org/2013/05/constitutional-court-overturns-rios-montt-conviction-and-sends-trial-back-to-april-19/

Beginning Monday, travelers to Cuba can bring appliances such as stoves, air conditioners, and microwave ovens. Imports of these kinds of appliances had been banned since 2005, as part of an effort to curb electricity consumption amid frequent blackouts.

Read more: http://www.cubastandard.com/2013/05/20/government-allows-import-of-appliances/

The document, the third installment of a series on 21^st Century Cuba, highlights “the progress Cuban women have made towards gender equality since the 1950s and examines whether that progress can be sustained into the future.”[1] ^[2]  It accomplishes its goal in five, concise, non-judgmental and well- documented chapters, enriched by personal profiles of some remarkably perceptive Cuban women.

The book neatly sidesteps the polemics of left and right but raises a provocative question: when women’s opportunities and power are expanded as a concession to justice from the men in power, will their situation really change?

So much progress, and yet…

The initial profile of Emilia Fernández, an Afro-Cuban woman, illustrates some of the paradoxes for Cuban women.

Emilia has traveled abroad, speaks three languages, holds several degrees and works at a center for ocular health that serves international patients. She recognizes that the Cuban revolution gave her opportunities infinitely beyond those of her mother and grandmother.

Still, her description of a woman’s day in Cuba tastes of gritty reality: “You get up and cook breakfast, you take precarious public transportation, and you arrive exhausted to work.  At the workplace you encounter stress. And then, you receive a salary that does not resolve your needs.  How can this not have health repercussions?”[2] ^[3]

As many in her generation, Emilia was formed by revolutionary values and what she calls “the Cuban dream: “[The dream] means that I can still fight, that it’s my place.  I have worked since I was a child to make Cuba better.  The dream is part of me.”[3] ^[4]   And yet, like many of the profiled women in the book, she worries that the newer generations may have lost that hope and that dream.

This perspective forms the heart of the book: women have advanced enormously in many areas, and yet their daily lives are filled with difficulties, frustrations and deprivations.  At the same time, their personal relations with men seem to exacerbate these stressors rather than help cope with them.

Impact of the Revolution remains impressive

In a few short pages, the authors offer a staccato burst of facts and figures to remind us of the situation for Cuban women in the fifties: a general  life expectancy of 59.4 years, an infant mortality rate of 8%, 23% illiteracy among women, 71% under-educated, and the vast majority with no access to employment other than as domestic servants, in short a dearth of rights, opportunities and satisfaction of basic needs weighing most heavily on women, on rural women and on Afro-Cuban women

We are then reminded of the enormous gains that Cuban revolution made and has maintained in women’s rights and opportunities.  Fifty-four years later, these gains still situate Cuba at the top of the list among developing countries for the well-being of mothers and children, and in the top 20 nations for its progress relative towards the Millennium Development goals. Despite all the problems, these achievements are nothing short of spectacular.

As documented in the book, these advances were the result of deliberate policies designed by Party leadership.  Fidel Castro’s first Manifesto written in Mexico committed the revolution to the creation of “a legal framework for the advancement of girls and women, connecting them to social services, education and health and to the world of work.”[4] ^[5]

It then fell to the Federation of Cuban Women under Vilma Espín to make these real.  The litany of gains include health, education, marriage rights, reproductive rights, rights to own land, even a growing recognition of the rights of gays and lesbians – gains that so many other women in so many other countries are still fighting for.  It’s good to be reminded of them, and of how they have reverberated in the lives of ordinary Cubans.

The “gender paradox” colors women’s lives

“Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Frederick Douglass said in 1857 “It never did and it never will.”  As the book goes on to illustrate, Cuba’s quantum leaps in opportunities and legal guarantees were not backed by a grassroots demand from women for equal rights in the home and workplace. As María Ileana Faguaga another of the profiled women sums up: “There is a group of … Cuban feminists who recognize that in these 50 years, women have not won space; we have been granted spaces.”[5] ^[6]

This has led to the so-called “gender paradox.”  “Women still bear the burden for performing the majority of household and care-giving responsibilities in addition to working outside the home. ..many women live in urban and rural households with three generations and have a ‘double shift’: going to work while also attending children, grandchildren and in-laws at home and assuming overall administration of the household.”[6] ^[7].

As the Special Period imposed its hardships on Cubans in general, these hardships fell with particular force upon women and women of color.  Domestic violence has never been addressed as a separate and particular kind of violence. And, in the political arena, only a few women have ever been admitted to the circles of power, and these only to the extent that their voices echoed the decisions of the male leadership.

Women’s future in the changing economics

The last chapters discuss the new economic reforms and their possible impact on women.  On the one hand, many of the state jobs being eliminated are women’s jobs, while on the other a large number of the vocations approved for self-employment are traditionally performed by men.  Hence, while the huge gains in health and educational levels have left women well positioned to assume a role in rebuilding the Cuban economy, there is still a troubling gap in their ability to realize that potential.  “The government and the revolution have given women every chance and opportunity…However, that’s not reflected in higher positions.  Why? Because we still believe that we have to look after everything at home.”[7] ^[8]

The book’s authors see hope in the new entrepreneurial opportunities, but back this with a strong case for training programs and international partnerships as the current generation of Cubans have received no preparation for this role.

There remains the troubling question of the new generation: “While the framework for progress remains in place, the question is whether it can be mobilized – quickly enough or broadly enough – to capture the interest of the next generations of Cuba’s people.”[8] ^[9]

As a reader of Havana Times with a strong interest in the topic, I found this small book a useful and enriching guide.  The authors managed that very difficult task of presenting us with a convincing look into the realities of women’s lives and a framework for understanding the background to those realities without judging or prescribing. The questions the book raises are all-too-relevant.

More than just an academic study, the book is permeated with the authors’ obvious affection and admiration for Cuban women and their struggles.

The stunning portrait of Emilia Fernández on the cover states this eloquently, as do Sarah Stephens’ final words under Acknowledgements:

“My last word is for the women of Cuba.  Your story will resonate loud and clear with women living everywhere….Even more, we want what you told us to be heard and understood by policy makers in the White House, State Department and Congress…Their judgments could only be improved by understanding what so many of them have been missing for all these years: your humanity.”[9] ^[10]

Originally published here: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93385

The flight from Florida to Cuba is a little over an hour, yet the countries remain a world apart.

Cuba is changing, however, as I learned on my recent fact-finding visit. Cuba has embarked on meaningful economic reforms, which deserve encouragement by the United States, not continued isolation. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have a window of opportunity to engage and encourage reform in Cuba and should act now.

Cuba has instituted significant changes to its economy through decentralization and some private ownership of property and private business, such as restaurants (paladares), private lodging (casas particulares), construction and other self-created small businesses (cuentapropistas). Reforms also are also under way in Cuba’s agricultural sector.

I met with several Cubans who now work for themselves and are creating employment opportunities for other Cubans, which increases autonomy and self-determination. Cuba’s decision to eliminate most travel restrictions is modestly increasing mobility, earning power and the ability to provide financial support for their families.

These developments remind me of the historic economic changes since the 1980s in the former Soviet bloc countries, and in China and Vietnam over the past 25 years. Indeed, I traveled to the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution. The United States was directly engaged with those nations during their transition, and Americans were free to travel and interact with their people. American legal and economic experts and businesses directly aided the transition to greater freedom and personal economic opportunity.

If America officially acknowledged changes under way in Cuba, it would strengthen the hands of Cubans who want these reforms to succeed, and we could encourage Cuba to go further and faster.

America also should capitalize on economic changes occurring outside Cuba. One of Cuba’s primary benefactors, Hugo Chavez, is gone and it is unlikely that Venezuela will have the capacity to continue to provide billions of dollars in economic aid and petroleum products to Cuba. In fact, in the Tampa Bay area, I know of recent immigrants who cite the fear of losing Venezuelan support and returning to another “special period” as their reason for leaving the island.

During my visit, Cuban officials made it clear to me they would like the embargo lifted and that they seek an improved relationship. America’s allies in the Western Hemisphere have encouraged the United States to do so. Cuba and its citizens are more than a decade behind with respect to the Internet and broadband. Expansion of this advanced technology will be slow, but the improvement to human rights and efficiencies to Cuban society could be enormous.

Cuba and other foreign interests continue to prospect for oil in its territorial waters (so close to sensitive environmental resources in the Florida Straits). Despite multilateral discussions among the United States and Caribbean nations, the United States should have a more direct relationship. Cuba and Brazil are making a large investment in the modernization of Cuba’s Port of Mariel in advance of the widening of the Panama Canal. U.S. ports, businesses and environmental concerns would benefit, or at least gain greater influence and understanding, with more direct engagement.

Small businesses, the tourism industry, Tampa International Airport and the Port of Tampa are poised to take advantage of broadening travel and trade to the island nation. Tampa Bay has the opportunity to become a “Gateway to Cuba.” We can market Tampa to families, educational groups and cultural organizations traveling to Cuba as a jumping-off point to the island nation. They can learn about Cuba, participate in language and other immersion courses, eat in our restaurants and stay in our hotels. Doing so will create jobs here in travel and tourism, and our small businesses will benefit.

These circumstances provide an opportunity for the United States to engage in a dialogue with Cuba to lift trade restrictions while promoting greater human rights for the Cuban people.

Lifting travel restrictions would not only be consistent with Americans’ constitutional right to travel, it would facilitate greater exchange between the two countries and remove costly regulatory burdens. Americans are free to travel anywhere else in the world, including countries on the State Department’s State Sponsor of Terrorism list. No rationale exists to singularly prohibit travel to Cuba.

The agency responsible for enforcement of travel restrictions and sanctions has other, more pressing responsibilities in real “hot spots” around the world. They should be able to focus on bad actors around the globe — like Iran and Syria — rather than red tape paperwork for Americans who wish to exercise their right to travel. The travel ban should be lifted or, at the very least, the United States should all allow permissible travel to be carried out under a general license. Streamlining travel would save resources at a time of sequester and significant federal belt-tightening.

Reforming Cuba policy will improve our diplomatic standing in the region and, at a critical moment, strengthen the credibility of our policy against terrorism. The Summit of the Americas concluded in 2012 with a warning from our allies that if Cuba is not allowed to attend the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama, they will boycott this important regional conference. The Obama administration should use the next two years to put U.S.-Cuban relations on a constructive path.

In this context, America could send a powerful signal to our allies in the region by responding creatively and appropriately to the peace negotiations taking place in Cuba between the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. These peace talks may result in an end to five decades of violence and provide the United States with an important foreign policy victory. The United States has devoted years of leadership and millions of dollars of investment for peace in Colombia. All Western Hemisphere nations, including Cuba, should continue to work together to end the violence.

The Obama administration and Cuban government recently proved that direct dialogue can produce positive results. Right on the heels of my return to Tampa, Cuban officials expeditiously returned Cole and Chase Hakken, ages 4 and 2, who had been kidnapped by their parents in Tampa and taken by boat to Cuba.

I was able to speak directly to U.S. and Cuban officials to ensure that the boys were safe and urge their speedy return. Through the contacts I had made days earlier, I was able to connect the U.S. consul with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department and the boys’ grandparents. The ability to communicate with these officials I had just met in Cuba is a simple example of the value of engagement and why it should become a principal feature of a new, reformed policy.

Make no mistake, the Cuban government must improve human rights. But it is clear that the policy of the embargo and isolation over 50 years hasn’t improved the human rights situation. I have met with dissidents and human rights activists. Pedro Pablo Alvarez was jailed and eventually fled to the United States. Yoani Sanchez blogs about the challenges of everyday life in Cuba. What struck me was at the end of almost all of these conversations, they told me they believe that greater engagement, not isolation, is the way to help Cubans.

Engagement must be handled with a long-term vision and can only be hammered out through direct negotiation between the two countries. I am more convinced than ever that America should give greater attention to its island neighbor, lift the embargo and promote greater modernization of civil society in Cuba to benefit the Cuban people. Families and businesses in America also hope for a new day.

There is a generational change occurring in the leadership of Cuba just as has happened in other countries around the world. America can lay the groundwork for improvement in human rights, democracy and economic change that is long overdue — if leaders in government recognize this important window of opportunity.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Tampa Democrat, represents Florida’s 14th congressional district, which includes Tampa and parts of St. Petersburg. She wrote this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times.

Originally published here: http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/what-i-learned-in-cuba/2121361

Disputes between Caracas and Washington were common during the 14-year-rule of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, leaving both nations without ambassadors in each other’s capitals.

Foreign Minister Elias Jaua suggested in a televised interview that the move to name government ally Calixto Ortega as charge d’affaires in Washington could be a prelude to restoring ambassadors.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/20/us-venezuela-usa-idUSBRE94J01R20130520

DAI lured Alan Gross with a lucrative contract to smuggle banned satellite communications equipment into Cuba on a mission that left him serving a 15-year prison sentence.

The settlement applies to the Beltway contractor and not its codefendant, the United States.  This agreement – Tracey Eaton makes the text available here – is sealed and confidential.  But, the lawsuit has already yielded significant disclosures about U.S. regime change programs in Cuba and the settlement marks a new phase for DAI.

DAI’s profile was raised a few weeks after the arrest, when James Boomgard, its chief executive, insisted in an interview that Alan Gross had done nothing wrong.

“It’s such an innocuous, innocent thing.  I’m not a Cuba expert,” he said, “but other people who understand the politics of this are puzzled as well.”  He went on to say that Gross never met with dissidents and that “there are no satellite phones involved.”

This was a curious, call it Freudian, assertion, which Boomgard should have known to be untrue.

As Desmond Butler wrote in his groundbreaking piece USAID contractor work in Cuba detailed, Alan Gross was bringing in satellite consoles known as BGANS, satellite phones, and other forms of equipment to Cuba, that was the point of this long-standing DAI project, and as he said in a trip report filed before his last trip and capture, it would be “problematic if exposed.”

Problematic indeed.  Unlike the ten spies rolled up and exchanged for spies in Russian prison in 2010, or Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor in Pakistan, freed from prison by payments of “bereavement money” after he murdered two motorists in the street, Mr. Gross has been left sitting in prison for more than three years as some Members of Congress cautioned U.S. officials not to negotiate for his release.

Late last year, the Gross family filed a $60 million law suit against DAI and the United States and accused the defendants of negligence, gross negligence, and the willful disregard of their rights.

In the case of DAI, the family argued when they sent him to Cuba with satellite network communications gear, they didn’t warn him of the risks, protect him from the risks, educate or train him to reduce the risks, and they didn’t stop him from returning to Cuba when they knew he was in danger, because it would have cost DAI a lot of money under their rich regime change contract.

For Mr. Boomgard, who once cooed, “helping people is all that Alan has done in Cuba and elsewhere,” this must have been more than he could bear.  $60 million is a lot of money.

So, DAI, rather aggressively went into court demanding the suit be dismissed because, frankly, Alan Gross wasn’t their problem.  DAI argued it had no duty to protect Alan Gross from the injury he suffered due to his confinement.

DAI claimed it enjoyed “sovereign immunity,” and like the federal government, it could not be sued. Without such immunity, contractors like them could never find pawns like Alan Gross to do their risky business in Cuba.  Ruling against DAI would put the court in a position of undermining the foreign policy of the United States.

This is what they said in January.  By May, they changed their tune; except, of course, so far as Jim Boomgard is concerned.

“We have been clear from day one that Alan’s safe return to his family is our first priority,” he said Thursday in a joint statement with Judy Gross.  “Settling this litigation allows us to work together on that overriding goal.”

Although the settlement includes a non-disclosure agreement between the Gross family and DAI, Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive is hopeful that more information could come out.

“Alan Gross himself deserves credit for indirectly admitting, through this lawsuit to the extensive illicit operations he was involved in and exposing the false representations of the Obama Administration about what he, DAI and USAID were doing.  If the State Department doesn’t settle, perhaps Gross’s lawyers can force the release of even more damning information about this controversial U.S. effort to roll back the Cuban revolution.”

That said, we may never know what really made DAI decide to settle.  But here’s a clue.

Two years ago, the company was named a “Top Innovator” in a global poll of international development professionals.

Accepting the award, Dr. James Boomgard effused, “it’s an honor to be recognized for the fresh thinking and resourcefulness we try to bring to the world’s development challenges.  As employee-owners, we have a very personal stake in the ideas, products, and services we are bringing to the marketplace in service of that mission.”

It’s always about the Benjamins.  The settlement undoubtedly saved DAI lots of money, but they won’t tell you how much.  It’s a secret.

For more this week in Cuba News, CLICK HERE.

Cuba’s government says that Guerra was the “handler” for the actual smuggler, Barry Fink, a California commercial video producer and University of Miami alumni.  Fink declined to discuss his Cuba travels with Eaton, saying, “I can’t.”

Guerra was a bit more forth coming, admitting, “I did some projects” and clarifying “I was in Cuba for a long period of time.”  However, he did not confirm or deny involvement in Operation Surf.

He spoke in general terms, cautioning that carrying out clandestine work in Cuba is challenging, but no different than dealing with the Russians during the Cold War.  “If you’re experienced you can deal with it.  If you’re naïve, it can be more of a problem.”

Considering that Guerra himself stated that Operation Surf was “ridiculous…satellites dishes don’t look like surf boards,” and that Dalexi González Madruga, an informant to Cuba’s state security, was on the receiving end of the boogie boards, it is to wonder who was naïve in this particular failed mission.

Cuban authorities let Fink deliver the goods and exit the country unmolested. Only his airport photo has been published as proof of his visit.  If there is actual footage of the exchange, which exists of communication equipment drops made by U.S. officials in the late 1980’s, it has not been made public.

Alan Gross, the USAID subcontractor imprisoned in Cuba for attempting to set up a secret communications network there, was also allowed to come and go four times before authorities decided to put a stop to it on his fifth, only months after Fink had made his apparent first trip.

Read more: http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2013/05/revisiting-operation-surf.html

Some of the best baseball players who have donned the Industriales uniform will visit Miami at the end of July to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the most loved and hated team in Cuba’s National Series, an unavoidable reference that in the history of the island’s baseball many called the “Yankees of Cuba.”

Sponsored by the enterprise Somos Cuba (We Are Cuba), 13 veterans of the blue team will play a friendly game here against Cuban baseball stars living in Miami and another one in Tampa under the program known as cultural exchange, though with a twist new to sports.

Judge Yasmín Barrios sentenced General Ríos Montt, 86, to 80 years in prison. His co-defendant, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, who served as the director of intelligence under the general, was acquitted of the same two charges.

“We are completely convinced of the intent to destroy the Ixil ethnic group,” Judge Barrios said as she read the hourlong summary of the ruling by the three-judge panel. Over five weeks, the tribunal heard more than 100 witnesses, including psychologists, military experts and Maya Ixil Indian survivors who told how General Ríos Montt’s soldiers had killed their families and wiped out their villages.

The judge said that as the commander in chief of Guatemala’s armed forces, the general knew about the systematic massacres of Ixil villagers living in hillside hamlets in El Quiché department and did nothing to stop them or the aerial bombardment of the refugees who had fled to nearby mountains.

The crowd packed into the courtroom was quiet for much of Judge Barrios’s reading. But cries of “Justicia! Justicia!” erupted when she pronounced the lengthy sentence and ordered General Ríos Montt to begin serving it immediately.

As the general tried to walk out a side door, Judge Barrios shouted at him to stay where he was and called for security forces. An hour after the verdict and sentence were read, General Ríos Montt was escorted from the courtroom by a dozen police officers. He said he was ready to go to prison.

How long he will stay there is less clear than the verdict. His lawyers said they would appeal, and injunctions filed during the case still await rulings.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Antonio Caba, 41, an Ixil leader of the Mayan survivors’ group that first brought the case more than a decade ago, said the sentence had “broken impunity and achieved justice.”

“We showed them that we’re not communists,” said Mr. Caba, who was 11 when soldiers stormed his village and killed 95 men. “We are simply villagers.”

For international human rights organizations, the trial took on a significance beyond Guatemala’s own history.

Adama Dieng, the United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said last month that the case was the first in which a former head of state had been indicted by a national tribunal on charges of genocide.

The “historical precedent,” and especially a guilty verdict, he said, could serve as an example to other countries “that have failed to hold accountable those individuals responsible for serious and massive human rights violations.”

But the trial’s international significance was irrelevant to the Maya Ixil Indians who had testified. “He gave the order,” said Elena de Paz Santiago, 42, as she waited on Friday for the verdict. Ms. de Paz had testified that she was 12 when she and her mother were taken by soldiers to an army base and raped. The soldiers let her go, but she never saw her mother again.

“Each one of us who is watching,” she said, nodding at the rows of Maya Ixil sitting behind her, “has lost their mother or their grandparents. That is why we are here.

“God wants him to go to jail,” she said of General Ríos Montt. “God knows that we are telling the truth.”

The villages of the Mayan highlands endured the worst of the army’s brutality in the early 1980s, the darkest period of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. During much of the 17 months of General Ríos Montt’s rule, the army intensified a scorched-earth policy to flush out leftist guerrillas fighting from the hills.

In the cities, security forces had identified labor and student leaders as enemies of the state and snatched them off the street to be killed or disappeared.

But the military campaigns against the Mayan communities did not bother to select their targets. Military planning documents simply described all the Ixil as guerrilla supporters.

In court testimony, Patrick Ball of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group in San Francisco estimated that from April 1982 to July 1983, 5.5 percent of the Maya Ixil population were killed. The proportion for the nonindigenous population was 0.7 percent.

In reopening such a searing chapter of Guatemala’s history, the trial deepened the already profound abyss between the country’s left and right.

Allies of General Ríos Montt published newspaper supplements celebrating the army’s fight against communism. The country’s deeply conservative oligarchy, represented by a business association known as Cacif, declared that it was important to “know how to leave the past behind.”

Even a respected group of academics and politicians, including a former vice president, Eduardo Stein, warned that a conviction could embolden other Mayan groups that had endured similar atrocities. “One cannot assume that the accusation of genocide will stop with the Ixil people,” Mr. Stein said.

The involvement of the United States in Guatemala’s politics received scant attention during the trial.

The American military had a close relationship with the Guatemalan military well into the 1970s before President Jimmy Carter’s administration cut off aid. When General Ríos Montt seized power in March 1982, President Ronald Reagan’s administration cultivated him as a reliable Central American ally in its battle against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and Salvadoran guerrillas.

Those interests influenced the way American officials treated evidence of the massacres. They were quick to accept military explanations that guerrillas had carried out the killings, said Kate Doyle, a Guatemala expert at the National Security Archive, a Washington research group that works to obtain declassified government documents.

By the end of 1982, however, the State Department had gathered evidence that the army was behind the massacres.

But even then, the administration insisted that General Ríos Montt was working to reduce the violence. After a regional meeting, President Reagan described him as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment.”