Fidel Castro
President Obama’s campaign to mainstream the communist regime of Cuba has included the removal of the island nation from a list of terror sponsors, visits there by Secretary of State John Kerry and the president, a commission to establish how the U.S. can promote “normalization” and agreements to share “science,” mail, flights and even law enforcement.
But it’s taking a lawsuit to pry out of the Obama administration details about American prisoners of war who “may have been held captive by Cuban government or military forces” there.
The lawsuit by Judical Watch seeks records “depicting the names, service branch, ranks, Military Occupational Specialty, and dates and locations of capture of all American servicemen believed to have been held captive by Cuban government or military forces on the island of Cuba since 1960.”
“The fact that we had to sue the Obama administration to get simple answers as to whether Cuba held and tortured American POWs strongly suggests that a cover-up is underway,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“The Obama administration admires Castro’s Cuba so much that even the fate of the regime’s victims, even American POWs, is of little concern.”
Obama, since December 2014, has been campaigning to re-establish relations with Cuba, help the communist nation in the world community and more.
Early in 2015, Obama’s State Department declared Cuba no longer is a state sponsor of terror, and the nations have re-launched reciprocal embassies.
A bilateral commission was set up to be the “primary vehicle for advancing normalization.”
The suit cites the government’s refusal to comply with a request under the Freedom of Information Act on the subject.
The action explains Judicial Watch submitted the FOIA request on June 1, 2015, but the Department of State “has failed to: (i) produce the requested records or demonstrate that the requested records are lawfully exempt from production; (ii) notify plaintiff of the scope of any responsive records defendant intends to produce or withhold and the reasons for any withholding; or (iii) inform plaintiff that it may appeal any adequately specific, adverse determination.”
“Plaintiff is being irreparably harmed by reason of defendant’s violation of FOIA, and plaintiff will continue to be irreparably harmed unless defendant is compelled to comply with FOIA,” it states.
The Department of Defense initially claimed to have no records, but in a recent commentary on Accuracy in Media, John Lowery reported about “17 American airmen captured in North Vietnam and then taken to Cuba for medical experiments in torture techniques.”
“Following his release [during Operation Homecoming] Major Jack Bomar, a [POW camp] Zoo survivor, described the brutal beating of Captain Earl G. Cobeil, an F-105F electronics warfare officer, by Cuban Major Fernando Vecino Alegret, known by the POWs as ‘Fidel,’” the report said. “Regarding Captain Cobeil, Bomar related, ‘he was completely catatonic … His body was ripped and torn everywhere … Hell cuffs appeared almost to have severed his wrists … Slivers of bamboo were imbedded [sic] in his bloodied shins, he was bleeding from everywhere.’”
Lowery reported: “Much less is known about our 17 captured airmen taken to Cuba for ‘experimentation in torture techniques.’ They were held in Havana’s Los Maristas, a secret Cuban prison run by Castro’s G-2 Intelligent service. A few were held in the Mazorra (psychiatric) Hospital and served as human guinea pigs used to develop improved methods of extracting information through ‘torture and drugs.’
“If our honor code of ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’ and our national policy of ‘No man left behind,’ are more than meaningless slogans, then before our relations with Cuba can be normalized, their murderous leadership must account for our POWs.”
Judicial Watch noted U.S. Navy F-4 pilot Lt. Clemmie McKinney’s plane was shot down in 1972 and he was held at a Cuban compound in North Vietnam.
“The Department of Defense reportedly said he was killed in the crash but a CIA document later published included a picture of McKinney standing next to Fidel Castro,” it reported.
And Lowery wrote that when McKinney’s remains were returned in 1985, a forensic anthropologist confirmed he died not before 1975 and probably several years later.
In 1999, former POW Mike Benge told Congress, “I have also uncovered evidence of the possibility that American POWs from the Vietnam War have been held in Los Maristas, a secret Cuban prison.”
WND reported The Rolling Stones gave a free concern in Havana on the heels of President Obama’s departure. It was one of several bands Cuba’s government considered subversive in past decades. The band’s music was even blocked from radio.
But Rafael Cruz, the father of Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, contends it’s a “drastic mistake” of mainstream Cuba.
He fled Cuba in 1957 and now is an ordained minister and the author of “A Time for Action: Empowering the Faithful to Reclaim America.” As a teenager, he resisted the brutal rule of dictator Fulgencio Batista and initially aligned himself with Fidel Castro, who led the revolution under false pretenses.
“I was involved in the revolution with Castro, thinking that he was a freedom fighter,” Cruz told WND and Radio America. “I was imprisoned and tortured (by the Batista regime) as a result. I came to the states in ’57.”
He said he still didn’t realize Castro’s true agenda until returning shortly after the revolution.
“In ’59, when I went back, something didn’t look right,” he said. “They were starting to talk about how the rich were evil, how they oppressed the poor, about the need to redistribute the wealth. Soon thereafter, he called himself a Marxist-Leninist and began confiscating private property, freedom of religion (and) freedom of the press.”
Cruz added: “I felt like I was duped, like many of us kids. We were high-school kids when we were involved, and we didn’t know any better. Thinking about what Obama is doing nowadays, trying to extend the lifeline to Cuba is really a horrible situation.”
Cruz said the most alarming aspect of Obama’s olive branch to the Castros is that the regime is not changing its behavior one iota. He said the record is clear of Cuba pouring 25,000 troops into Angola in 1979 to assist in a communist revolution and to this day training the terrorists of FARC to destabilize Columbia.
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Rafael Cruz:
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