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International News Analysis

CUBAN SPIES VS. THE VATICAN

International News Analysis Today
UPDATED
May 11, 2012
By Toby Westerman

The U.S. "mainstream" media all but ignores the island gulag of Cuba and its continuing human tragedy. The ever socially conscious celebrities of Hollywood are not only silent on the plight of the average Cuban, except when expressing admiration for the wonders of a 50-plus year dictatorship. The American people remain, for the most part, unaware of the agony that is Communist Cuba and the spy network which deeps the dictatorship in power.

For one brief moment in March 2012, the international spotlight shined upon the Cuban prison-state when Pope Benedict XVI visited the island. The presence of the Pope publically demonstrated the ongoing struggle between the God-centered life and the demands of the totalitarian state, but a more sinister reality remained hidden from the cameras and microphones.

The Pope's visit to Cuba was also part of what one long-time intelligence expert calls a "dangerous dance," a carefully calculated relationshiop between two rivals who must cooperate with each other, but who are also intent on achieving goals which could lead to the destruction of the other.

The highly respected and long-time intelligence expert on Cuba, Christopher Simmons, described to International News Analysis Today how the Communist Cuban tyranny and the Catholic Church are conducting this potentially deadly "dance."

The "dance" involves pitting Cuban intelligence, "one of the most successful spy organizations in the world," with Vatican diplomatic operatives, "the world's oldest" intelligence operations. The five-decade old Cuban Communist regime's goal is to present a civilized image while maintaining effective control of its people. The Vatican is attempting to foster the Faith in a particularly brutal environment.

Like all tyrannies, Communism must control all aspects of human endeavor, including religion, or perish. The Communist government will enforce "correct" thinking or lose control of its people.

The Vatican, on the other hand, looks to God who loves all but also judges all human conduct.

Simmons explained to INA Today that a top priority in the effort by the Cuban Communist regime to control its population is an ongoing attempt to infiltrate the Catholic Church in Cuba.

Simmons stated that all churches in Cuba are infiltrated, but that the Catholic Church, "more successfully than others," maintained its integrity despite the determined efforts of Cuba's domestic intelligence operation.

One defector from the Interior Ministry stated to the Miami Herald in 1998 that the Catholic Church is targeted because, "it is the only force inside the country capable of bringing people together and even organizing a subtle form of resistance.''

The Catholic Church in Cuba walks a tightrope, attempting to encourage the practice of the Faith while under the suspicious eye of a deadly internal security operation.

The "dance" goes on, with little assistance from the U.S. media and most U.S. politicians.

"Havana rules," said Simmons, using an expression indicating that the United States has little direct intelligence capability on the island.

America's lack of influence on the Communist Cuban regime is dramatically demonstrated in the case of Alan Gross. Arrested in 2009, Gross had come to Cuba as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He was accused of crimes against the Cuban state for supplying satellite phones and computer equipment to members of Cuba's Jewish community without the required permit. He is now serving a 15-year prison sentence in one of Cuba's squalid prisons.

As with the infiltration of the Catholic Church, the U.S. mass media have paid little attention to the fate of Gross.

The conditions of Cuban prisons, which await both the religious activist and the wrongly convicted U.S. citizen, can only be described as barbaric.

Some images carried on cell phones which were smuggled out of the island gulag have come to the United States, but have met with little interest from the mass media.

Simmons states that Cuba's spy services is devoted to two main priorities: the destruction of the United States and the survival of the Communist regime in Cuba, while the Vatican is interested in the advancement of its humanitarian and relief projects, and sheer survival on the island gulag.

While the Catholic Church is attacked and reviled by liberal celebrities and various left-wing pressure groups, in Cuba it is one of the very few voices for the oppressed, standing in opposition to an often brutal totalitarian regime.

The Church stands nearly alone, since the Communist Cuban dictatorship receives little attention in the U.S., except when Leftist celebrities go to Cuba and spend their time standing in child-like wonder and awe at fifty-plus year tyranny.

The American people deserve to know more and better understand the vicious nature of the Communist Cuban regime. We should stand with the Cuban people.


International News Analysis
(Copyright 2012)

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