Double agent on Cuban TV

A reporter´s notebook

By Manuel Alberto Ramy

ramymanuel@yahoo.com

Tuesday, 08 March 2011 12:42

Dalexi González, a young telecommunications engineer, surprised the Cuban TV audience as he revealed himself as a double agent at the service of both CIA and Cuban counter intelligence services. He was Alejandro for the American services, and for the Cuban, Raúl.

During the program Las razones de Cuba (Cuba´s reasons), broadcasted yesterday night, González narrated how, around three years ago, he started to “collaborate” in a program destined to organize a web of access to the net which in turn could function as a channel for encrypted messages. To that end, he received from the North American citizen Robert Guerra the necessary equipment, including antennas disguised in surf boards, which made it possible not only to receive but also to send messages abroad thus violating regulations and norms established in the island.

It became clear in the program that it was Robert Guerra, who visited the island twice as a tourist, the responsible to recruit the double agent. Guerra has been defined as an expert in coding and encrypting (hiding) of messages. According to the documentary, he currently works for Freedom House, an organization identified by Cuban authorities as a CIA front, covering up intelligence tasks against the island with the financial assistance of USAID.

Last month, a video showing a Cuban counterintelligence officer was leaked into the net. In the video, the man, a telecommunications expert, explains to other security services and armed forces officials the challenges to be assumed in relation to new technologies, mentioning CIA attempts to create wifi zones for selected users –obviously enough, members of the national opposition-  who could be thus able to transmit abroad dodging the government´s control and norms.

Afterwards, contractor Alan Gross was trialed for the distribution of means capable of ensuring direct satellite connections and, as the readers of Progreso Weekly very well know, he is awaiting sentence.

It´s difficult to miss the link between the leaking of the video, just before Gross trial, and the documentary which was broadcasted last night. Both deal with cyberspace war. There is no direct reference in them to Mr. Gross and his judicial process, but the relationship is certainly worth noticing if only as a point of suggestion. A point which, as a matter of fact, only those who attended Gross trial seem qualified to dismiss.