U.S. diplomats steered mercenaries in Panama, leaks show

Two former chiefs of the United States Interests Section in Havana instructed Cuban and Cuban-American malcontents how to behave in Panama during the Summit of the Peoples but their advice fell in deaf ears, according to an article in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde on Saturday (April 11).

Clearly based on reports from informers in the dissident group and/or leaks gathered by Cuban intelligence, the article describes the efforts of Michael G. Kozak and Jonathan Ferrer to create the impression that the Cuban oppositionists and the Cuban-American sponsors who accompanied them were the legitimate representatives of “a new Cuba.”

Ferrer was USINT chief from 2008 to 2011; he is now U.S. ambassador to Panama. Kozak was USINT chief from 1996 to 1999; he is now deputy assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights.

(Interestingly, Kozak was in charge of the planning that ended in the overthrow of Panamanian President Manuel Noriega in 1988 and, according to his State Department biography, in 1989 “accompanied our forces in Panama to help the new government establish the core institutions of democracy.”)

However, Cuba was already represented at the Summit by an official delegation sent by Havana, and the dissidents apparently chose to disregard their marching orders and disrupt the sessions in which the legitimate representatives were participating.

As a result of the raucous confrontations that developed, the official delegates chose to leave the working sessions rather than cause embarrassment to their Panamanian hosts, who were in charge of security. (Photo at top shows official delegates denouncing the presence of the provocateurs.)

The account by Juventud Rebelde follows, translated by Progreso Weekly. The translator’s clarifications appear [in brackets].

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PRESS STATEMENT by the Cuban delegation to the Summit of the Peoples

We want international public opinion to learn new proof of the servile nature of the mercenaries of Cuban origin who were accredited to the Civil Society Forum of the Seventh Summit of the Americas.

Manuel Cuesta Morúa, Laritza Diversent and Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, along with a group of oppositionists from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, were summoned to a meeting with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Michael Kozak, and the U.S. Ambassador to Panama, Jonathan Farrar, for the purpose of receiving instructions and coordinating actions about how to act before the legitimate representation of Cuban Civil Society at the event.

They were told that, publicly, they should back the changes toward Cuba that the administration of Barack Obama has started to implement. They were told that they should not back the positions of the extreme right in Miami, which is contrary to the presence of Cuba at the Summit, and to the process of re-establishment of relations between the two countries.

Farrar ordered them to take part in the event to reinforce the idea of an alleged consensus between the so-called Cuban dissident organizations and insisted that they should avoid confrontations and achieve broad visibility in the media, so they might legitimize themselves as “a credible opposition.”

Farrar and Kozak cautioned them that on their behavior during the Summit would hinge their recognition as representatives of a future civil society in a “post-Castro era.”

They regretted that — through the indiscretion of a young Argentine woman who took part in the Youth Forum — the press had learned about the financing given by the State Department to the preparation of the anti-Cuban delegation to the Summit.

Nevertheless, they promised them that President Barack Obama would hold a meeting with some of them at the end of his visit to Panama. The “chosen ones” would be those who faithfully followed the instructions and could create a good impression on the U.S. President.

[Translator’s Note: Obama did meet Friday, behind closed doors, with a group that included Costa Morúa, Diversent, and Rocío San Miguel, according to the news agency EFE, which cited White House sources.]

They also explained to them that mercenary José Daniel Ferrer had received instructions to carry out provocations in Cuba and, depending on the response of the authorities, to feed the campaign of discredit against our country.

Both Farrar and Kozak were chiefs of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and know these individuals’ ilk. Farrar himself is the author of several cables disclosed by Wikileaks that reveal the negative standing of these mercenaries in their own masters’ view.

We ask the participants in the Summit of the Peoples to disseminate this denunciation through all the means available to them.

/s/ Cuban Delegation to the Summit of the Peoples

11 April 2015

[For the original text of this communiqué, in Spanish, click here.]