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The Cuban American National Foundation is a foundation with the aim of assisting members of the Cuban community in Miami, Florida.
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The Cuban American National Foundation is a foundation with the aim of assisting members of the Cuban community in Miami, Florida.
The Cuban National American Foundation was founded in 1981 following the election of Ronald Reagan, when U.S. Republicans sought a lobbying organization made up of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. The organization was molded after the pro-Israel organization AIPAC and enjoyed significant backing from the Reagan administration. [1] [2] In its early days, CANF also received "sizeable contributions" from board members who were "leaders of Miami's financial and import-export sector," running companies invested in Latin America and stood to gain from Reagan's policies that protected investment overseas. [3] The first president of the organization was Jorge Mas Canosa, president of a construction company, and the first executive director was Frank Calzon, who had directed a Washington-based lobbying group. The organization had claimed to be non-partisan, but in practice its policy proposal were aligned with that of the Reagan government, including, for instance, its support for Radio Martí, an American state-run radio and television international broadcaster. CANF's support proved important in overcoming obstacles and passing the bill. [3] Following this important early success, [4] CANF also lobbied for other US foreign policy projects, including the invasion of Grenada and funding the anti-government rebels during the Angolan Civil War. It supported the Caribbean Basin Initiative of 1984. [3]
CANF also operates the radio station La Voz de la Fundación which it attempts to transmit to Cuba; it led the effort to establish the U.S. Information Agency's Radio Martí (1985) and TV Martí (1990). Radio Martí and TV Martí are official U.S. broadcasting operations directed to the Cuban people. [5] [ non-primary source needed ]
Formerly a strong advocate for isolation of Cuba by the USA, in April 2009 CANF published an article calling for lifting US restrictions on aid and travel to Cuba, and aiding civil society groups there. [6]
The Cuban-born anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles claimed in 1998 that he received financial support from CANF for a bombing campaign carried out in 1997, although he has denied ties with the attack. CANF has strongly denied Posada's statement, and Posada has since recanted his assertion. [7] Gaspar Jiménez and Rolando Mendoza, ranking members of CANF, stepped down from leadership positions at the institution due to drug trafficking charges. [8]
Orlando Bosch Ávila was a Cuban exile militant, who headed the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), described by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation as a terrorist organization. Born in Cuba, Bosch attended medical school at the University of Havana, where he befriended Fidel Castro. He worked as a doctor in Santa Clara Province in the 1950s, but moved to Miami in 1960 after he stopped supporting the Cuban Revolution.
Otto Juan Reich is an American diplomat and lobbyist who worked in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Reich was born in Cuba; his family moved to North Carolina when he was fifteen. He graduated from University of North Carolina in 1966, and after a two-year stint in the US Army, received a master's degree from Georgetown University in 1973. After graduating, Reich worked for the state and federal governments in Florida and Washington, D.C.
Roger Francisco Noriega is an American diplomat who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the George W. Bush administration He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Luis Clemente Posada Carriles was a Cuban exile militant and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. He was considered a terrorist by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Government of Cuba, among others.
Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on 6 October 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack. All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed after two time bombs went off and the plane crashed into the sea. The crash killed every member of the Cuban national fencing team.
The Cuban–American lobby are various groups of Cuban exiles in the United States and their descendants who have historically influenced the United States' policy toward Cuba. In general usage, this refers to anti-Castro groups.
The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations was a militant group responsible for a number of terrorist activities directed at the Cuban government following the Cuban Revolution. The United States government provided them with extensive financial and logistical support throughout their existence. It was founded by a group that included Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both of whom worked with the CIA at various times, and was composed chiefly of Cuban exiles opposed to the Castro government. It was formed in 1976 as an umbrella group for a number of anti-Castro militant groups. Its activities included a number of bombings and assassinations, including the killing of human-rights activist Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., and the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 which killed 73 people.
Caleb Charles McCarry was the Bush administration's Cuba Transition Coordinator. The position developed out of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. McCarry described the Commission's purpose as to put forth "an intelligent, generous and above all respectful offer of support to the Cuban people" in efforts to end "the dictatorship [that] has willfully and cruelly divided the Cuban family." His mission was described by the Cuban government as "part of a broader U.S. 'plan for Cuba's annexation.'"
The José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform is a public event venue located in the Plaza de la Dignidad, across the street from the Embassy of the United States in Havana. It was opened in April 2000.
The Cuban Democracy Act (CDA), also known as the Torricelli Act or the Torricelli-Graham Bill, was a bill introduced and sponsored by U.S. Congressman Robert Torricelli and aimed to tighten the U.S. embargo on Cuba. It reimplemented the ban of U.S. subsidiaries in other countries from trading with Cuba, hindered the ability for ships docked within Cuban ports to travel to U.S. ports, and worked to circumvent other aspects of the embargo to provide humanitarian aid to Cuba in an attempt to draw the Cuban people closer to the United States.
Jorge Lincoln Mas Canosa was a Cuban-American businessman who founded the Cuban American National Foundation and MasTec, a publicly traded company. Regarded within the United States as a powerful lobbyist on Cuban and anti-Castro political positions, he was labeled a "counterrevolutionary" by the Cuban Communist Party.
Relations between Cuba and Venezuela were established in 1902. The relationship deteriorated in the 1960s and Venezuela broke relations in late 1961 following the Betancourt Doctrine policy of not having ties with governments that had come to power by non-electoral means. A destabilizing factor was the Cuban support for the antigovernment guerrilla force that operates in remote rural areas. Relations were reestablished in 1974.
José Antonio Llama was a director on the executive board of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). Llama also participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Oscar Jose Corral is a Cuban-American journalist and filmmaker. In 2012, Corral directed and produced a documentary film, Tom Wolfe Gets Back to Blood, which enjoyed a national run on PBS and was screened in more than 40 independent theaters around the country. It is the only film ever made about Tom Wolfe, an iconic author and satirist whose stature in American letters has loomed large for the last half century. The film is about how Wolfe researched his Miami-set novel, Back to Blood, in South Florida.
The 1997 Cuba hotel bombings were a series of terrorist bombing attacks on Cuban hotels organized by anti-Communist militants. The purpose of the bombing campaign was to destroy the recently resurgent Cuban tourism trade and in so doing, undermine the country's Communist government. The first and worst of the explosions took place at the Hotel Copacabana at about 11:30 AM, and killed Fabio di Celmo, a 32-year-old Genoan, from Italy, and resident of Montreal, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry in Rome. Di Celmo was visiting Cuba with his father and staying in the hotel. 11 other tourists were also injured in the bombings. The hotels targeted included the Hotel Capri, Hotel Nacional de Cuba, and the Meliá Cohiba Hotel. Cuban-exile and former CIA asset, Luis Posada Carriles, admitted organizing the bombings. In a taped interview with The New York Times, Posada said: "It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop." Posada was reportedly disappointed with the reluctance of American news organisations to report the bombing attacks, saying "If there is no publicity, the job is useless".
DISIP was an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency inside and outside of Venezuela between 1969 and 2009 when SEBIN was created by former President Hugo Chávez. DISIP was established in March 1969 by then-president Rafael Caldera, replacing the Directorate General of Police (DIGEPOL).
The United States has at various times in recent history provided support to terrorist and paramilitary organizations around the world. It has also provided assistance to numerous authoritarian regimes that have used state terrorism as a tool of repression.
Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo was a Cuban exile living in Miami. An associate of Luis Posada Carriles, he was convicted of attempting to kidnap a Cuban consul in Mexico in 1976, for which he served 27 months in prison. He was also convicted of attempting to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000, and was jailed until 2004 when he was pardoned by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso.
Ricardo Morales Navarette, also known by the moniker "El Mono", was a Cuban exile and agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. He also worked for the DISIP, or Venezuelan intelligence service, and as an informant for the US FBI, CIA, and DEA.
Barbados-Cuban relations refers to the bilateral relations between Barbados and the Republic of Cuba. Barbados has an embassy in Havana and Cuba has an embassy in Bridgetown. Barbados and the Republic of Cuba are both members of the Association of Caribbean States, Belt and Road Initiative, ECLAC, EU-CARIFORUM, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific State and CARICOM.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)A Cuban militant accused of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner has applied to become an American citizen, his lawyer said Tuesday. The man, Luis Posada Carriles, has been jailed in El Paso on immigration charges since May. Mr. Posada, a former C.I.A. operative and a fervent opponent of President Fidel Castro, is accused by Cuba and Venezuela of plotting the 1976 bombing while living in Venezuela. He has denied involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people. Mr. Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting retrial on the airline bombing charges, and Venezuela has formally sought his extradition.
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