The Castro dictatorship’s deep ties to drug cartels is well known, although governments and the media continue to pretend it doesn’t exist. There are countless testimonies and undeniable evidence that Fidel Castro and his henchmen made millions off drug trafficking, with his brother Raul being the lead person running the operation, and there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t continue to this day. Nevertheless, the international community will continue to look the other way, in the same manner they look away at the crimes against humanity committed by Cuba’s communist dictatorship.
Via CiberCuba (my translation):
Revelations by former Medellin Cartel capo tie Raul Castro to drug trafficking
Recent revelations by the former head of the Medellin Cartel, Carlos Lehder, indicate that Raúl Castro negotiated deals with the Medellin Cartel, for which later four Cuban military officials, including Colonel Antonio de La Guardia and Arnaldo Ochoa, were executed.
The former drug trafficker explained for the first time how the relationships with the so-called “extraditables” worked with the governments of Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, and the Bahamas. These governments were given millions of dollars to freely traffic Colombian drugs destined for the United States, as reported by Semana magazine.
Lehder claims the money and power accumulated by Colombian drug lords in the ’80s wouldn’t have been possible without the complicity of these regimes. He immediately recognized that the easiest way to transport cocaine to the United States was through the “drug diplomacy” with these governments, he asserted.
The former drug lord, one of Colombia’s most notorious, mentioned how he personally controlled the Bahamas, governed by Minister Lynden Pindling, and also participated in negotiations with the Castros in Cuba. He even requested to meet Raúl.
In the case of Cuba, Lehder explains that the Castros partnered with Pablo Escobar Gaviria and Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, known as El Mexicano, through Colonel Antonio de la Guardia. De la Guardia was the head of the Import and Export Corporation of Cuba (Cimex), an agency of the Castro dictatorship specializing in “special operations.”
“The Castro dictatorship, through Cipac, the intelligence and special operations agency in Havana, had used a Cuban-American doctor, a relative of a former companion of mine, to send me a formal invitation to visit the island, with all expenses paid by the government,” Lehder recounted.
During the first business visit, he was received by a group of officers in civilian clothes, and in a waiting room, he met the mission leaders, led by De la Guardia.
He explains the Cubans thought the visit was to buy lobster, rum, and cigarettes, but he made it clear that they needed the island as a springboard for drug smuggling.
Unexpectedly, the Cubans’ response opened the door to a huge business: “For now, I can only confirm that we need all the dollars we can get,” said Colonel Antonio de la Guardia.
In the beginning, they authorized him to use “Cayo Largo, an island twenty kilometers long, with a good airstrip, located forty kilometers from the port of Cienfuegos.” In the first phase, Cimex informed him that “he needed to receive five million dollars in cash to cover the government’s expenses on that island.”
“You will have the rooms you need on the second floor of the hotel to reside there with your workers; in addition, we will open the kitchen. We don’t know how much cocaine you will bring to the island, but the more, the better; we would only have to negotiate the price per landed kilo,” they told him.
Lehder mentions that despite this, he wanted to establish relations with the Castros and requested to be introduced to Raúl.
Before the meeting, De la Guardia told him: “Listen well: protocol requires strictly respecting time. It’s four minutes maximum for a handshake, a courtesy phrase, and farewell. You won’t mention your own name.”
They then searched him, took his passport, and took him to a room where, after an announcement, “a man with glasses appeared who, looking at me shrewdly and fixedly, said: –Nice to meet you, welcome to free Cuba –he greeted me, and extended his cold hand with the icy gesture of a potentate greeting a shoe-shiner.”
He claims that Raúl continued: “Here in Cuba, we have achieved many advances in education, medicine, and agriculture. Our trade is growing, despite the Yankee blockade; the Cuban Revolution is invincible. Enjoy your stay. You can go now,” recounted the former drug lord.
He says that Raúl’s brief words had nothing to do with the business but cryptically represented a closing of the agreement for which many shipments arrived on the island.
“Gustavo, El Mexicano, and I were the partners involved in the first cocaine shipment sent to Cayo Largo. Our responsibility was to get it to the island,” he recalls in his memoirs.
He adds that Gustavo Gaviria handled the trafficking from Cuba, while Colonel De la Guardia was in charge of taking it to the Bahamas, where Lehder still had official contacts with the government.
Despite the knowledge of these dealings by the Cuban regime, in 1989, De la Guardia, Arnaldo Ochoa, Captain Jorge Martínez Valdés, and Major Amado Padrón Trujillo were taken to a military tribunal accused of being linked to drug trafficking operations with the Medellin Cartel.
On the morning of July 13, 1989, the four were executed in Havana, and their execution was announced hours later through Cuban television.
Some military personnel told CiberCuba that that summer, Raúl Castro was discovered crying in front of the mirror in the early morning and became enraged with himself.
Currently, Lehder, one of the most well-known former drug lords in Colombia, has stated that he opposes “the legalization of drugs, except marijuana.”
Doesn’t matter. The (supposed) ends justify the means, any means. Ask the pro-Hamas crowd.
And by the way, love the costumes, not to mention the body language.
There are times, however momentary and fleeting, when a photo captures something of someone’s essence. This old photo does that with Fidel Castro, and it’s not a good look–neither for him nor for Cubans. The bastard was bullshit incarnate, and I mean seriously perverse and highly noxious bullshit.
Of course, by now, practically every photo of him makes me feel ashamed, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with putting him in power. We should all be ashamed, because as my mother might have said, what happened in Cuba no es cosa de gente respetable. Lord, the disgrace.