[R-G] The Terror Hour

[shniad at sfu.ca]

http://www.counterpunch.org/wire06112004.html

CounterPunch	 June 11, 2004

The Terror Hour

Miami TV station invites terrorists to talk openly about their planned
attacks on Cuba and Venezuela

By CounterPunch Wire

Cuban television tonight broadcast remarkable segments of a one hour program
on Miami TV Channel 41 in which known paramilitaries from the Florida based
Comandos F4 organization openly spoke of their preparation for an armed
attack against Cuba.

In moments of near-hysteria, the leader of Comandos F4, Rodolfo Frometa,
said that his organization has people inside and outside Cuba ready to carry
out armed acts against the Cuban government. Dressed in fatigues, as were
the others of his organization present in the studio, Frometa said that his
group trained with AK47 semi-automatic weapons--arms, he said, that were
legally obtained in the United States although he admitted he had no
paperwork to prove it.

The program was hosted by Oscar Asa, the nephew of former Cuban dictator
Fulgencio Batista. Batista was responsible for the murder of thousands of
Cubans until he was forced out by revolutionary forces in 1959. Asa seemed
to enjoy posing provocative questions relating to assassination in what
critics on Cuba's nightly televised Round Table classed as openly violating
US federal law.

It is illegal in the US to defend terrorist actions on TV. The promotion of
the assassination of another nation's leader is also illegal under the US
Neutrality Act. Nonetheless, commented round table participants, these men
were able to openly sit in a studio dressed for war and happily discuss the
different armaments they were using to train paramilitaries to attack Cuba,
and get away with it. There couldn't be better proof of the US government's
complicity with such would-be terrorists.

Adding weight to recent accusations of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez,
former Venezuelan army captain Eduardo Garcia was also present in full
uniform to discuss the help Comandos F4 were giving in his efforts to bring
down Chavez by force. Chavez has frequently charged that Miami
Cuban-American terrorist organizations are involved with Venezuelans seeking
to assassinate him.

The host of the Round Table program, Randy Alonso, simply asked viewers to
form their own conclusions after seeing such an astonishing program,
commenting that the message that Frometa gave was clear: his paramilitary
organization was ready and trained--it just needed the money. And, said
Alonso, the money is there--$36 million recently earmarked by the US
government to support such groups.