FROM NAZARIO SARGENT TO ORLANDO BOSCH
 
                   BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)

                   COULD it be that the very long prison sentences handed down to the
                   five Cubans falsely accused of espionage were aimed at protecting
                   Miami terrorist circles and dissuading any person or group who wants
                   to counteract those circles’ criminal activities?

                   One might think so when one sees with what impunity — and what
                   arrogance — recognized terrorists continue to flaunt themselves in
                   public rallies sponsored by mafia groups in Miami, as in the days
                   immediately following the failed occupation attempt at the Mexican
                   embassy in Havana.

                   Two successive events, both called by the mafia to denounce the
                   Mexican government’s correct attitude related to that incident, have
                   received attention.

                   The first, in chronological order: rally called by terrorist group
                   Alpha-66 and its head, Nazario Sargent, was amply covered in the
                   Miami press, which is always ready to spread the terrorist message
                   to those groups most predisposed to violence — including publishing
                   their extremist demands. That was clearly demonstrated less than
                   three weeks before the fateful Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks
                   when The Miami Herald published, in the August 22, 2001 edition, a
                   pamphlet defending aggression against Cuba by whatever means,
                   including the use of violence.

                   Alpha-66’s terrorist actions could fill a book, and various volumes at
                   that. The group’s leaders were present at a June 1976 meeting in the
                   Dominican Republic, when the most extreme counterrevolutionary
                   elements met to form the Command of United Revolutionary
                   Organizations, the sinister CORU group. And afterwards they always
                   willingly lent their support in the over 50 attempts so far attributed to
                   Cuban-American terrorist organizations.

                   The day after the first rally, the provocation was even more basic. In
                   the very headquarters of the association of those nostalgic for the
                   counterrevolutionaries’ disastrous attack at the Bay of Pigs — the
                   Playa Girón victory — representatives of 60 groups, splinter groups
                   and miniscule groups called a new rally to denounce Mexico.

                   While a spokesperson for that species of counterrevolutionary
                   coalition exhorted the Cuban-American community to boycott
                   Mexican products, one could observe at their side, on the very
                   podium along with the most distinguished guests, two of the best
                   known Miami terrorists: killer pediatrician Orlando Bosch, with his
                   usual sinister appearance, and violent black-bearded mercenary
                   Rodolfo Frómeta.

                   Of course, Orlando Bosch is the better known of the pair. He and Luis
                   Posada Carriles were the masterminds of the October 6, 1976
                   explosion on board a Cubana Airlines plane in full flight, in which 73
                   people died. Killer Bosch was later released from a Venezuelan jail
                   thanks to Otto Reich, now in charge of Latin American affairs for the
                   State Department. Reich has acted as Bosch’s godfather, even to the
                   point of getting him a pardon from George Bush Sr.

                   For over 40 years, Bosch has been responsible for innumerable
                   crimes of terror. He continues in his capacity as professional terrorist,
                   constantly urging violence as a method for political struggle.

                   Bosch may be a dinosaur in the world of Miami terrorism, but
                   Frómeta is a shrewder version of the anti-Cuba criminal, with a
                   devastating potential for terrorism.

                   In 1981, Alpha-66 sent him to Cuba to do some "work," such as
                   poisoning cattle, setting fire to sugarcane plantations and destroying
                   citrus orchards.

                   He was imprisoned, serving 10 years.

                   In 1994, before his return to Miami, Frómeta was once again
                   arrested, with six other individuals, this time in the Gulf of Mexico by
                   a U.S. Coast Guard patrol; 50 weapons, 26,000 cartridges and
                   thousands of dollars were discovered on board his boat. Legal
                   authorities didn’t consider him worthy of charges — even though the
                   terrorist admitted he was sailing towards Cuban territory.

                   In June of the same year, Rodolfo Frómeta was arrested again with
                   Fausto Merimont, an Alpha-66 crony, while they were purchasing a
                   Stinger anti-aircraft rocket, three M-72 anti-tank rockets, C-4
                   explosives, and a rocket launcher from an undercover FBI agent.

                   That time he was sentenced to 41 months, a real "bargain" for such
                   a violent individual. He was released in September 1997, on the
                   condition that he stay in Miami and not associate with people
                   carrying weapons.

                   Frómeta is the archetype visceral terrorist, an intimate friend of
                   Guillermo Novo — one of Posada Carriles’ Panamanian hirelings —
                   and ally of Roberto Martín Pérez, his Cuban American National
                   Foundation (CANF) sponsor. In the following weeks he associated
                   with Miguel Rodríguez Heredia, living in the Dominican Republic, to
                   support an "infiltration plan" in Guantánamo province with
                   speedboats and weapons from Costa Rica.

                   The career terrorist has now left Alpha-66, after a dispute with
                   Nazario Sargent, to join "F-4 Commandos," an organization with a
                   long history of aggression against the island.

                   On August 24, 1999, El Diario de las Americas daily, another Miami
                   mafia collaborator, announced the "reactivation of activities" by
                   Frómeta’s organization and the "destruction" of "two Gaviota
                   corporation buses, four train cars, two cigar factories and two taxis
                   belonging to the Cubalse corporation" in Cuba, claiming that these
                   were "military objectives." This was denounced in a roundtable on
                   the theme in Havana.

                   January 12, 2001, saw Frómeta informing the same propaganda
                   crew that they had "burnt down a Gaviota taxi terminal and also a
                   bus terminal."

                   Like Bosch, who has free State Department entry, Frómeta boasts
                   of his good relations with Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart, Miami
                   mafia capo on Capitol Hill.

                   Doesn’t the presence Orlando Bosch and Rodolfo Frómeta at rallies
                   sponsored by Miami mafia groups and splinter groups demonstrate
                   that

                   such groups support terrorism? What does Alpha-66’s presence on
                   Miami television signify, if not support for terrorism as a "legitimate"
                   means to harass the Cuban Revolution? How should we interpret the
                   U.S. authorities’ tolerance of groups like Alpha-66 and F-4
                   Commandos, who are in the public eye and have websites, if not as
                   giving their blessing to terrorism?

                   Miami is dominated, muzzled and swindled by mafia extremists and
                   has now officially been named as the poorest city in the United
                   States. It continues to suffer under the weight of terror, reduced to
                   silence by a criminal network that now even holds strategic positions
                   in the federal government.

                   While the five Cubans are sent to prison for risking their lives to stop
                   terrorism against the island, tolerance of terrorists on the part of the
                   same Miami legal system has provided a breather for extremists,
                   giving them the green light to concoct attacks against Cuba.

                   And their faces on the city’s television screens is one more example
                   of this catastrophic situation.