Fw: Bio Warfare Against Cuba

[Guest guest]

(Like I said, what do you think? Could a genetically modified organism

really be as far-fetched as these sound?)

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Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 1:56 PM

Subject: Bio Warfare Against Cuba

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> === United States Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons Abroad ===

>

> In Cuba:

>

> 1) In August 1962, a British freighter under Soviet lease, having damaged

> its propeller on a reef, crept into the harbor at San , Puerto Rico

> for repairs. It was bound for a Soviet port with 80,000 bags of Cuban

> sugar. The ship was put into dry dock and 14,135 sacks of sugar were

> unloaded to a warehouse to facilitate the repairs. While in the warehouse,

> the sugar was contaminated by CIA agents with a substance that was

> allegedly harmless but unpalatable. When President Kennedy learned of the

> operation he was furious because it had taken place in US territory and if

> discovered could provide the Soviet Union with a propaganda field day and

> set a terrible precedent for chemical sabotage in the Cold War. He

> directed that the sugar not be returned to the Russians, although what

> explanation was given to them is not publicly known. Similar undertakings

> were apparently not canceled. A CIA official, who helped direct worldwide

> sabotage efforts against Cuba, later revealed that " There was lots of

> sugar being sent out from Cuba, and we were putting a lot of contaminants

> in it. "

>

> 2) The same year, a Canadian agricultural technician working as an adviser

> to the Cuban government was paid $5,000 by " an American military

> intelligence agent " to infect Cuban turkeys with a virus which would

> produce the fatal Newcastle disease. Subsequently, 8,000 turkeys died. The

> technician later claimed that although he had been to the farm where the

> turkeys had died, he had not actually administered the virus, but had

> instead pocketed the money, and that the turkeys had died from neglect and

> other causes unrelated to the virus. This may have been a self-serving

> statement. The Washington Post reported that " According to U.S.

> intelligence reports, the Cubans--and some Americans--believe the turkeys

> died as the result of espionage. "

>

> 3) According to a participant in the project:

> During 1969 and 1970, the CIA deployed futuristic weather modification

> technology to ravage Cuba's sugar crop and undermine the economy. Planes

> from the China Lake Naval Weapons Center in the California desert, where

> high tech was developed, overflew the island, seeding rain clouds with

> crystals that precipitated torrential rains over non-agricultural areas

> and left the cane fields arid (the downpours caused killer flash floods in

> some areas).

> This said, it must be pointed out while it's not terribly surprising

> that the CIA would have attempted such a thing, it's highly unlikely that

> it would have succeeded except through a great stroke of luck; i.e., heavy

> rains occurring at just the right time.

>

> 4) In 1971, also according to participants, the CIA turned over to Cuban

> exiles a virus which causes African swine fever. Six weeks later, an

> outbreak of the disease in Cuba forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to

> prevent a nationwide animal epidemic. The outbreak, the first ever in the

> Western hemisphere, was called the " most alarming event " of the year by

> the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization.25

>

> 5) Ten years later, the target may well have been human beings, as an

> epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) swept across the Cuban island.

> Transmitted by blood-eating insects, usually mosquitos, the disease

> produces severe flu symptoms and incapacitating bone pain. Between May and

> October 1981, over 300,000 cases were reported in Cuba with 158

> fatalities, 101 of which were children under 15.26

> The Center for Disease Control later reported that the appearance in

> Cuba of this particular strain of dengue, DEN-2 from Southeast Asia, had

> caused the first major epidemic of DHF ever in the Americas.27 Castro

> announced that Cuba had asked the United States for a pesticide to help

> eradicate the fever-bearing mosquito, but had not been given any.

> In 1956 and 1958, declassified documents have revealed, the US Army

> loosed swarms of specially bred mosquitos in Georgia and Florida to see

> whether disease-carrying insects could be weapons in a biological war. The

> mosquitos bred for the tests were of the Aedes Aegypti type, the precise

> carrier of dengue fever as well as other diseases.

> In 1967 it was reported by Science magazine that at the US government

> center in Fort Detrick, land, dengue fever was amongst those " diseases

> that are at least the objects of considerable research and that appear to

> be among those regarded as potential BW [biological warfare] agents. "

> Then, in 1984, a Cuban exile on trial in New York on an unrelated matter

> testified that in the latter part of 1980 a ship traveled from Florida to

> Cuba with:

> a mission to carry some germs to introduce them in Cuba to be used against

> the Soviets and against the Cuban economy, to begin what was called

> chemical war, which later on produced results that were not what we had

> expected, because we thought that it was going to be used against the

> Soviet forces, and it was used against our own people, and with that we

> did not agree.

> It's not clear from the testimony whether the Cuban man thought that the

> germs would somehow be able to confine their actions to only Russians, or

> whether he had been misled by the people behind the operation.

>

> 6) On a clear day, October 21, 1996, a Cuban pilot flying over Matanzas

> province observed a plane releasing a mist of some substance about seven

> times. It turned out to be an American crop-duster plane operated by the

> US State Department, which had permission to fly over Cuba on a trip to

> Colombia via Grand Cayman Island. Responding to the Cuban pilot's report,

> the Cuban air controller asked the US pilot if he was having any problem.

> The answer was " no " . On December 18, Cuba observed the first signs of a

> plague of Thrips palmi, a plant-eating insect never before detected in

> Cuba. It severely damages practically all crops and is resistant to a

> number of pesticides. Cuba asked the US for clarification of the October

> 21 incident. Seven weeks passed before the US replied that the State

> Department pilot had emitted only smoke, in order to indicate his location

> to the Cuban pilot. By this time, the Thrips palmi had spread rapidly,

> affecting corn, beans, squash, cucumbers and other crops.

> In response to a query, the Federal Aviation Administration stated that

> emitting smoke to indicate location is " not an FAA practice " and that it

> knew of " no regulation calling for this practice " .

>

> In April 1997, Cuba presented a report to the United Nations which charged

> the US with " biological aggression " and provided a detailed description of

> the 1996 incident and the subsequent controversy. In August, signatories

> of the Biological Weapons Convention convened in Geneva to consider Cuba's

> charges and Washington's response. In December, the committee reported

> that due to the " technical complexity " of the matter, it had not proven

> possible to reach a definitive conclusion. There has not been any further

> development on the issue since that time.

>

> The full extent of American chemical and biological warfare against Cuba

> will never be known. Over the years, the Castro government has in fact

> blamed the United States for a number of other plagues which afflicted

> various animals and crops. In 1977, newly-released CIA documents disclosed

> that the Agency " maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research

> program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries throughout the

> world. "

>

>

> --From " Rogue State, " by Blum

> http://www.commoncouragepress.com/blum_rogue.html

>

>

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