MININT Confronts What Could Be Its Worst Challenge: Information Theft / Juan Juan Almeida

Raúl Castro pins the title of Hero of the Cuban Republic on division general Carlos Fernández Gondín.

Juan Juan Almeida, 31 March 2016 — Not so long ago there was a rumor that high officials of MINIT had been arrested by the Ministry. In agreement with those implicated in the event and making a clear allusion comparable to Case No. 1 of 1989 [a highly respected Cuban general was executed for drug trafficking], there was speculation about a new report. But the rumor faded away under a suspicious silence and a potent, air-tight cloak of secrecy.

Theories have flaws, and even the Roman Empire lasted four centuries longer than predicted.

What’s certain is that the Division General, Carlos Fernández Gondín, left his office in the MININT building accompanied by a doctor, after an attack of rage that gave him a stroke and left him hospitalized.

What could have made him so irritated, or what could be so serious that it could reduce the blood flow of someone who had been capable, without remorse, of ordering the “ready, aim, fire” and, furthermore, justifying it.

A little more than four months after the Army General, Abelardo Colomé Ibarra (alias “Furry”), resigned from the Council of State and as Minister of the Interior, the Ministry faced what could be its biggest challenge: information theft.

What’s certain is that the recent initiate as Minister, Division General Carlos Fernández Gondín, who also holds the “honorable” award as Hero of the Republic of Cuba, left his office accompanied by a doctor, after an attack of fury, which provoked a stroke and left him hospitalized.

The possessor of a sinister countenance, General Gondín is known for keeping himself in the vanguard of the struggle. His principles, as well as his doctrine, begin and end with the word “terror.”

But when he had the new appointment, when he felt part of those who call the shots, a group or an individual, still not identified, entered the warehouse where the ultra-secret rumors are guarded and ransacked a very important data base with privileged information.

What information was stolen? I have no idea! And those who know aren’t talking. However, the Cuban Government has let loose the largest operation ever seen in many years, and, by the aggression of the search, is showing desperation.

Officials of Internal Control, Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Military Counter-Intelligence and the Commission of Defense and National Security have been given the task of finding and questioning, completely, without exceptions, those who entered and left the Ministry in question.

And, as all computer networks are fashionable these days, despite assurances that the theft was not the result of any cyber attack, there’s a good group of investigators, working full-time, who are snooping around, with incisive scrupulousness, in the corners of cyperspace.

The fear and reprimand suffered by the sadistic, cowardly, possessed and insecure Gondín, weren’t because he didn’t have copies of the stolen archives, but for the fear and worry of not knowing into whose hands what some consider “delicate information” could fall.

Translated by Regina Anavy