14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 14 January 2023 — If Ana Belén Montes had been arrested in Cuba for spying for the United States, I have no doubt that she would have been executed by a firing squad, as happened to so many Cubans who fought for freedom and democracy for their country; and if her life were miraculously saved, she would have been frightened, like so many political prisoners of the regime, of the Manto Negro prison, the favorite women’s dungeon of the government she still defends.
Montes’ crimes were many, apart from supporting the bloodiest dictatorship that the continent has suffered.
For 17 years she served the Island totalitarianism by sending Havana information that affected the management of several hundred American agents. She spread influence in favor of the Castro dictatorship in the circles where it developed, as well as the belief that Castroism was not a threat to the United States. In addition, during her trial, she was associated with the shooting down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes, which resulted in the death of four young civilians who were carrying out humanitarian work.
U.S. military counterintelligence specialist Chris Simmons told Ricardo Quintana, a colleague of Radio Martí, that the spy should have been sentenced to life imprisonment because there was enough evidence that the Salvadoran guerrillas attacked the Fourth Brigade barracks five weeks after she visited that facility.
Simmons claims that Montes passed information to Cubans about when exactly the garrison would be almost defenseless, pointing out “that four-hour period that it was at that base, and this helped the guerrillas kill an American adviser and 70 Salvadoran soldiers. Yes, we know that the information, at the very least, went to Russia and China, and, of course, to several guerrilla groups.”
The released prisoner acknowledged that she was spying for Fidel Castro, and after her release when she arrived in Puerto Rico, she said she was an irrelevant person who would lead a private existence, while condemning the United States embargo on Cuba, demonstrating that her convictions have not changed, which is why, on the Island of her desires, instead of being free, she would have been reconvicted at least once.
I am convinced that if Montes had been imprisoned by the regime for which she spied, apart from remaining in prison after serving her sentence, she would have suffered other particularly painful experiences. Her confinement would have passed under the mantle of oblivion, as happened to Cary Roque and Ana Lázara Rodríguez, among many other women, of whom no one spoke or heard from during their long years of imprisonment.
Ana Belén Montes’ prison in Cuba would have been marked by hunger, overcrowding and lack of medical attention, without discounting the mistreatment and humiliation to which the henchmen of the regime are so prone. Better not to imagine what would have happened to her if she had declared in a Cuban prison a year after her sentence that she had obeyed her conscience and that the policy of the United States towards Cuba was cruel and unjust, adding, “I felt morally obliged to help the Island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.”
There is no doubt that she is a woman of strong convictions, which will lead her to repeat the past, because everything seems to indicate that potential allies will not be lacking if, as Senator Marcos Rubio and Mr. Chris Simmons claim, the Cuban espionage network remains vigorous, with up to 300 agents active in the United States and two-thirds of them working in the Miami area.
Although there are those who doubt it out of naivety or by being useful idiots, saying it’s just stupidity is very generous. The Castro totalitarian system has two regular practices inherent in its scorpion nature: to repress the population as much as possible and to destroy the United States by any means within its reach and through espionage against this country, something that it has been carrying out since 1959.
I’m convinced that this confrontation will only end when one of the parties disappears. For my part, I will work for the end of Castroism.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
