the incredible affair which reveals the extent of Cuban espionage – L’Express

He also claims to have inflicted so much damage on the “enemy” (the United States) for so long that he calls it “a grand slam”. And he insists that his interlocutor convey his greetings to the “compañeros” (comrades) of the “direccion” (the general directorate of intelligence, DGI, that is: Cuban espionage). All without imagining that it is filmed at point blank range.

“I never suspected him,” Brian Latell, a former CIA officer who was a friend of the ex-diplomat, confides to L’Express from Miami – they often invited each other to their homes, the other, with their respective wives. In recent years, this Cuba expert had, like others, distanced himself from Rocha because he displayed ultra-Trumpist positions. He did not imagine that it was, again, a lie and a legend. “The damage he caused to the United States is undoubtedly enormous,” said the former CIA Cubanologist. As ambassador to Bolivia and number 2 at the American embassy in Argentina, he potentially had access to information from the CIA, the DEA (the anti-drug agency), or the Defense Attaché. At the moment, there is an uproar at the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs to try to ‘evaluate in retrospect the harm he has done.’

Born in Colombia in 1950, Rocha was probably approached by the Cuban services in Chile in 1973, before his American naturalization in 1978. But his activity as an agent did not start until 1981. Successively posted in embassies or American diplomatic representations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina or Cuba, he also worked for the White House under Bill Clinton. Each time, he was able to have access to “top secret” documents and know the identity of American agents – all information that he transmitted to Havana, endangering his fellow Americans. But it was in La Paz (Bolivia), as ambassador from 1999 to 2002, that he reached his highest position.

His stay in the Altiplano demonstrates Cuban mastery in manipulating public opinion. In the final days of the 2002 presidential campaign, Ambassador Rocha declared that if Bolivians voted for Evo Morales – a union leader himself controlled by Cuba – the United States would immediately withdraw its economic aid to Bolivia. A highly unusual position for a Washington diplomat, attributed to a blood attack. The next day, candidate Evo Morales, then in third position, climbed in the polls. He will finish second in the presidential election. The future president finally elected in 2005 declared, ironically, that the American ambassador – whose status as a Cuban spy he was probably unaware of – was his “best campaign manager”.

“Perfectly calculated, this move shows the maneuvering skill of the Cubans who activate psychological levers, starting with anti-Americanism, to achieve their ends,” says Bolivian intellectual Juan Claudio Lechin, a keen expert on the Cuban regime. All social categories “Confused, Bolivians found the American ambassador’s statement unbearable, which convinced tens of thousands of undecided voters to vote for Evo Morales.”

In the world of Cuban espionage, nothing is left to chance, especially psychology, explains historian Elizabeth Burgos, who knew the Castro regime from the inside (she was close to Castro) before discovering its dictatorial character: “At the Ministry of the Interior, in Havana, services study the psychological springs of all countries – including France – and the profiles of individuals, with their weak points and their inclinations, which is essential to recruit future agents.

Former CIA analyst Brian Latell adds: “In the electronic field, Cuban spies are not worth a penny. But in the field of human intelligence, they are the best, ahead of the Mossad and the British Mi-6, like this is shown, once again, by the almost undetectable case of the traitor Victor Manuel Rocha or that of Ana Belen Montes, my American intelligence colleague who has just served 21 years in prison for spying for Castro.”

It must be said that Cuba has a serious advantage. For its recruiters, there is no need to pay its agents. All work voluntarily (without leaving a trace on their bank accounts) in the name of an ideology in which they believe: Castroism and, even more, anti-Americanism, a powerful source which finds its source in a historical resentment maintained by Havana .

“The power of the Cuban services and the propensity of the latter to share their information with their Russian counterparts are very generally underestimated,” continues the Bolivian Juan Claudio Lechin, author of Mascaras of fascism (The masks of fascism, 2011, untranslated). However, Cuba has been carrying out incessant infiltration work in all countries for seventy years, while its agents are almost never unmasked. If Cuban espionage manages to patiently climb the ranks within the State Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) where accreditation procedures are very restrictive, be sure that it has penetrated all Latin American governments, but also opposition movements on the continent, including the far right.”

Until his arrest last week, didn’t Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha present himself as a radical supporter of Donald Trump? Perhaps in the hope, no doubt, of approaching the latter’s entourage in case he returns to the White House…