Comrade Marcel
8th December 2002, 03:52
· Ismael Sambra, self-proclaimed president of the Cuban-Canadian National Foundation, a branch of the CANF, owes his presence in Toronto to the patient efforts of CIA agents
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)
THE Canadian press has recently found a new “Cuban” spokesperson dedicated to cultivating a vision of the Cuban Revolution in that North American country that corresponds to Washington’s interests.
Although Canadians visit Cuba in the hundreds of thousands and are familiar with the living conditions of its people, the Canadian press has not always known how to reflect the island’s reality objectively, partly because it’s counted on the assistance of people connected to the most reactionary Miami circles and, on occasion, to the terrorists of the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF).
Ismael Sambra, self-proclaimed president of the Cuban-Canadian National Foundation, a branch of the CANF, owes his presence in Toronto to the patient efforts of CIA agents, whose tracks are clearly visible in this character’s personality.
In the early 90s in Santiago de Cuba, in midst of the severe economic crisis provoked by the fall of the socialist block, Sambra chose to create for himself an image of the “persecuted intellection,” something done in previous years by others like Armando Valladares, a paralyzed poet whose work, it was revealed, was plagiarized and who suddenly stood up from his wheelchair once he got off an airplane in Paris.
While detained for his provocative activities, Ismael Sambra communicated with the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, claiming to be a writer and journalist and self-attributing national fame.
Soon after, the Interest Section identified Sambra as an exploitable element for their campaigns abroad and took up the task, through the CIA and the State Department, to fabricate his image.
A trip to Cuba by the Canadian foreign minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy, was used as a way to defend Sambra and place him in Toronto with a job as resident writer, created by University of York president Laura Marsden.
The fairytale story would have ended there, but on Sepetmber 17, 1997 the university’s publication, Excalibur, published a story titled, “Marsden imports Cuban” claiming that Marsden had finally found a position for her writer-in-exiled.
Excalibur added that Marsden had been approached by the foreign minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy with the purpose of creating a place for the Cuban writer and that he had found some anonymous donors to finance the program.
A Canadian Press news report, dated May 12, 1997, later mentioned the one and only and always anonymous godfather.
PROFESSORS IN DISBELIEF
Shocked by the maneuver, several professors of the respectable institution investigated the case and later protested what had taken place, illegal according to the university statutes and capable of damaging its reputation.
“We might also ask by what literary or academic criteria and processes Sambra was judged to be eligible for a writer-in-residence position at a Canadian university,” asks the document circulated among a group of professors.
“But the most unsettling question is who or what is the source of the secret funds being used to impose this particular writer, this anti-Cuban writer, on a Canadian university and now in York. Is York to become a base for anti-Cuban activities? Certainly a smear campaign against a third world country in which all education is free and students are not charged for university residence might help to stem pressures on Canadian political leaders as tuition fee increases here in Canada continue to limit access to or full participation in our educational system to our young people.”
After denouncing the complacency of the institution with the anti-Cuban campaign carried out in the United States, the document highlighted the danger of using “secret funds” when the leader of the Japanese criminal world, Sasagawa, tried to clear his name by donating money to the institution.
Sambra arrived in Toronto in 1998 and immediately took possession of his high paying job, a splendid privilege for any immigrant in a northern country.
He immediately dedicated himself to converting his resident-writer’s office into a cave of the CCNF, previously created by Miriam Bresmer, but of which he quickly proclaimed himself founder.
Despite his orientation, surely originating with his masters in Miami, Sambra was only able to group a handful of residents of Cuban origin and thus realized Toronto was not in Florida. There, torturers and thieves, along with the Havana mafia from the Batista dictatorship days, seek refuge and terrorists like Orlando Bosch, responsible for dozens of terrorist acts including the explosion of a Cubana de Aviación aircraft, and Félix Rodríguez, Che’s murderer, torturer and a narco-trafficker, all connected to the CANF, are free to walk the streets.
Though he was unable to find many sympathizers, Sambra tracked down the CANF propagandists and got in touch with some journalists who feed of the obsolete rhetoric against Cuba.
SAMBRA DISPROVEN BY THE MIAMI HERALD
In the course of the Pope’s recent visit to Toronto, Sambra took advantage of the presence of a large Cuban delegation as a way to misinform the press (specifically the Globe and Mail) in such a gross manner, that the Cuban bishop from Guantánamo, Carlos Baladrón, had to disprove and re-establish the facts during an interview with the Miami Herald, a publication which in no way favors Cuba.
Various “Cuban leaders” of similar character, have settled in Canada during the course of the past four decades including Antonio Tang, who admitted being member of the Alpha 66 terrorist group and Máximo Morales, official representative for Huber Matos, who the Canadian police later arrested for being head of a narco-trafficking network.
Among those who settled in Canada are members of the organization Omega 7, which carried out terrorist activity against Cuban diplomatic offices in Ottawa and Montreal. In one of those explosive attacks against the Office of Cuban Trade in Montreal, a young diplomat named Sergio Pérez del Castillo was tragically killed on April 4, 1972. No suspect was ever held responsible for those crimes despite the fact that the Omega 7 activities had been widely investigated by the FBI.
Everything seems to indicate that Sambra’s privileged journalists are not interested in this issue.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/agosto02/vi9/33para-i.html
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)
THE Canadian press has recently found a new “Cuban” spokesperson dedicated to cultivating a vision of the Cuban Revolution in that North American country that corresponds to Washington’s interests.
Although Canadians visit Cuba in the hundreds of thousands and are familiar with the living conditions of its people, the Canadian press has not always known how to reflect the island’s reality objectively, partly because it’s counted on the assistance of people connected to the most reactionary Miami circles and, on occasion, to the terrorists of the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF).
Ismael Sambra, self-proclaimed president of the Cuban-Canadian National Foundation, a branch of the CANF, owes his presence in Toronto to the patient efforts of CIA agents, whose tracks are clearly visible in this character’s personality.
In the early 90s in Santiago de Cuba, in midst of the severe economic crisis provoked by the fall of the socialist block, Sambra chose to create for himself an image of the “persecuted intellection,” something done in previous years by others like Armando Valladares, a paralyzed poet whose work, it was revealed, was plagiarized and who suddenly stood up from his wheelchair once he got off an airplane in Paris.
While detained for his provocative activities, Ismael Sambra communicated with the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, claiming to be a writer and journalist and self-attributing national fame.
Soon after, the Interest Section identified Sambra as an exploitable element for their campaigns abroad and took up the task, through the CIA and the State Department, to fabricate his image.
A trip to Cuba by the Canadian foreign minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy, was used as a way to defend Sambra and place him in Toronto with a job as resident writer, created by University of York president Laura Marsden.
The fairytale story would have ended there, but on Sepetmber 17, 1997 the university’s publication, Excalibur, published a story titled, “Marsden imports Cuban” claiming that Marsden had finally found a position for her writer-in-exiled.
Excalibur added that Marsden had been approached by the foreign minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy with the purpose of creating a place for the Cuban writer and that he had found some anonymous donors to finance the program.
A Canadian Press news report, dated May 12, 1997, later mentioned the one and only and always anonymous godfather.
PROFESSORS IN DISBELIEF
Shocked by the maneuver, several professors of the respectable institution investigated the case and later protested what had taken place, illegal according to the university statutes and capable of damaging its reputation.
“We might also ask by what literary or academic criteria and processes Sambra was judged to be eligible for a writer-in-residence position at a Canadian university,” asks the document circulated among a group of professors.
“But the most unsettling question is who or what is the source of the secret funds being used to impose this particular writer, this anti-Cuban writer, on a Canadian university and now in York. Is York to become a base for anti-Cuban activities? Certainly a smear campaign against a third world country in which all education is free and students are not charged for university residence might help to stem pressures on Canadian political leaders as tuition fee increases here in Canada continue to limit access to or full participation in our educational system to our young people.”
After denouncing the complacency of the institution with the anti-Cuban campaign carried out in the United States, the document highlighted the danger of using “secret funds” when the leader of the Japanese criminal world, Sasagawa, tried to clear his name by donating money to the institution.
Sambra arrived in Toronto in 1998 and immediately took possession of his high paying job, a splendid privilege for any immigrant in a northern country.
He immediately dedicated himself to converting his resident-writer’s office into a cave of the CCNF, previously created by Miriam Bresmer, but of which he quickly proclaimed himself founder.
Despite his orientation, surely originating with his masters in Miami, Sambra was only able to group a handful of residents of Cuban origin and thus realized Toronto was not in Florida. There, torturers and thieves, along with the Havana mafia from the Batista dictatorship days, seek refuge and terrorists like Orlando Bosch, responsible for dozens of terrorist acts including the explosion of a Cubana de Aviación aircraft, and Félix Rodríguez, Che’s murderer, torturer and a narco-trafficker, all connected to the CANF, are free to walk the streets.
Though he was unable to find many sympathizers, Sambra tracked down the CANF propagandists and got in touch with some journalists who feed of the obsolete rhetoric against Cuba.
SAMBRA DISPROVEN BY THE MIAMI HERALD
In the course of the Pope’s recent visit to Toronto, Sambra took advantage of the presence of a large Cuban delegation as a way to misinform the press (specifically the Globe and Mail) in such a gross manner, that the Cuban bishop from Guantánamo, Carlos Baladrón, had to disprove and re-establish the facts during an interview with the Miami Herald, a publication which in no way favors Cuba.
Various “Cuban leaders” of similar character, have settled in Canada during the course of the past four decades including Antonio Tang, who admitted being member of the Alpha 66 terrorist group and Máximo Morales, official representative for Huber Matos, who the Canadian police later arrested for being head of a narco-trafficking network.
Among those who settled in Canada are members of the organization Omega 7, which carried out terrorist activity against Cuban diplomatic offices in Ottawa and Montreal. In one of those explosive attacks against the Office of Cuban Trade in Montreal, a young diplomat named Sergio Pérez del Castillo was tragically killed on April 4, 1972. No suspect was ever held responsible for those crimes despite the fact that the Omega 7 activities had been widely investigated by the FBI.
Everything seems to indicate that Sambra’s privileged journalists are not interested in this issue.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/agosto02/vi9/33para-i.html