In 1996, Congress, with the acquiescence of President Bill Clinton, approved the so-called "Law of Liberty and Democratic Solidarity with Cuba" known as the "Helms-Burton Act", which made many normal things illegal. What provoked its existence was a deliberate violation of the law by a counterrevolutionary group of Cubans in Miami and an equivocal response from the administration of Bill Clinton.

Two prominent American US foreign policy analysts remember the endogenous origin of the difficulties which the US government is facing today in implementing some of the changes it announced in its relations with Cuba, apparently resulting from that manipulation.

In an article published in the magazine Counterpunch on September 8th, Nelson P. Valdes, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico, and writer Robert Sandels, both based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, explain why,"when the United States moves toward some kind of normal relations with Cuba, it faces a problem: [that which is] normal is currently illegal”.

On February 24, 1996, three small US Air Force surplus Cessna Skymasters departed from Opa-locka airport in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The planes were gifts from President George H.W. Bush to Brothers to the Rescue (Hermanos al Rescate).

Brothers to the Rescue was a Miami-based terrorist organization of Cuban exiles run by José Basulto and William Schuss, organized in 1991 whose alleged mission was to locate and lend assistance to balseros, Cuban migrants in the Florida Straits trying to reach the United States in makeshift craft. These balseros were lured by the immigration policy of Washington and designed as another hostile action against the Cuban government.

Basulto and Schuss had received CIA military training in the US and later belonged to Operation 40, organized by the CIA to prepare for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Basulto later took part in serious sabotage actions against Cuba along with several well-known CIA terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, authors of heinous crimes.

Basulto filed a flight plan for February 24 that would take the three Cessnas to the Florida Straits where they were going to look for balseros. Instead of following the flight plan, they flew south and entered Cuba’s restricted air space.

The pilots were unaware of the intense scrutiny their flight was receiving from US federal agencies. On other occasions, disregarding Cuban warnings, they had entered Cuban air space and dropped counterrevolutionary leaflets on the Cuban capital without arousing much federal interest.

But this time, the State Department had alerted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that it would be dangerous to try another flight over Cuba. Certainly, they were convinced that the patience of the Cuban authorities was exhausted. The Cubans had so informed their US counterparts.

As has been learned later, several US monitoring posts observed when Cuban MiG fighter planes destroyed one of the Cessnas. Six minutes later, a second air-to-air missile destroyed the second Cessna. Basulto and three passengers in the third Cessna exited Cuban air space and flew back to Opa-locka.

Clinton immediately declared a state of national emergency and set up a security zone in the waters around the Florida peninsula closing it to unauthorized sea and air traffic. He also demanded an investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and a UN condemnation of Cuba.

The real aim of the operation was achieved when, amidst the uproar and condemnation of Cuba, Clinton signed Helms-Burton into law, which did more than another other piece of legislation to freeze Washington’s hostile Cuba policy and left the president without power to vary it in the future.

It was election time and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Clinton, who was fighting for re-election, fell in a trap promoted by the far right of the United States power elite.

He tried to advance along two tracks, but there is no indication that the approval of the Cuban counterrevolution in South Florida had something to do with his reelection.

According to Valdes and Sandels, perhaps the simplest explanation for why Basulto was able to fly that day in spite of all the radar surveillance, FAA handwringing and the State Department’s warnings was this from Bill Clinton’s memoirs: “My main target was the election.”

September 16, 2015.

Manuel E. Yepe http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.