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The dirty dealing in the underground contra aid network by Vince Bielski and Dennis Bernstein
"It is a law of covert operations that their chances of either remaining secret or achieving success diminish drastically over time. It is axiomatic, too, that the longer a covert operation continues the more likely it is that those engaged in it will resort to criminal activity. They do this to advance the cause, to support themselves or, simply, to profit from the opportunities inherent in the situation. This is true of the Nicaraguan contra operation." -- David MacMichael, former senior CIA analyst on Nicaragua for the Reagan administration From his federal prison cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Miami, Jesus Garcia says he was set up by the Miami Police Department because he knew too much. The 37-year-old Cuban-American claims he was a trusted operative in the "private" supply network that kept the contras armed and fighting during the two-year congressional ban on U.S. support for rebels fighting Nicaragua's Sandinista government. He loaded machine guns, mortars and cannons destined for the contras into a van in Miami, and also associated with the cocaine dealers who keep the operation in the black (see story on page 13). All the while, the former Vietnam veteran and deputy sheriff in the Metro Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department felt proud to be helping America. "Anything for America, anything to stop communism. I love America," he told In These Times last month. Anything but killing an American, especially a U.S. government official. Garcia claims he said "no" when leaders of the supply network asked him to participate in a 1985 plan to "hit" the current U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica Lewis Tambs. The assassination was to be staged to look like a Sandinista operation, possibly paving the way for U.S. military action against Nicaragua. The State Department and U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica deny there is any evidence of such a plot. But word of the alleged plot leaked out in the spring of 1985, and Garcia says the leaders mistakenly blamed him. They tried to kill him, he claims, but when that proved too difficult, they used a confidential informant from the Miami Police Department to entrap him. Garcia is currently in jail, but his case -- now on appeal -- has raised several important questions. Did the U.S. government know of the alleged plot against Tambs? Is the Miami Police Department working with the network rather than against it? Garcia's attorney at the time, John Mattes, found the story of the assassination plot hard to believe when he first heard it from Garcia in August 1984. During his investigation, the Miami public defender was told by those involved in the alleged plot that the questions he was asking could cost him his life, Mattes told In These Times. More than two years later, he no longer finds Garcia's story incredible. In fact, Mattes says: "Every claim that my client has made has been backed up. We've been able to corroborate much of what he did and where he was -- facts, places, times, people that he met." Planning for the network's alleged plot to kill Tambs and spark the anticipated U.S. invasion didn't get underway until late 1984. Before this, retired Army Gen. John Singlaub, Robert Owen, John Hull and Tom Posey -- the "private" network's core group -- were busy building a southern front of contra forces in northern Costa Rica. The network's goal -- in accordance with official U.S. policy -- was to force the Costa Rican-based contras, led by Eden Pastora, to form an alliance with the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the larger contra army based in Honduras. Pastora refused to go along with the merger.
He said the FDN would have to be purged of its Somocista commanders --
remnants of the years of dictator Anastasio Somoza -- before he would agree
to such a plan. Pastora, the infamous "Commander Zero," battled to oust
Somoza before turning against the new Nicaraguan government. On May 29,
1984, a bomb exploded at Pastora's press conference in La Penca, Nicaragua.
The contra leader was injured, and eight others were killed. Evidence strongly
suggests that network members were responsible for the bombing, and some
of them would later allegedly conspire against Tambs.
"We put a bomb under him [Pastora], but it didn't work, because of bad timing," Terrell quoted Felipe Vidal as saying. Terrell's notes from the meeting indicate that Terrell was to organize the next assassination attempt: "The 'termination' of Zero [Pastora] discussed.... Adolfo Calero very upset with statements made by Pastora. Says he too Sandinista. Must die. Big problem. Asks me to put it together and not to tell them how it will be done. Seems Rob Owen is in on most of this....Must appear that Sandinistas did it." Like Owen, Hull appears to have ties to the U.S. government. Steven Carr and Peter Glibbery, two mercenaries who were arrested reportedly on Hull's land by the Costa Rican Rural Guard in 1985, told several sources that Hull introduced himself to them as "the chief liaison for the FDN and the CIA." According to them, Hull said he received $10,000 a month from the NSC for the contra operation. Further evidence of possible U.S. involvement
comes from a Costa Rican named Carlos Rejos Chinchilla, who claims to have
met a Nicaraguan contra soldier, named David, involved in the network.
Rejos reported that David told him the CIA had given the plotters $50,000
to help finance the La Penca bombing.
Like many Cuban-Americans living in Miami, Garcia was ripe for an anti-communism adventure. As a college student, he had belonged to one of the many anti-Castro exile groups in Miami. In Garcia's view, Castro not only quashed the Cuban exiles' Bay of Pigs invasion, but also helped spread communism to Nicaragua, placing freedom in America in jeopardy. "We have to save America. It's all we have," he said. Garcia joined the contra cause, spending his free time collecting boots and supplies for the contras from churches and Cuban exile groups. Garcia said he was pleased when Posey offered
him a chance to participate in the network in the days that followed their
first meeting. But the stakes soon became too high for Garcia.
The plan was to plant a bomb in an electrical box on a light pole in the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica. The explosion, which was allegedly intended to kill U.S. Ambassador Tambs and other Americans, would be staged to look like the work of the Sandinistas. The network also allegedly planned to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. No available evidence suggests that U.S. officials knew of the operation. But a loose chain of command theoretically leads back to former NSC staffer Oliver North. Posey, who is accused of organizing the plot, worked closely with Owen; and Owen was North's liaison to the contras. The plot, according to Garcia, originated with Pablo Escobar, who has gained the reputation as one of Colombia's "cocaine lords." He became involved with the contras in smuggling cocaine into the U.S. in the fall of 1983, an operation that helped finance the Costa Rica contra operation (see story on page 13). The following year their cocaine processing plants in Colombia were raided by police. They blamed the raids on the anti-narcotics campaign of Tambs, then the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, and publicly threatened Tambs' life. For his personal safety, Tambs was to be moved to Costa Rica in the summer of 1985. During the time that Owen, Hull and Posey were plotting against Pastora for a second time, Escobar presented the "private" network with an extraordinary offer, according to Garcia. He would pay $1 million if Tambs was added to their assassination list. By early 1985 plans were underway to kill Tambs. That February, at a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge in Miami, Garcia was asked to join the conspiracy. Posey had already briefed him on the plan, according to Garcia. In a written statement made public, Garcia wrote: "At this meeting, Mr. [Sam] Hall [a mercenary] presented a blueprint of the U.S. Embassy and a schedule of the ambassador's daily activities. The stated purpose of the conspiracy was to blame this operation on the Sandinistas...According to Mr. Steven Carr, there was a $1 million bounty on the ambassador's head, which we would all divide... We were all to fly to San Jose, where we were to meet and be provided back-up by Mr. John Hull and Mr. Bruce Jones [a U.S. citizen landowner in Costa Rica]. This operation was being coordinated by Mr. Tom Posey of Decatur, Ala." "Everyone was very excited about the hit," Garcia told In These Times. They called it 'mission impossible and getting paid for it.'" Garcia shared the desire for U.S. military action against Nicaragua, but objected to killing a U.S. official. Following the Miami meeting, Posey approached Garcia again, requesting his participation. "I told him no," Garcia said. "I told him I wouldn't have any part of it. I wasn't willing to hit an American. It was too dangerous." Carr, one of the mercenaries who was arrested in Costa Rica, also eventually opposed the plot. He was sent to jail in Costa Rica in 1985 and, like Garcia, felt bitter that he was imprisoned for participating in a network set up and sanctioned by the U.S. government. In a letter from Carr to Garcia, written while both were in jail, Carr advised him to cooperate with the authorities as Carr was already doing. "I've put all my marbles in their corner hoping to get to the truth of things and show how our 'wonderful' CIA are a bunch of assholes, liars, cheats and murderers. I'm an American all the way, but I stop at killing other Americans for the sake of CIA war games," Carr wrote to Garcia. Mattes, Garcia's lawyer, later interviewed Carr, who confirmed that he had written the letter to Garcia. The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Costa
Rica was allegedly planned for July 1985, after Tambs' arrival from Colombia.
But in late March another member of the assassination team, a Nicaraguan
contra known as David, decided he couldn't go through with the plot either.
After hearing David's story, Rejos said he felt that to give David protection would put himself at risk. But Rejos did pass on what David told him about the Tambs assassination plot to his neighbor, the only North American he knew, believing she could warn the U.S. Embassy. The neighbor was a secretary for Martha Honey and Tony Avirgan, U.S. journalists present during the La Penca bombing who had already begun an investigation. Honey and Avirgan had Rejos meet with David several more times. David allegedly told Rejos -- whose notes on the conversations were obtained by In These Times -- that he was part of a right-wing "dirty tricks unit" with the FDA composed of Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Cuban exiles and North Americans based on Hull's farm. "David said La Penca was planned mainly in Honduras by John Hull [and three others]... He said the same people who committed the bombing against Pastora are the ones who will be in charge of bombing the embassy and killing high U.S. officials," Rejos' notes read. (Glibbery, one of the mercenaries arrested in Costa Rica, told several sources that on one occasion Hull told him not to take some explosives from Hull's land "because we might need them for an embassy job later on.") David also told Rejos that, as Rejos put it, the "Libyan [Amac Galil] has not been back to Costa Rica since La Penca but is due back soon to participate in new terrorist attacks. Will get new passport from a CIA agent in Honduras.... Works in American Embassy in Honduras.... Bombing against embassy will be committed with nitro-glycerine." In a conversation that Rejos taped, David said, "In addition to the U.S. Embassy, they have made the decision to commit similar bombings in Honduras.... This is very important because by doing these kinds of actions there would be sufficient motive for the U.S. to intervene directly in Nicaragua. The same thing had been planned for Honduras." David also said that the group was trafficking cocaine, marijuana and arms, according to Rejos. "I can't agree with the fact that there are people who are making money with the blood of my brothers," Rejos said David told him. David's information fit with much of what the journalists had discovered in their own investigation. "What was new and most startling was his information that this ring was not simply responsible for the La Penca bombing, but was still intact and planning new terrorist actions," the reporters said in a report. Avirgan said he took the information to George Mitchell, the chief of security at the U.S. Embassy in San Jose in April. Then, on July 18, 1985, the Reagan administration sent a warning to the Sandinistas, according to the New York Times. The diplomatic note delivered to Managua said the U.S. had information of a planned Sandinista terrorist attack against U.S. personnel in Honduras. There would be "serious consequences for the perpetrators," the message read. Moreover, the day before, David had sent word to the journalists that "Galil and a hit team were due in Costa Rica within a few days to begin their terrorist attacks," according to Honey and Avirgan. Back in Miami, on July 21, Jesus Garcia received what he considered good news. Posey, who he hadn't heard from in months, phoned Garcia and told him to get a passport. He said it was time for Garcia to check out the contra operation in Honduras, according to Garcia. One hour later, Garcia received a call from Joe Coutin, who Garcia called Posey's right-hand man in the Cuban community in Miami. Garcia said that Coutin told him to somehow obtain a machine gun for a mercenary going to Nicaragua. On the one hand, Garcia said, he was thrilled. But Coutin's call also made him wary because the word on the streets was that Coutin was a snitch. Garcia also knew that Coutin could easily get the gun since he owned a gun shop. "But Coutin kept hounding me to get the gun. He called me maybe six times. So I finally got it." Garcia said. Three weeks later, Garcia said, he received a call from a man named Alan Saum. He told Garcia to meet him at the airport in Miami to catch a flight to Honduras, where Garcia would see the contra operation firsthand. Garcia didn't know Saum, but because the stranger said he was working for Posey, Garcia said he trusted him. They spent the next two days trying unsuccessfully to get Garcia, who had neither a proper passport nor a visa, on a flight to Honduras. They then returned to Garcia's home, where Garcia invited Saum to stay. "Saum talked about the embassy hit and made repeated calls to the White House to show me he was for real. I have the phone records to prove it," Garcia said. He also showed Saum the machine gun. A day and a half later, Saum called the
FBI. He told an agent that Garcia had a machine gun in his possession.
The agent passed the information to Miami Police Department Detective D.C.
Diaz. On August 12 Diaz and Saum entered Garcia's home and picked up the
gun. Soon afterward Garcia was arrested.
Mattes said that this past summer Coutin told him that he had placed the fateful July 21, 1985, call to Garcia under orders from the Miami Police Department. Coutin was working as a confidential informant for the police department and the FBI. The revelation convinced Mattes that Garcia's arrest was set up. Before Mattes knew that Coutin was a police informant, Coutin had also confirmed that during the July 21 phone call he told Garcia to procure a gun. Coutin now says that Garcia already had the gun when he called him, a statement that contradicts both his earlier statement and Garcia's testimony that Coutin made several requests before he reluctantly procured the gun. Mattes said that another indication of a setup comes from the fact that Coutin's boss at the police department was Diaz, the detective who arrested Garcia. And before the arrest, Coutin had phoned Garcia and asked him to bring the gun to his house, according to Garcia. Diaz gave Coutin a "body wire" so he could record the conversation with Garcia and use it as evidence, according to members of Coutin's family. Garcia missed the meeting. "It's a classic case of police entrapment," Mattes said. "What is unclear is what was the Miami Police Department doing entrapping a man like Garcia who has a perfectly clean record." Diaz had, in fact, been monitoring the entire contra arms supply network in Miami through information provided by Coutin. Why would the city's police department try to set up such a minor figure like Garcia when it was likely that Diaz had evidence of illegal activity by the network's leaders? "The setup just doesn't make any sense," Mattes said, "unless you consider that Garcia had knowledge of the arms operation and the plot against Tambs." What Mattes suspects is that Garcia was set up because Posey and Hull thought he leaked information about the plot to kill Tambs, when in fact it was David who did. Mattes' theory goes this way: only days before Coutin's July 21, 1985, call to Garcia, journalists Honey and Avirgan told the Costa Rican authorities what Rejos had told them about the assassination plot. The journalists didn't reveal who gave them their information. Mattes suggests that the Costa Ricans then informed Hull or other network members of the leak. There is strong evidence that officials in the Costa Rican government privately supported the contra operation based on Hull's land. The network, looking for the source of the leak, blamed Garcia because of his open and firm objection to the plot. Posey and Saum first tried to lure Garcia to Honduras to kill him there. "Saum spent two days with Garcia at the airport running from airline to airline trying to get Garcia on a flight to Honduras. I believe somebody was trying to get Garcia out of the picture. When they failed to get him on a plane, they decided that if nothing else we'll get this guy busted. Saum then called the FBI," Mattes said. But, according to Mattes, killing Garcia in the U.S. would be too risky for the network: "Garcia is a law-enforcement officer. If they would have killed him in Dade County, all hell would have broken loose." Mattes believes that Saum, the one person unaccounted for in the setup, was working for Hull. Saum told Mattes that he had met Hull in Costa Rica. Saum, in a hurried departure from Garcia's home, accidentally left behind a briefcase. On a piece of paper in the briefcase was written Hull's name and the names of contra leaders in Honduras and their phone numbers, according to Mattes. The name G. Bush and the White House phone number also appeared. Under them was written Col. Doug Menarchik, who is currently a military advisor to George Bush. "obviously, the government's position that Saum was nothing but a concerned citizen is preposterous," Mattes said. The evidence pointing to setup raises this question: why was the Miami Police Department involved in it? "Diaz and other police officers who Coutin was providing information to were monitoring the private network," Mattes said. "Were they gathering intelligence to crack down on the network, or were they trying to protect the network by supplying it with counterintelligence on people like Garcia, who they saw as untrustworthy? That's a serious question. It is possible that the network has its own counterintelligence, and that the Miami Police Department supplied it." In looking for an answer, Mattes pointed out that Coutin, the alleged informer, was also a participant in the network. He has been arrested twice -- once for possessing cocaine and the second time on a weapons charge. And Diaz, who Mattes said was Coutin's boss, and the entire Special Investigations Section of the police department in which Diaz works are under an FBI investigation for allegedly taking bribes from cocaine traffickers. Mattes is optimistic that the discovery of Coutin's real identity will result in a new trial for Garcia, who is serving a three-year prison sentence. David -- the Nicaraguan who betrayed the network -- apparently may not have been so lucky. A few days after Coutin's July 21, 1985, call to Garcia, David and Rejos, his confidante, were jumped, pushed into a car and driven to a contra camp near Hull's ranch house, according to Rejos. Both managed to escape. Then Rejos met up with Avirgan. Honey and Avirgan, citing Costa Ricans police and contra sources, said that David was tortured and murdered on Hull's land. The plot to kill Tambs was never executed.
Honey and Avirgan suspect that the plot's leak made the bombing too risky
to carry out.
In May of 1986, Hull sued Honey and Avirgan for libel and lost. At the trial, where Mattes was a witness for the journalists, he viewed Hull's style firsthand. "Hull tapped me on the shoulder," Mattes said, "and said, 'You know, Mattes, you did an incredible job. I'm going to remember it.'" Hull allegedly made his first move while
Mattes was in Costa Rica. A CBS news producer overheard Hull plot against
Mattes and passed the information to the lawyer in a note while they were
in court, Mattes said. According to Mattes, the note read: "The Hull people
called the embassy. They are trying to get your passport number. They are
after you so be careful." The next morning Mattes made several different
plane reservations. "I took the threat seriously and got the hell out of
the country. I stood right behind Sen. Kerry's aide as I left," Mattes
said.
Not surprisingly, Garcia's faith in the
U.S. government no longer runs deep. "I'm gonna get hit. I'm gonna get
hit," he said. "I know this game. This game is so dirty it ain't funny.
I don't know if there is any difference between the KGB and the CIA. I
didn't know how dirty this game was until now."
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