YESTERDAY, press dispatches reported a statement by Otto Reich, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, asserting that the U.S. government has information that on the morning of April 12, four Cuban aircraft landed at the Maiquetía International Airport in Venezuela, "when the changes to the country’s constitutional order were still in doubt." According to AFP news agency, Reich wondered, what were they doing there and what they were carrying, adding, "We don’t know."

The Cuban Foreign Ministry categorically denies the lies that the assistant secretary of state made in his statement, although lying is something habitual for him.

Reich’s words demonstrate that he is an unscrupulous and cynical official trying to erase his sinister past linked to the dirty war in Nicaragua, his association with Oliver North and Luis Posada Carriles, and the scandal of illegally supplying arms to the contras, in spite of a congressional ban on that activity. He also protected and sought asylum in the United States for terrorist Orlando Bosch, who together with Luis Posada Carriles was responsible for blowing up a Cuban civil airplane carrying 73 passengers.

If we had needed to land a Cuban civil airplane in Venezuela to pick up Cuban diplomatic personnel under siege by Otto Reich’s friends, or for whatever other humanitarian and peaceful reason, we would have done so without hiding the fact. But Otto Reich’s statement is an absolute lie, thus demonstrating his mendacious, clumsy character.

In addition to this, the Foreign Ministry would like to state that on Saturday, April 13, the Cuban government gave instructions for Cuban civil collaborators, excepting medical personnel, to gather in certain locations to begin the paperwork relevant for their evacuation — although in the end evacuation was not necessary, because the fascist coup d’état promoted by Reich had been nothing more than a storm in a teacup.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry challenges the U.S. assistant secretary of state to immediately demonstrate to international public opinion the slightest evidence that even one Cuban airplane landed in Caracas on the morning of April 12.

What in truth happened is that on April 16, four days after the attempted coup, a Cubana Airlines IL-62 landed in the Venezuelan capital’s international airport. It was carrying the Cuban foreign minister, who arrived to decorate the Cuban diplomatic personnel for their heroic behavior in facing the fascist hordes that, on April 12, tried to attack the Cuban embassy in Caracas.

We hope that Reich doesn’t play the fool and gives a concrete reply to this challenge about the alleged landing of Cuban airplanes in Venezuela on April 12.

Cuban Foreign Ministry