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CIA
secret war uncovered
BY
JOAQUIN ORAMAS
IN his paper on the second
day of the 4th World Conference of War
Correspondents, former Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) agent Phillip Agee revealed the agency’s
secret operations to destabilize governments,
promote coups, and plan the assassination of heads
of state, namely that of Cuban President Fidel
Castro.
Author of books on U.S.
intelligence activities, Agee exposed the dangers he
faced when the U.S. government learnt that he was
preparing a book narrating his experiences as a CIA
agent, starting in the 1960s with his first mission
to persuade Ecuador to break off diplomatic
relations with Cuba, a fact that occurred.
Agee also revealed that the
CIA bribed journalists and newspaper editors to
discredit the Cuban Revolution and its leaders.
Insisting on the silent war
carried on in the fields of sociology, politics, and
the economy, the former agent referred to the CIA’s
central role in the media campaign against the
Bolivarian government of Venezuela.
Supporting Agee’s statements,
journalist Ernesto Vera recalled the role of the
Inter- American Press Association (IAPA), a resource
virtually controlled by Washington from its
foundation, to communicate and support the US
government’s destabilizing tasks.
Journalist Rosa Miriam
Elizalde spoke on the importance of the alternative
media and the Internet to mobilize progressive
forces during war. She gave the example of Spain,
explaining how the use of the Internet helped
mobilize thousands of people, contributing to the
electoral defeat of José María Aznar’s reactionary
regime.
Bui Bien Thuy, editor of the
Vietnam veterans’ newspaper related Vietnamese
combatants’ experiences of fighting against the U.S.
invasion until victory, and recalled that 348
Vietnamese journalists died while fulfilling their
professional duties.
Doctor Luis M. García
Cuñarro, a specialist from the Cuban Defense
Information Study Center, analyzed the evolution of
contemporary wars and armed conflicts, criticizing
the US administration’s hegemonic policy and its
role as the brain of global imperialism. He remarked
that in 2003, 19 armed conflicts occurred in 18
different countries, while military expenses were up
11% on the previous year.
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