URGES UNITED FRONT BETWEEN MOSCOW-PEKING
The leaders of the pro-Peking Japanese Communist party have been urging the Mao leadership to join with the Soviet government in some kind of united action in support of the Vietnamese freedom '. fighters in resisting American imperialism. _ The suggestion was publicly advanced in Akahata, official Journal of the Japanese. Communist party. —
Agreeing with the Chinese that "modern revisionism" must be: overcome in order to restore the unity of the Communist movement, Akahata nevertheless argues that. "in the present situation it is not possible to put off or to delay international united action until the complete overthrow of modern revisionism is carried out."
-- A-Japanese Communist delegation arrived in China February 10 and presumably has’ been discussing Akahata's proposal, which goes counter to the policy followed up to now by Mao.
Previously the main proponent of a policy of united action on a governmental level between China and the USSR, despite the deep differences between the Communist parties of the two countries, has been the Trotskyist movement.
The Trotskyist argument is that the common’ cause of the workers states. as well as the world revolution has been damaged. by. Peking's rejection of any united front with "revisionists" until they reform and publicly criticize themselves. Lyd
Fidel Castro also urged united action in several speeches when Johnson first began escalating the war in Vietnam... ©
Seymour Topping of the New York Times reported from Hong Kone March 12 that the. Japanese delegation had held unusually long discussions with the Chinese and that the Albanian ambassador had returned to Tirana possibly to report on the talks. -
THE VUBELA-GUIN TRIAL
By Joseph Hansen
The trial of seven men, accused in Havana of plotting to assassinate Fidel Uastro, came to a swift conclusion. On the opening day; March 7, the main defendant, Rolando Cubela Secades, confessed that he was euilty. The following day a letter from Fidel Castro was read, asking the court not to impose the death penalty. The prosecutor’at once dropped his demand: for déath; ‘and in his- summation the same day called instead for thirty years! imprisonment. On March 10 uubela and Ramén- Guin Diaz were sentenced: to twenty-five years each; José Gonzalez Gallarretta and Alberto Blanco Romariz to: twenty years each; Juan Alsina Navarro to ten years; while Guillermo vunill Alvarez and Angel Herrero Veliz were set free.
Details. about the trial were sparse in the press. “outside of Juba, and there were self-evident inaccuracies as in the names of the defendants, thus it is necessary to await further facts from Havana before definitive conclusions‘ can be drawn. What’ was reported, however, can only arouse grave reservations about the nature of the trial which was held before a ‘five-man military tribunal. —
Thus Agence France Press reported from Havana March 1. that Rolando Vubela and Ramén Guin, two former leaders in the guerrilla struggle thet overthrew Batista, had. been arrested the day before on charges of "“counterrevolutionary activities in'complicity with the American vis." The charges were stated at length in a Cuban government communiqué issued March 5. The most sensational part was the accusation that Cubela, a former leader of the Revolutionary Directorate and the top official leader of the Cuban: student movement after the victory, had plotted with the cIA to murder Castro, using a high-powered rifle equipped with telescopic sights.
Exactly one: week after being arrested, Cubela was in the prisoner's dock. If he had the benefit of Legal counsel, it was not mentioned in the cable dispatches. During. the four hours. of the first day's session, the feature was vubela's confession. According to the Associated Press, "He tearfully pleaded for conviction and e death” sentence. "'To the wall!' he cried. 'To be executed, that-is what I want. It is justified.'"
Here is the report compiled: from various sources by the Paris © daily Le Monde [March 9]: |
"Before five hundred persons present in the courtroom, Rolando vubela delivered an impassioned self-criticism. The former comandante declared that he deserved to be executed. ©
'“"During his deposition, Rolando Cubela said that in Madrid he had met the counterrevolutionary leader Manuel Artime, former civilian chief of the expedition at the Bay of Pigs, whom he accused of having personal ambitions and of acting under the instigation of the American government.
"Ramon Guin, who likewise admitted his guilt, said that he had never transmitted information of an economic nature to the CIA. The other defendants accused the CIA and its agents in Madrid, as well as an attaché of the United States embassy in the Spanish capital.
"'T am an unstable character, filled with contradictions and weaknesses; I became dissolute, beginning with the day I abandoned | the revolution. Because of my own corruption, I became an ally. of the: corrupted enemies of our people and our revolution.
"Pounding his chest, the former head of the guerrilla ‘fighters of the Escambray, the leader of the revolutionary students, who in | the very center of Havaria killed Batista's chief of military secur-. ity, Rolando Cubela, former comandante of the revolutionary armed forces, confessed everything and ended his profession of faith with Castro's celebrated cry,.'Country or death!'
"Referring to his interview with Mr. Fidel Castro, who, in January, had called him in in order .to.try -- according to the charges -- to get him back on the right road, Cubela declared 'that he had never. felt the least hate for Fidel, completely the contrary.
"He cried out: AT don't understand why I thought of committing such a foul and shameful act as wanting to assassinate the prime ninister; hiding behind a window, using a rifle with telescopic | Sights.
"This astonishing self- criticism," concludes the report in Le Monde, "rather surprised the foreign observers, who wondered if. Rolando Cubela had not been promised that his. life would be spared."
Was any.concrete evidence placed before the court to show that Cubela's confession was truthful? If so, it was not included in the reports appearing in the foreign: press. The March 8 issue of Le Monde mentioned only that in the. official communiqué issued by the Cuban. government it was stated that in a search of vubela's quarters a rifle equipped with: telescopic sights had been found.
. Le. Monde says nothing about any facts concerning when and | where Cubela obtained the rifle equipped with telescopic sights. Nor | is anything said concerning the extraordinary delay in carrying out a plot allegedly decided on in Madrid a year a0 in February 1965.
Many questions leap to mind which the court, one would think, would be concerned about clearing up. For instance, there is the strange parallel between the way in which Kennedy was assassinated and the way in which the CIA, together with Artime, plotted with vubela, according to the ‘prosecution, to assassinate Castro.
‘There is the cryptic reference to Castro's calling in Cubela sometime in January (a month before Cubela was arrested?) for a talk in hope of getting him straightened out. What was the subject matter of this talk? What had.attracted Castro's attention to Cubela?. If it. was an overt course of action, how did this fit in with a conspiracy that was: presumably under way to assassinate Castro? And if Cubela — did not feel the "least hate" for Fidel, why did he not respond at
the time to the talk with the Cuban leader? Shouldn't Castro have been. asked by the court to testify as a witness on the basis of this interviews: .
Not less.dmportant is. ‘the pattern of ‘the. trial itself, which is not without a:certain resemblance to the notorious trials conducted at one time under Stalin. Did the court ‘take this into consideration and seek to establish the evidence in such concrete detail as to eliminate the possibility of anyone drawing such an invidious parallel? Perhaps the court record will.relieve any anxiety on this score, but..the..summary nature of the trial does not arouse much expec-— tation that this will prove to be the case..
Castro's intervention to save the lives of the prisoners appears to have been not unexpected. Were there advance intimations that he -intended to make-a-move of ‘this kind? If not, how is the reaction of the "foreign observers" to Cubela's confession, reported by Le Monde, to be accounted for? What, specifically, caused them to have such an unfavorable reaction to Cubela's confession? --- a reaction, it should be noted, that does not redound to the credit of the Cuban government.
The letter from Castro, read in the court March 8, raises questions - itself. Here is the.account provided by the March 10 Le Monde, ‘again compiled from Havana dispatches:
"In a letter addressed to the revolutionary tribunal, Mr. Fidel Castro asked that the death penalty should not be given the defendants. The prosecutor had demanded the death penalty Tuesday [actually Monday evening] against four of the defendants and thirty years in prison for the other three. In his letter the chairman of the Cuban council declared that the plot was ‘one of the foulest and most repugnant acts' that had occurred during the seven years of the revolutionary government and that the death penalty, particularly for Cubela and Gallareta, would be a ‘severe and naturdal.punishment.' He said, however, that 'the revolution is strong,' adding: 'I ask you not to demand the death penalty for any of the accused.' The prosecutor, as a result, asked the court for sentences of thirty years in prison for the four men as well as for their co-defendants.
"After Mr. Fidel Castro's letter was read by the court, everybody stood up, the spectators, the judges, the prosecutor, the accused, and applauded with all their might. Many in the carefully screened audience, entirely Communist, felt relieved. Rolando Cubela would not be executed, the others neither. The memory of the young president of the revolutionary students had won.
"'We will not advance by shooting three or four counterrevolutionary Cubans,' said Mr. Fidel Castro in his letter. 'Instead, let's work to make impossible the deviations, the straying away, the weaknesses, a heritage of a corrupted society. We will not forget the mistakes committed, and in view of the facts grave punishment is warranted. Nevertheless, it is necessary to prove our capacity to. analyze happenings in order to uproot the evils from whick we still : suffer: parasitism, corruption and egoism. The revolution, victorious ~
-B-
and strong can afford to be generous.
The speed with + which Castro's letter was written ‘and delivered | to the court --- to be read on the second day of the trial -- is surprising. On the basis of what evidence in the first four-hour session of the court on March 7 did Castro come to the conclusion that the main defendants were guilty?
Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that two of ‘the seven prisoners were released. The dispatches do not indicate the reason | for this. Was the evidence against them insufficient? Were they falsely accused? How did they happen to get dragged into the same case as Cubela and Guin?
These and similar grave questions about the trial demand answers. It is to be hoped that these will be provided by the court. record and that this will be published immediately and in full.