An ex-U.S. ambassador is charged with spying for Cuba and exiles say ‘we told you so’ | Opinion

In the Spy vs. Spy world that at times still engulfs Cuba and the United States, we have a new, jaw-dropping development: the arrest of Victor Manuel Rocha.

That’s no surprise to the Cuban exiles in our community, who once again have every right to say: We told you so. Rocha was arrested in Miami, where he has lived since retiring from the U.S. diplomatic corps, and charged with acting as a secret agent for Cuba during his 40-year career.

Yes, Cuban spies usually end up in Miami, home to so many enemies of Fidel Castro’s revolution.

Exiles have long claimed there were secret agents in our midst. This time, the accused is a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and a deputy in 1996 at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana — effectively our embassy on the island. That was the year Cuban MiGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes, killing four Miami-Dade residents and sparking tense days between the two countries. How crucial a role did Rocha play?

Stationed in Havana, perhaps a big one. He is believed to have helped the Clinton administration formulate its response to the shootdown over international waters. The question at the time was whether to retaliate for the killing of American citizens, among the four fliers, or stand down. Clinton stood down.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland called Rocha’s work “one of the highest-ranking and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.” Reading about Rocha’s arrest must feel like vindication for many Cuban exiles in Miami. If the charges against Rocha are true, there really was a well-placed spy, right inside the U.S. State Department.

Interesting, during the same time when Rocha was in Cuba during the Brothers’ shootdown, there was another familiar name, Ana Montes, working in the Washington office of the State Department.

Montes, a defense intelligence analyst at the U.S. State Department’s Cuba Desk, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of the Cuban government in 2002 and was released in January after serving most of her 25 year sentence. Like Rocha, she also helped coordinate the Clinton response.

It’s unbelievable that Cuba had such entree to U.S. policy.

Maybe at Rocha’s trial — he is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent — family members of the four that perished will get answers to some long unanswered questions.

First, though, we need answers on how U.S. State Department failed to learn about Rocha for decades.

On his arrest, Rocha was boastful of his loyalty to the Cuban government and dislike for the U.S. He’s just the latest in a list of Cuban spies and accused spies who have been apprehended over the decades in and around Miami.

There was the “Wasp Network” in 1998, which involved five Cuban men posing as exiles but secretly working for Cuban intelligence. One even landed a job a naval base in Key West. Another married a local woman as part of his cover.

All five were tried and convicted and eventually, in 2014 traded back to Cuba in exchange for the return of an accused American spy detained on the island, Alan Gross, who denied being a spy.

And in 2006, two married Florida International University professors, Carlos Manuel Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, were charged with treason. The couple even had sophisticated radio equipment in their home which they used to communicate with their Cuba handlers.

These spies have carried out a sinister mission in our community: to monitor the activity of influential Cuban exiles and, to some degree, work to disgrace the image of those anti-Castro exiles in Miami.

“The role of Cuban spies with relation to the Cuban exiles is to smear this community as violent, anti-democratic and hostile to dialogue while at the same time seeking to divide through rumor and innuendo, generating ill feeling between groups and individuals,” John Suarez, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba told the Editorial Board.

As long as the Castro-inspired regime remains in power, it seems their intelligence services will continue targeting those in the U.S. fighting for Cuban freedom. Rocha’s arrest should be an eye-opener for those who think Cuba is just an unfriendly neighbor and not a true danger.