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The Manuel Rocha story in two headlines.
Ex-ambassador: Jacksonville should ready for U.S.-Cuban trade – Florida Times Union
Former US ambassador arrested, accused of secretly serving as agent to Cuba: report – FOX News
Rocha was allegedly quite ready for some Cuban trade.
A former American diplomat who served as a U.S. ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested and accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government, according to The Associated Press.
Officials say Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint.
One of the two people who came forward with the complaint said the Justice Department case accuses Rocha of working to promote the Cuban government’s interests.
How many of these people are embedded in our system?
In several meetings with an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of Cuban intelligence, Rocha repeatedly referred to the US as “the enemy” and praised Cuban revolutionary and politician Fidel Castro, according to court documents.
During their first meeting, Rocha allegedly told the undercover employee that the Cuban intelligence agency, called the Dirección General de Inteligencia, “asked me … to lead a normal life,” and said that he has “created the legend of a right-wing person.”
“I always told myself, ‘The only thing that can put everything we have done in danger is – is … someone’s betrayal, someone who may have met me, someone who may have known something at some point,” Rocha said, according to a recording of the meeting cited in court documents.
He allegedly added: “My number one concern; my number one priority was … any action on the part of Washington that would – would endanger the life of — of the leadership, or the — or the revolution itself.”
During another meeting several weeks later, Rocha allegedly described obtaining his State Department employment to the undercover employee, saying “I went little by little … It was a very meticulous process … very disciplined – but very disciplined.”
“I knew exactly how to do it and obviously the Dirección accompanied me… they knew that I knew how to do it… It’s a long process and it wasn’t easy,” he said, according to prosecutors.
Rocha also allegedly boasted about his “decades” of work on behalf of the Cuban government, saying that it “strengthened the revolution” over “the last 40 years,” and lamented “the blows that the enemy,” allegedly referring to the US government, “has dealt to the current revolution.”
Rocha had a significant role in more than Bolivia. He headed the U.S. interests section in Cuba and continued to be involved in various policy areas, including the Cuban immigration deal under Obama and took part in the University of Miami’s Cuban Transition Project. In short just the kind of guy that the Cuban regime would be interested in.
Foley & Lardner quickly scrubbed any mention of Rocha, whom they had previously quoted on the entry of Cuban trade into Florida, but it’s instructive to look at his argument for ending the embargo all the way back in 2009.
Jacksonville should prepare for a future boom in trade between the United States and Cuba because “change is in the air” regarding the decades-old embargo that has stifled interaction between the countries, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia said Tuesday.
V. Manuel Rocha, who is senior adviser on international business at Foley & Lardner LLP, said it’s not realistic to predict how many more years the embargo will remain in place.
Rocha said it wouldn’t necessarily be better for U.S. businesses if Cuba were to change its communist government. He said the current leadership of Cuba wants to ensure a “successor” form of government so future leaders maintain a connection with the revolution that brought the Communist Party to power.
He said the other alternative for Cuba would entail a tumultuous “transition” from the Communist Party to another form of government. He compared that possibility to the turmoil that occurred after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
“There are more McDonald’s in ‘successor’ China than in ‘transition’ Russia because of the stability” in China, he said.
Very tellingly, Rocha was pitching American businesses on the idea that it would be better for them if Cuba remained a Communist dictatorship.
These people aren’t hard to spot, we so rarely bother to spot them or to do anything about them.
Thanks for covering this story, this situation was perhaps the most interesting thing I read about today.
I’m old enough to remember when American companies wouldn’t dream of doing business with a communist country. Of course, that was before the communists took over here and the pragmatic nuevo-conservative business moguls and their liberal counterparts were ready and waiting to jump into the market. I mean…a dollar is a dollar, right?
Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, is 94 years old. I guess I don’t need to guess where the true conservative business owners went.
A dollar is a dollar. Agreed.
I understand the real good capitalism brings to people, but capitalism’s interest on profit alone eventually produces all of the ugly, cheap goods and architecture all around us. I recently drove between Austin and San Antonio on I-35 – a distance of about 60 miles and it is now chock full of fast food chains, cheap apartment complexes with ugly architecture, etc. It feels depressingly ugly and dead despite all of the activity and noise.
I don’t know enough to posit a solution, but I think there must be some kind of restraint upon the untempered trajectory of pure capitalism to encourage the fostering of quality and beauty. People need these things in order to have civilization – not just cheap goods. We used to have anti-monopoly laws. Obviously those no longer exist or are being ignored.
I wouldn’t expect art in architecture any time soon. Those days are behind us in the rear-view mirror, sadly. All I can say is to enjoy that architecture that inspires you that still exists around us. I’m an art nouveau fan myself, and while a twenty year period from 1890 to 1910 is a very limited one, those demonstrative structures that still remain speak volumes to the grandeur and opulence of a bygone era never to be seen again in America. Some things must pass.
Cheap goods are the order of the day. I can’t imagine living past that corporate eventuality.
There is good reason for your pessimism. I share it, but I still find ammunition that helps me fight against it. Look at this:
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-beautiful-federal-civic-architecture/
Up until recently businesses were lead by people who remembered or at least understood that Cuba stole billions of dollars from US businesses by nationalizing them when Castro took over. It was a hard lesson to learn, but it kept businesses from even considering Cuba (especially given the relatively small upside to an island with a small population and little money),
It should not be too much to ask that all of our representatives in government at home and abroad have no loyalty to any nation other than the U.S. (including even Israel).
No dual citizenship person should be allowed to represent the United States at minimum. Rocha was born in Columbia and is senior advisor on international business at the World Economic Forum – an organization actively hostile to us. He should not even be a citizen much less serve in any U.S. representative capacity.
Somewhere down there some certain guy with horns enjoys Pinheads like this one
The Justice Department actually did its job in this case? Are those MAGA and concerned parents persecutors trying to give me a heart attack from shock?
I wonder if the limp wristed (look at the funny photo above) Bareback Hasbeen Obama knew Roacha was a Cuban agent? Whether he did or not, I’m sure he approves of Rocha’s treason.
The latest President of Bolivia, Luis Arse, claims to be a socialist. (Socialism is as impossible to function as communism.) Cuba has been meddling there since Castro impoverished “his” population. I wonder if Roacha helped smooth the path to Arse’s election?
I miss the good old days when the Bolivian army was a bunch of cowboys who put Che Gayvara up against a tree and blew that Commie agitator away.
That’s what diversity does to you.
I’m guessing no ties to the bidens!! Nah, this guy was arrested!!
This lowlife little Weasel needs to get the Boot