A Look At The Role That Cuba Has Played In The Venezuelan Drug Trade

Hugo Chavez (left) became Fidel Castro's closest ally. (Reuters: Claudia Daut)

Christopher Dickey, Daily Beast: How Cuba Helped Make Venezuela A Mafia State

The Castros claimed Cuba was never into drug smuggling, then they said it quit. But their own operations were nothing compared to the ones they helped facilitate in Venezuela.

The medals, the honors, the general’s uniform—all had been stripped away. Arnaldo Ochoa, once considered a great hero of the Cuban Revolution and its military expeditions in Africa, stood before Fidel Castro’s court in 1989 wearing a cheap plaid shirt. He looked like what he had always been, the handsome and charismatic son of Cuban peasants, a man of the people, a leader, and that may have been the real cause of his downfall. But the charges were narcotics trafficking and treason.

Ochoa’s trial was a pivotal moment in the history of Cuba and of what Washington in those days was calling “the war on drugs.” It marked the end of an era in which Fidel Castro’s dictatorship had facilitated the shipment of cocaine to the United States from the infamous cartels of Colombia, including Pablo Escobar’s operation in Medellín. And not the least of the motives attributed to the Cubans was the desire to tear at the fabric of yanqui society. These were the days of the crack cocaine epidemic shattering the peace of cities across the United States. Fueling addiction, desperation and crime while enriching the Revolution must have seemed perfectly legitimate goals to some of the Castros' cohorts, and their intelligence services did what they thought they had to do for their regime to survive on its own terms.

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WNU Editor: Cuba has done a lot of things in Venezuela .... and are probably involved even more today. It is not a surprise that Cuba's new President  .... in his first trip abroad earlier last week .... was to Venezuela .... Cuba's new leader praises Maduro in 'solidarity' visit to Venezuela (Reuters).