José Jesús Basulto León (born August 8, 1940) is a former

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

-trained

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

n political dissident and the leader of the nonprofit

Cuban exile A Cuban exile is a person who has been exiled from Cuba. Many Cuban exiles have various differing experiences as emigrants depending on when they emigrated from Cuba, and why they emigrated. The exile of Cubans has been a dominating factor in C ...

organization Brothers to the Rescue.

Career

Since the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

, Basulto participated in various activities intended to subvert or overthrow the Cuban government. After the revolution, he claimed that he was trained by the

in intelligence, communications, explosives, sabotage and subversion in

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

, and the United States.Basulto testifies on role as anti-Castro operative
, ''The Miami Herald'' (March 13, 2001). He claimed that he was later placed back into Cuba, posing as a physics student at the University of Santiago to help prepare the ground for the

Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called or after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April 1961 by the United States of America and the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front ...

. According to Basulto, in 1961, under CIA sponsorship, Basulto infiltrated Cuba for a commando operation intended to sabotage an alleged missile site, a mission which was ultimately aborted. In August 1962 he was involved in an expedition of the

Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil The Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (abbreviation: DRE; ) was a Cuban student activist group launched in opposition to Fidel Castro in 1960, based at the United States, where it soon developed links with the Central Intelligence Agency. In ...

which took a boat to Cuba and fired a 20 mm cannon at a hotel, though nobody was killed in the incident. In the 1980s Basulto flew medical supplies to the

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

Contras In the history of Nicaragua, the Contras (Spanish: ''La contrarrevolución'', the counter-revolution) were the right-wing militias who waged anti-communist guerilla warfare (1979–1990) against the Marxist governments of the Sandinista Na ...

. After the Cuban government shot down the Brothers to the Rescue planes, Basulto sought to have criminal and civil charges pressed over the matter. He was awarded a $1.7 million judgement in January 2005. On May 24 of that same year, Basulto announced a one million dollar reward for information leading to the indictment of

Raúl Castro Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz ( ; ; born 3 June 1931) is a Cuban retired politician and general who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the One-par ...

on drug charges or charges related to the shooting of the Hermanos planes. "It would throw a wrench in the machinery", Basulto said of a possible indictment.

Aviator and leader of Brothers to the Rescue

Brothers to the Rescue formed in 1991 and describes itself as a humanitarian organization aiming to assist and rescue raft refugees emigrating from Cuba and to "support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active nonviolence". The Cuban government, on the other hand, accuses them of involvement in terrorist acts.Annex to the letter dated 29 October 2001 from the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. Summary of principal terrorist actions against Cuba (1990–2000)

/ref> In the course of many flights throughout the early 1990s, the group's planes made repeated incursions into Cuban territory. While these were widely considered airspace violations, Brothers to the Rescue believes that these were acts of legitimate resistance against the government. In 1996, ignoring a final warning by Cuba, two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force, leading to international condemnation.

Notes

See, for example, ''Granma International'', December 13, 2005

References

External links

NBC Nightly News Video on his help with Cuban hurricane relief
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basulto, Jose 1940 births Living people People from Santiago de Cuba Exiles of the Cuban Revolution in the United States Opposition to Fidel Castro Cuban anti-communists People of the Central Intelligence Agency