Independent of what?
Founder of the so-called Independent Journalists Agency of Cuba, Néstor Baguer was one of the mercenaries in the pay of the United States until he revealed his true identity as State Security agent Octavio
Granma International presents an extract from the interview he gave to journalists Rosa Míriam Elizalde and Luis Báez, for the book Los Disidentes
Are you a graduate in journalism?
Yes. When I started out in journalism the school didn’t exist. I worked on El Crisol and wrote for it. That was my school. Then the Márquez Sterling opened and my father was a professor there, but I was already captivated by the smell of the lead and nobody could peel me away from the printing press. My thing was writing.
At the triumph of the Revolution, I was called by Elio Constantín, an exceptional sports reporter and the secretary of the commission established to validate journalists’ degrees. He asked me if I wanted to go through the school or would prefer to sit the examination. I told him that I would take the whole examination, without any compassion. I did it the next day and they gave me the degree.
However, in a Reuters dispatch reproduced in The New York Times on April 10 this year, they refer to you as "Alleged journalist Néstor Baguer," an exact quote.
How strange! When I was a "dissident" the U.S. press never called me an "alleged" journalist or an "alleged" dissident it wouldn’t have crossed anybody’s mind I’m going to give you a copy of my degree, so that you can publish it in the book and do away with any doubts.
When did you become linked to State Security?
From the moment that I began to work in Foreign Trade.
Are you still linked to Foreign Trade?
No, I transferred to the COCO broadcasting station, as head of shift. Then I was on Radio Metropolítana. When I began to work in the defense of language, they called me from Juventud Rebelde newspaper to be responsible for a column with that heading: "In defense of language." Then I was with Trabajadores, Radio Havana Cuba and Cadena Habana, with a very active life in journalism, until I declared myself a "dissident."
Why did you declare yourself a "dissident?"
State Security asked me to make contact with the mercenaries and I went to see Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, the doorman to that world.
How were you received?
I went to his house and when I asked for him, the woman said to me: "Are you referring to Mr. President?" "Well," I said, "If he is the president of Cuba, all the more reason to talk to him. Tell him that Néstor Baguer is here."
His minister of information
In the making, don’t forget I went through to the lounge while they were advising "Mr. President" and they brought me a glass of whisky and somemarinated olives. "Hey, they live the good life here in the Palace, shit!" I thought. It was 1993 The worst part of the special period, with tremendous scarcity. Elizardo arrived, embraced me and said: "Welcome! You are much in need here because my brother-in-law, Yndamiro Restano, doesn’t know how to write and I need a top-notch journalist to take on the job of editing the Prensa Independiente de Cuba." I accepted on the spot.
Just like that?
He was desperate. He advised me to first go on a scholarship to Costa Rica at some institute of journalism or another. "You go there for two or three months and I’ll take care of all the expenses." I replied: "Look, Elizardo, I can’t accept that after so many years in the Cuban press, that you’re sending me to Costa Rica to learn. Costa Rica’s shit I know that country. Send me somewhere else." He did that, and the man who went stayed on there.
Then he said that he was going to find somebody to buy my articles. He told me about the Disidente magazine that was put together in Puerto Rico, in which he had money invested – Elizardo is a partner in that business – then, when he had more confidence in me, he asked me if I would go to his house every day to read the press and talk with him to gain orientation.
Did you do so?
No. I wasn’t going to let them do to me what they did with other unfortunates
What?
They used them for everything from making cups of coffee to sitting down and typing. I told Elizardo that I couldn’t be going to his house on the bus every day, that I was going to write articles and he could tell me who to send them to. Then they could pay me and everybody would be happy. Do you know what he replied? "It can’t be like that, because I have to have everything under control." "All right, Elizardo, I don’t think we can go on working together."
Elizardo is an astute guy.
Yes. He was a Philosophy professor at the University. He has had the same discourse for 20 years. He doesn’t vary it. He is a veritable lizard who publicly states that he does not accept money from the Americans, only if it is sent through Europe. He receives the largest amounts from the Swedes, French and Spanish. He has never gone short of a good supply of money. He is an unrestrainedly egoistic person, who enters and leaves the country whenever he wants. He’s a really strange case.
He publicly "argued" with the Americans on account of funding problems. You should hear him and his partners talking about that. That’s a carnival, man, with the effigies and the works.
Did you lose contact with Elizardo then?
Not totally, but I was able to get out of his clutches because I already had connections in Miami. The other "journalists" said to me: "Hey, don’t be a fool, you can eat anything you want there, and drink whisky."
Where did all that come from?
The Spanish embassy, which sent 100 dollars’ worth of food supplies each month, and I can confirm that, because once, when I was in his house, the car from that diplomatic headquarters arrived with the monthly quota. The shopping basket included some bottles of brandy and good Spanish wine. Month after month. It hasn’t failed since he got involved with the "dissidence" movement. He also receives money from other sources.
When did you found the Independent Journalists of Cuba Agency (APIC)?
With Elizardo. Congratulations came from Miami, gestures of love and affection. They saw me as the finest of the patriots; Reporteros sin Fronteras (Reporters without Frontiers) sang my praises everywhere and sent me money. That was something else. As it became known that I was in charge of the agency and gave out money, the "journalists" began to buzz around me at home like flies. You know something; I didn’t know that that there were so many card-holding journalists in Cuba in the most improbable trades and professions. I had one correspondent who was a railroad worker in Cienfuegos and the only thing that he had done in all his life was to hit rails with a sledgehammer. He’s in prison now.
But did they really know how to write, because more than a few newspapers and Internet pages published their notes?
If they had "orthographic" shortcomings talking, imagine what their written work was like. It was a terrible penance for me to have to fix up some of that garbage.
Why did they go to an agency that was supposedly composed of serious journalists then?
There were two large attractions.
First, the visas that they handed out immediately. Just one month writing there and they were off to the United States on the first flight. They saved themselves from queuing and the unpleasantness and humiliations of the (U.S.) Interests Section.
Second, the pay. From 20-30 dollars a month, just for blowing up balloons. It reached the point that so many went through that it couldn’t go on. That was when Raúl Rivera decided to pull out of APIC and found his own agency.
How did you receive money?
Via Transcard. I refused to take anything from those messengers who were constantly arriving from Miami and other places. For that reason, I was the one who got the least money and gifts.
Why?
My dissident features weren’t like the others. I always write with respect. For example, I would refer to the Comandante by saying: "the President of Cuba, Mr. Fidel Castro," while all the others called him "the dictator or whatever."
Even the U.S. people noticed that: "Mr. Baguer, do you not hate Fidel Castro," and I would answer: "I have no reason to hate him."
Who among the U.S. people said that to you?
The fat one, Gene Bigler, who attended the press and culture in that period. He became very friendly with me. When he left, Bigler wrote to me from Rome, assuring me that if I needed anything at all, I should ask him immediately.
How did you respond to Bigler when he called attention to your texts?
I told him that I was a member of the Royal Academy (of Language) and that I could not write insulting material. He didn’t want me thrown out of there. One "independent" threw it in my face that I never said "gendarme" to the police. What an idiot! "Look, pal, gendarmes are in France; here you say police," and that’s what I put.
What news items did your APIC correspondents send?
If I hadn’t taken things so much to heart, I think I‘d have had more fun. For example, I recall that one day one of them called by phone to dictate me a supposedly very urgent piece of news. The man wrote something like this: "There are 10,000 people in Manzanillo on a corner protesting because a family was being evicted." I remember that I shouted at him: "Hey, hang on a minute, on what corner in Manzanillo or in any other place would 10,000 people all fit? And, tell me, why are they protesting?" and he answered: "Well, one family wanted to live in Manzanillo and the other in Bayamo and began to move the furniture from one place to the other, without papers or anything." "Please, my man, in what part of the world can you do legal dealings without papers? Look, I’m sorry, find me some other news." That was how it was every day.
Can you remember another example?
Somebody came to tell me that his father had told him that one of his cousins in prison had been knocked about. I asked him if his father had seen the cousin and he told me that he hadn’t, that he had been told. I said to him: "The first thing any journalist has to do is verify his or her sources," and sent him away.
Didn’t your opinions arouse any suspicion?
They didn’t see any connection between the government and myself, and I did attack it very elegantly, with correctness. That why the journalists went off to other agencies that were sprouting like mushrooms, where it was attacked in another manner and thus where they were better paid.
With that came the announcement that the U.S. government was going to give loads more money via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). I continued with my modest 50 dollars per month, as APIC boss, but part of that money began to arrive and people started getting excited, especially the Miami ones.
I can tell you that 80% of those millions remained in Florida.
Is that a fact?
Of course. The stream of money started drying up between Miami and Havana and from here to the provinces. Our representatives kept hold of the largest piece of the cake; then the mini-group heads; and then the rest.
In order to receive the 100 and a bit that Cubanet owed me, I had to go to the USIS (U.S. Interests Section) to expose the agency that had pocketed the journalists’ money.
How did you get involved with Cubanet?
It’s a culinary tale. Rosa Berre, who invented Cubanet, recorded the news that I dictated. She had the phone in the kitchen of her apartment in the southwest (Miami). She received the news while she was cooking and then transmitted it. She lived very modestly and only received a small commission at the beginning. One day she told me that she was moving into the heart of Miami, because she had been bought two apartments. One would be her private residence and the other the Cubanet office. She wangled a car costing thousands of dollars as well "with her savings," the poor thing must have been a great saver.
Did your working conditions change after that?
Yes, because it seemed that as more people joined the "independence" cause, they were giving her more money. It was so easy to earn a few dollars that she received news almost every day from a new press group and the people fought over the money. The ones that robbed the most were the Nueva Prensa Cubana, Prensa Libre and Rosa Berre. They were all Cubans and were robbing money from the journalists.
I remember a guy that had worked in a printshop and passed himself off as a journalist, got to be the head, took six months money and disappeared. By that date there was also a change in the payments. The 50 dollars that they were paying dropped to 15 or 20 dollars, even though more or less the same amount was arriving, to be shared out among the "heads". They received 50 to share out and only handed over 15. It was barefaced robbery, and the rows that that produced were notorious.
Could any person open an office?
More than 30 offices were opened. The more capacity you had for insulting, the higher up you moved on the scale of Miami and Interest Section values. The more groups of supposed journalists the merrier. The more they shouted, the better.
How did the USIS react?
If there wasn’t somebody like me, who went and fought, it turned a blind eye. They were more into other things.
Like what?
The conspiracy to promote the "persecuted independent journalists" image internationally, to give them prizes and better working conditions. And we weren’t short of visitors and diplomats to tell the story to.
Tell us about some of those visits.
For example, 1995 was a very intensive year. I have noted in my diary more than 60 activities promoted by the USIS – those in charge of public relations – in which I participated, both to facilitate meetings with U.S. visitors of all sorts, and those with representatives of international press media and journalists’ organizations.
What other events do you remember?
January 15: Meeting at the residence of the USIS chief Joseph Sullivan. Interview with U.S. publishers.
July 20: Encounter with U.S. delegation attending the talks on migratory matters. I won’t tell you what we talked about, because it’s obvious.
August 12: Meeting at the residence of diplomat Gene Bigler, where the details of the creation of the School of "Independent Journalists," born in my house a few days previously, were explained to a group of USIS officials.
August 30: Meeting with the State Department Committee for Migratory Affairs. It was announced that 20,000 visas would be granted in 1996, divided in the following manner: 12,000 to ordinary people applying for exit; 7,000 to political refugees; and 1,000 persons handled by the USIS.
September 20: Presentation of a donation from Reporters without Frontiers, with its headquarters in France. Robert Menard, the general secretary, and Andrés Buchet gave me sheets of paper, letter-writing paper, typewriter ribbons, a dozen biros and 1,000 dollars to finance the so-called Press Bureau.
September 20: I was called up by official Robin Diane Meyer who berated myself, Yndamiro Restano, Olance Nogueras, Julio Martínez and some others. She was furious over a document sent without consultation to the U.S. Congress with the signature of 127 Cubans.
September 27: Cuban-American journalist Roberto Fabricio, then executive secretary of the Inter-American Journalism Society’ (IJS) Freedom of the Press Committee, met with a group including myself. This man was the editor of El Nuevo Herald. We met in the home of Yndamiro Restano’s parents and he asked us to draw up a strong condemnation to formally present to the IJS.
November 7: Robert Witajewski and Robin D. Meyer called us to the former’s house to explain to them why some of us hadn’t signed the Concilio Cubano project. We explained, as hard-faced as we could, that we were "independent journalists" and couldn’t get involved in politics. That seemed reasonable enough to them.
I think that’s enough otherwise this interview will get very boring. I went so many times to the USIS that this whole book wouldn’t be large enough to report on all those meetings. I’ll tell you one thing: every time we set one foot in there, I was asked: "What kind of independent journalists were we? Independent of what?"
Let’s talk about the last time that you set foot in the USIS or one of its official venues.
Cuban Press day on March 14. There was a workshop in the house of James Cason (current head of USIS), with all the "independent journalists," and they had organized a tribute for my development within the "independent" press and presented me with a diploma. They had the bad idea of having me lead the discussion on the subject of ethics. There were U.S. government representatives there. I stated that a conference was not sufficient, what was needed was a course on ethics, because the overwhelming majority of those present who called themselves journalists had no education whatsoever. Their texts didn’t even reach that of sixth-grade pupils; with apologies to Cuban children.
Did the Interests Section tell you what you should write?
They didn’t dare to because they knew me well.
Did you give them the subjects or did they select them?
Not for me. The USIS gave the subjects to the mentally retarded people, the pseudo-journalists And not only that; after they wrote them and before they were transmitted they went to the Interests Section to be revised to see if there was anything that didn’t suit them politically. They complained of censorship in Cuba and I would see them bowing down to that of the United States. Between that and the rubbish they said, it gradually became unbearable. The U.S. people made an effort to improve to some extent the level of the "independents," who were the target of ridicule and fights within the "hardened ranks of the dissidents." Raúl Rivera and I received an offer to establish a school within the Interests Section. Neither of us accepted. Afterwards, Ricardo González Alfonso asked me the same thing: would I give classes to the journalists?
When was that?
Quite recently. Ricardo was already head of the Manuel Márquez Sterling Journalists Society.
A school for everyone?
No. For his people. It would be out there in Miramar, where he lives. I accepted and asked him how much he was going to pay me to give classes. His response was did I hope to earn more than Raúl Rivera and him. I said: "Why not? Rivera is a journalist, but you can even write your own name." He promised to tell me how much he would pay me, but then the Comandante arrived and called a halt.
Did you meet with any high-ranking U.S. official at the request of the USIS?
The last was my friend James (Jimmy) Carter. I say friend because when he was president, he invited me to go to the United States to give Spanish classes at the university where he studied. When he came to Havana, he sent a message to my house inviting me to have lunch with him.
In private?
No, there were other people there. He distinguished me by seating me close to him, with only one person between us, to talk with him. He asked me about the Varela Project and I talked to him in all honesty.
What did you tell him?
That it was a failure. Oswaldo Payá is no more than a repented altar boy. Nobody takes any notice of him in Cuba. He used to come to my house once in a while: "Hey, Baguer, give me an interview."
In a month he would be back for the same thing and I’d go along with it.
I knew him from Cerro (district), where we were both living. I have seen him in raggedy pants and now he goes about with the air of a president, in a minibus. He claims that the Church gave it to him, but everyone knows he bought it. One day I told him to his face what the majority of the "dissidents" were commenting: that he gave money for the signatures (on the Varela petition).
And what he did answer?
That it was a lie, that that was a Communist thing. But the counterrevolutionaries themselves told me: what they had done in the east of the island. And moreover, I know cases of "dissidents" whose signatures had appeared on the papers and they had not given them, because they can’t stand Payá. That was the case with María Valdés Rosado. Those people live by trickery among themselves and fighting to be the president that finally takes possession of the booty, to start giving out scholarships, money, positions, as happens every single day in almost every country in the world.
With Payá there are two "future presidents" of Cuba whom you know. Were they the only ones to present themselves as such?
Not a bit of it! You have to include in the candidates for president of the New Dependent Republic of Cuba that other mafioso character Ricardo Bofill. Really there are loads of aspirants, many press agencies and many parties. The only thing they don’t have is followers. Like that brand-new press agency that I knew of in Santiago, made up of mother and son, neither of whom were journalists.
What can I tell you about the parties? I knew four members of the Christian Democrats.
Ah! I remembered another "president:" Vladimir Roca.
When you found yourself with the other agents, already invested with their own personalities, who surprised you the most?
Tania was my greatest surprise.
Why?
It never even occurred to me. She was a friend of mine but one of the oldest and toughest "dissidents." A lioness.
Who else?
Orrio, agent Miguel. Before we had had some Olympian fights and when we saw each other at the moment of truth, we embraced and the words just came from my soul: "You, here, sonofabitch that you are! And shit, we even had a drink together!