According to the Justice Department, U.S. prosecutors on Monday charged Víctor Manuel Rocha, the country’s former ambassador to Bolivia, with working as an undercover agent for the Cuban government for four decades.
First change: December 5th, 2023 – 10:01
2 minutes
With Cristóbal Vásquez, RFI correspondent in Washington, and AFP
Manuel Rocha, who was U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and held other key diplomatic positions in Latin America, was accused of being a secret agent of the Cuban government since 1981.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, accuses Rocha of crimes that include acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and offers an example of Cuba’s longstanding efforts to recruit officials, U.S. officials say. American governments may be influenced by sophisticated intelligence services.
According to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, it is the most brazen and longest betrayal in the history of the US Foreign Service.
“This action exposes one of the most far-reaching and long-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement detailing the allegations against the former diplomat arrested Friday in Miami, Florida).
“Intelligence Collection Against the United States”
According to the complaint, from approximately 1981 to the present, Rocha, a 73-year-old Colombian-born American, “secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and its secret intelligence mission against the United States.”
In documents and records submitted to the court, Rocha praised Fidel Castro, called the United States an “enemy” and boasted about his 40-year stint as a Cuban spy at the center of U.S. foreign policy circles.
Rocha was born in Colombia, grew up in New York and later earned several degrees from universities such as Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the US Foreign Service in 1981.
In order to fulfill his assignment, the defendant obtained employment in the US State Department between 1981 and 2002 “in positions that gave him access to non-public information, including classified information, and the opportunity to influence US foreign policy.” it in the report.
After leaving the State Department, Rocha served as an advisor to the US Southern Command, a joint command of the US armed forces whose area of responsibility includes Cuba.
Between 1999 and mid-2002, he served as U.S. ambassador to La Paz, where he caused major controversy by threatening to cut off U.S. aid to Bolivia’s war on drugs if leftist and former coca grower unionist Evo Morales won the election should.
Numerous espionage cases have soured relations between the United States and Cuba, which have been enemies since the island’s communist revolution in 1959 in the midst of the Cold War.