Rocha, a Colombian-born U.S. citizen, was arrested Dec. 1 at his Miami home after he confessed his activities last year to an undercover FBI agent posing as another Cuban spy who said his name was “Miguel.”
It was to “Miguel” that the 73-year-old former diplomat confessed that his greatest concern when he worked for the State Department was “strengthening the Cuban Revolution.” He referred to Fidel Casto as “commander” and to his Cuban contacts as “comrades,” according to secretly recorded conversations.
He also referred to the United States several times as “the enemy” and proudly acknowledged that he had secretly helped Cuba’s “clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the United States.” A secret job that he carried out from around 1981 until now and that prosecutors have described as one of the most brazen and protracted betrayals in the history of the United States foreign service.
In public, Rocha referred to Cuba as “the island” and was described by friends as an admirer of Donald Trump. Supported by a kind of double life, he handled issues related to Latin America for more than two decades in various positions in the State Department under the governments of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, including a period as ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002. says the newspaper “The New York Times”.
The then United States ambassador to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, speaks to the press in La Paz on July 11, 2001. (Photo by GONZALO ESPINOZA/AFP).
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Additionally, he held various positions in the United States embassies in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico and Argentina and served as an advisor to the United States military command that includes the region of Cuba from 2006 to 2012.
The former diplomat now faces a thorny path. After being accused of secretly acting as an “agent of the Government of the Republic of Cuba,” Rocha faces 15 criminal charges in a South Florida court, which could mean a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison if he is found guilty. The trial will begin next January 29.
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The president of Bolivia, Jorge Quiroga Ramírez (center), accompanied by the American ambassador Manuel Rocha (right) and former Bolivian president Jaime Paz Zamora (left), on November 27, 2001 in La Paz. (Photo by GONZALO ESPINOZA/AFP).
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“This action exposes one of the most far-reaching and long-lasting infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent (…) It is a crime that will be punished with the full force of the Department of Justice.”
Rocha appeared in federal court in Miami on Monday. She made no statement and simply burst into tears in court as her family left the courtroom.
Other agents
Rocha’s is the most recent in a long list of espionage cases that have further strained relations between the United States and Cuba, whose enmity exceeds half a century.
Another of the most notorious cases broke out in 2001, when Ana Belén Montes, a United States military intelligence analyst, was arrested for espionage after admitting that she had been collecting classified information for Cuba for almost a decade.
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Ana Belén Montes. (Photo: FBI)
After being convicted of spying for Cuba, Montes was released in January after serving a long prison sentence.
Those who also went to jail were Carlos Álvarez, a psychology professor at Florida International University, and his wife, Elsa Alvarez, a school social worker. Both accused in 2006 of working as agents for 30 years and feeding Havana with information about US agents and anti-Castro exile groups.
The list of those accused of spying on the United States for Cuba is quite extensive and includes more couples who worked together, infiltrators in military bases, and former immigration officials.
The Gross case
Cuba has also accused the United States of using agents to obtain information from the island. The most emblematic case is probably that of Alan Gross, an American contractor for the development aid agency (USAID) who was sentenced in 2009 to 15 years in prison on the island for espionage for having introduced transmission equipment to the island. satellite.
After spending five years in prison, Gross was released in 2014 as part of the thaw between the two countries, under the government of Barack Obama.
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Alan Gross was imprisoned in Cuba in 2009. (AP)
POINT OF VIEW
“It is incredible that he has lived like this for 40 years”
Andy Gomez
Political analyst and former dean of the School of International Studies at the University of Miami
It is estimated that there are more than 500 Cuban spies in the United States. That is part of the international policy of all countries and has been a constant between the US and Cuba. According to Washington, Manuel Rocha’s case may be more complicated than that of Ana Belén Montes, not only because of the years she served as a spy, but also because of the access he had to different institutions within the US government.
This cools relations between the US and Cuba a little more. Havana continues to ask that Washington lift the embargo, but that is not going to happen. I think the US is going to wait to see the damage that the information that Rocha has provided could have done. Rocha even had access to military planning and other areas at a high level.
In the community in South Florida, a very great weight has fallen because we all here considered him to be a right-wing man and everything was a role that he was playing. It’s incredible that he has lived like this for 40 years.
