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The Wasp Network, that killed Americans and plotter a terror attack on US soil, were not the Castro regime's last soldiers of the Cold War
Wasp Network is a 2019 film now playing on Netflix that is based on the book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War by the Brazilian author, journalist, and politician Fernando Morais that paints a sympathetic and whitewashed picture of the Castro regime's spy network that was rounded up by the FBI in 1998. To have a better idea about who the author is and his ideological motivations consider the following factoid. Morais's first book published in 1976 titled A Ilha about his three month visit to Cuba, at a time when Brazil's military dictatorship had severed relations with the Castro's communist dictatorship since 1964, and Brazilian passports carried a warning: "Not valid for Cuba." This visit and the book upon which it was based made Morais an icon of the Brazilian left.
Olivier Assayas, who wrote the screenplay, based on the book by Morais, and directed the film, initially encountered resistance from the Castro regime, but found all doors opened to him and he spent half a year in Havana, Cuba to complete the film.
Therefore it should be a surprise that the book that the film is based on and the film portrays the Castro dictatorship, and its spy network in a favorable and non-threatening light. The film is a masterclass and misinformation, but also a demonstration that to satisfy Havana what should have been a powerful and impacting film ended up a mediocrity, panned by critics and with even a lower score among the audience according to Rotten Tomatoes.
The WASP Network (La Red Avispa) was made up of over forty officers and agents, four escaped to Cuba when the FBI began rounding them up. Ten were captured, and five of them pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution. They are unpersons in Cuba, and the remaining five became the focus of an international propaganda campaign organized by the Castro regime that did not end until December 2014.
The film briefly mentions the Ochoa Affair, and touches on its political aspect of liquidating General Arnaldo Ochoa, a popular general among the ranks, who was executed by firing squad in 1989, but fails to mention the Castro regime's extensive involvement in drug trafficking.
Whether consciously or not, to film in Cuba, and not have regime censors shut down their production, he gutted the film of what would have been powerful elements that would have provided context, not to mention drama and pathos to his film . It would've provided a dramatic explanation of the July 13, 1995 overflight of Havana by Brothers to the Rescue but this would have necessitated putting on film the July 13, 1994 "13 de marzo" tugboat incident when agents of the Castro regime sank a tugboat six miles off the coast of Havana and attacked and killed 37 men, women, and children trying to flee the island. Next month will mark 26 years without justice for the victims. A detailed report on this crime against humanity was published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1996 and is available online.
One year later on the anniversary of the killings, and with the bodies never recovered, a flotilla of boats organized by Cuban pro-democracy groups tried to reach the spot where the tugboat rested with the remains of the tugboat victims to hold a service for the dead. The lead boat Democracia had its hull crushed by Cuban government gunboats, and turned back, as had been agreed upon by organizers, if the dictatorship's forces turned violent. At that moment Brothers to the Rescue that had been flying overhead changed course and flew over Havana dropping leaflets that read "Comrades No. Brothers." This outraged the Castro brothers and I believe this is when they began plotting their revenge which they carried out seven months later.
Other and more dramatic activities carried out by the Wasp Network were left out of the film.
The spies had received instructions from Havana to burn down an airport hangar, sabotage planes, first terrorize then send a mail bomb to kill a CIA agent living in Bal Harbour identified as Jesus Cruza Flor. The network provided material intelligence that assisted in the shoot down of two civilian planes on February 24, 1996 killing four Americans that they do not even show or name in the film. They are treated as non-persons.
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