MIAMI: A former American diplomat who served as US ambassador to Bolivia has been charged with serving as a secret agent for Cuba‘s intelligence services dating back decades, the justice department said on Monday. Newly unsealed court papers allege that Manuel Rocha engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives and providing false information to US government officials about his travels and contacts.
The complaint, filed in federal court in Miami, charges Rocha with crimes including acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and provides a vivid case study in what US officials say are long-standing efforts by Cuba and its notoriously sophisticated intelligence services to target government officials who can be flipped. The 73-year-old Rocha was arrested at his Miami home on Friday.
His two-decade career as a US diplomat included top posts in Bolivia, Argentina and the US Interests Section in Havana in the mid-1990s. The charging document traces Rocha’s illegal ties to Cuba back to 1981, when he first joined the state department, to well after his departure from the government, when he took on private sector jobs. It did not detail what information he may have provided.
The FBI learned about the relationship last year and arranged a series of undercover encounters in Miami between Rocha and someone purporting to be a Cuban intelligence operative. “Throughout the meetings, Rocha behaved as a Cuban agent, consistently referring to the US as ‘the enemy’,” the justice department said. He praised late Fidel Castro and described his work for Cuba as “a grand slam”, it said.
He was the top US diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decadelong currency stabilisation program backed by Washington was unraveling, triggering a political crisis that would see the country cycle through five presidents in two weeks. At his next post as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that US would cut off assistance if ex-coca grower Evo Morales was elected. Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.
The complaint, filed in federal court in Miami, charges Rocha with crimes including acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and provides a vivid case study in what US officials say are long-standing efforts by Cuba and its notoriously sophisticated intelligence services to target government officials who can be flipped. The 73-year-old Rocha was arrested at his Miami home on Friday.
His two-decade career as a US diplomat included top posts in Bolivia, Argentina and the US Interests Section in Havana in the mid-1990s. The charging document traces Rocha’s illegal ties to Cuba back to 1981, when he first joined the state department, to well after his departure from the government, when he took on private sector jobs. It did not detail what information he may have provided.
The FBI learned about the relationship last year and arranged a series of undercover encounters in Miami between Rocha and someone purporting to be a Cuban intelligence operative. “Throughout the meetings, Rocha behaved as a Cuban agent, consistently referring to the US as ‘the enemy’,” the justice department said. He praised late Fidel Castro and described his work for Cuba as “a grand slam”, it said.
He was the top US diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decadelong currency stabilisation program backed by Washington was unraveling, triggering a political crisis that would see the country cycle through five presidents in two weeks. At his next post as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that US would cut off assistance if ex-coca grower Evo Morales was elected. Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.
