Swine Flu: Past and Present- Anti-Castro terrorists and NAFTA

FLASHBACK: Anti-Castro terrorists (CIA) introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.

January 10, 1977 Front page
1971 Mystery:
CIA Link to Cuban Pig Virus Reported
New York

With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.
Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic.
A U.S. intelligence source told Newsday last week he was given the virus in a sealed, unmarked container at a U.S. Army base and CIA training ground in the Panama Canal Zone, with instructions to turn it over to the anti-Castro group.
The 1971 outbreak, the first and only time the disease has hit the Western Hemisphere, was labeled the “most alarming event” of 1971 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. African swine fever is a highly contagious and usually lethal viral disease that infects only pigs and, unlike swine flu, cannot be transmitted
to humans.
All production of pork, a Cuban staple, halted, apparently for several months. (Economic Terrorism?)
A CIA spokesman, Dennis Berend, in response to a Newsday request for comment, said, “We don’t comment on information from unnamed and, at best, obscure sources.”
Why the virus turned up in Cuba has been a mystery to animal investigators ever since the outbreak. Informed speculation assumed that the virus entered Cuba either in garbage from a commercial airliner or in sausages brought in by merchant seamen.
However, on the basis of numerous interviews over four months with U.S. intelligence sources, Cuban exiles and scientists concerning the outbreak — which occurred two years after then President Nixon had banned the use of offensive chemical and biological warfare — Newsday was able to piece together this account of events leading up to the outbreak.
The U.S. intelligence source said that early in 1971 he was given the virus in a sealed, unmarked container at Ft. Gulick, an Army base in the Panama Canal Zone. The CIA also operates a paramilitary training center for career personnel and mercenaries at Ft. Gulick.
The source said he was given instructions to turn the container with the virus over to members of an anti-Castro group.
The container then was given to a person in the Canal Zone, who took it by boat and turned it over to persons aboard a fishing trawler off the Panamanian coast. The source said the substance was not identified to him until months after the outbreak in Cuba. He would not elaborate further.
Another man involved in the operation, a Cuban exile who asked not to be identified, said he was on the trawler when the virus was put aboard at a rendezvous point off Bocas del Toro, Panama. He said the trawler carried the virus to Navassa Island, a tiny, deserted, U.S.-owned island between Jamaica and Haiti. From there, after the trawler made a brief stopover, the container was taken to Cuba and given to other operatives on the southern coast near the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in late March, according to the source on the trawler. The base is 100 miles due north of Navassa.
The source on the trawler, who had been trained by the CIA and had carried out previous missions for the agency, said he saw no CIA officials aboard the boat that delivered the virus to the trawler off Panama, but added: “We were well paid for this and Cuban exile groups don’t have that kind of money . . .”
He said he was revealing the information because he is a member of an exile group being investigated by the United States in connection with terrorist activity in Florida. His account was confirmed by another intelligence source in Miami. The source said he had no proof that the operation was approved by CIA officials in Washington, but added: “In a case like this, though, they would always give them (CIA officials in Washington) plausible deniability.”
The investigation referred to by the operative on the trawler involves a federal inquiry into terrorist acts allegedly carried out by Cuban exiles. Those include bombings and assassination attempts in the United States and Venezuela. Trained originally by the CIA for operations against Cuba, the exiles have become more restive as they view what they believe to be an increasing move toward rapprochement between Fidel Castro and the United States.
http://www.maebrussell.com/Health/CIA%20Pig%20Virus.html


A US-owned company, Carroll Farms, has been accused of dumping contaminated pig waste and fecal matter, causing a “strange flu-like outbreak,” spreading across many parts of Mexico. (NAFTA strikes again?)

The recent swine flu outbreak taking place in Mexico may have originated at a US-owned pig-breeding farm by the name of Granjas Carroll (aka Carroll Farms), which is owned, in part by the Smithfield Food Company. Smithfield also promotes the consumption of genetically-altered foods, and even owns certain genetic lines of pork breeding. On April 12 of 2009, before the swine flu outbreak was covered by mainstream media outlets, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada broke a story on how Carroll Farms was polluting the drinking water near the towns of La Gloria and Perote, in Veracruz.
According to La Jornada, Carroll Farms maintains a strong political influence in municipal governments in the area. Recently, group of environmental protesters that blocked a highway near the Carroll Farms facilities was arrested. Among them were Guadalupe Serrano Gaspar, a 66-year-old man who said was arrested by undercover police officers. Local residents from 20 towns nearby in Veracruz and the bordering state of Puebla also oppose what they consider deplorable environmental practices by Carroll Farms. The complaints from local residents range from reports of large quantities of pig excrement in the waterways to the smell of chemicals and feces in several towns.
Veratect, which is company that tracks epidemic outbreaks, has posted a timeline of events that also indicates that the Mexican swine flu outbreak may have started in Veracruz, Mexico near the Carroll Farms facilities. According to the Veratect timeline, more than 400 local residents at La Gloria, Veracruz and other nearby towns reported having strong flu-like symptoms days before the outbreak was reported by the media. Local health authorities in La Gloria and Perote have determined that this “strange” flu-like disease or “new strain of the flu” was spread to the local towns by flies that feed on pig feces. In the town of La Gloria, 60 percent of the 3,000 inhabitants have been infected.
The newspaper La Jornada also reported that local health officials and residents found “clouds of flies” feeding on organic pig waste, carcasses and feces. Reportedly, Carroll Farms has been dumping organic pig waste out in the open, leaving it exposed for the flies to feed.
The swine flu has now been spreading to major cities in Mexico, the US and Canada. In Mexico, over 900 people are dead. Mexico City has begun to close down schools, churches, and libraries. The Mexican government is planning to vaccinate 500,000 people, although it is widely known that there is no vaccine for this latest strain of swine flu because it has not yet been produced.
Related articles:
Swine-flu outbreak linked to Smithfield factory farms
Bloggers Question Smithfield Role in Mexico Swine Flu Outbreak