By Jean-Guy Allard

THE "right-hand man" of Ismael Sambra, current leader of the Cuban Canadian Foundation, was arrested in December 1990 as chief of a drug trafficking gang, resulting in the most important seizure of cocaine in Montreal's history.

On May 7, 1993, Máximo Morales, aged 57 and of Cuban origin, plead guilty to charges of conspiracy and importing 115 kilograms of the drug; just a small quantity of the huge volume of drugs that his organization had trafficked.

At that time, Morales represented the French-speaking province of Quebec on the executive of a "human rights" faction founded by Sambra, whose was located in Toronto. However, according to various sources, the drug trafficker was aspiring to take over the presidency of the small organization.

Owner of the Les Aliments Morales, a food import firm with offices in the Quebec neighborhood of Montreal-Est, Máximo Morales had financed the creation of his business during the 1980s with the profits from various drug trafficking operations he had carried out.

On December 2, 1990, the Montreal municipal police seized several packets containing a total of 115 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $80 million and subsequently arrested Morales and some of his accomplices.

The drugs were hidden under the flooring of a vehicle that belonged to the drug trafficker. Efforts to conceal the goods had been carried out in such a "professional" manner, that it took detectives and experts two hours to discover the drugs stashed between two metal panels.

The drugs were wrapped in newspapers from Medellín, the notorious drug trafficking city in Colombia.

According to statements by police officers at the time of the arrest, detectives assessed that Morales' organization - a mafioso group led by César Riviera from Toronto - had imported 1,500 kilograms of cocaine the year before the "businessman's" arrest and earnings worth $3.4 million during the six weeks prior to that event.

In that period, the Rivera-Morales network controlled half the cocaine market for the Canadian province of Ontario, according to information circulated at the time of the police operation.

Morales was also accused of firing shots at another individual on a separate occasion outside his business, in an incident linked to his criminal activities.

The arrest of the Cuban-born "business man" for drug trafficking surprised many people, given that Morales presented himself as a "defender of freedom" and was the leader of the Canadian section of the Democratic and Independent Cuba group, under the treacherous Cuban commander Huber Matos. Some days before his arrest, he had played host to Matos on the latter's much talked about visit to Montreal.

Morales, who received a lengthy prison term, left jail suspiciously quickly in order to once again take up control of his businesses.
For his part, CCF leader Ismael Sambra passed himself off as the "writer in residence" at the University of York in 2000, without the center awarding him this accreditation and despite numerous protests to the institution's dean from other lecturers.

Sambra is regularly quoted by the Canadian press as a "spokesperson" for Cubans resident in Canada, even though his organization cannot rally more than a handful of members, and introduces himself to the press as a "human rights defender."

SPAWNED BY THE TERRORIST CANF

Granma International revealed in 2003 how Sambra's arrival in Canada was sponsored by a mysterious "anonymous donor" who had urged the head of York University to "provide him with a cover," and how he went on to create his organization with the support of Miami's Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF).

The CANF is the most significant anti-Cuban organization in Miami, founded by CIA agent Jorge Mas Canosa at the request of the Reagan-Bush administration, and is closely linked to a whole series of terrorist acts committed against Cuba.

In an interview with U.S. daily, The New York Times, published on July 12 and 13, 1998, international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles confessed to having organized the bombing campaign against tourist facilities in Cuba the previous year and acknowledged that CANF leaders had financed his operations. He also confessed that its president Jorge Mas Canosa had personally supervised the flow of money he had benefited from.

Posada Carriles is currently imprisoned in Panama with three accomplices from Miami, awaiting the result of a case in which they were tried for an attempted terrorist attack. The conspirators tried to blow up the lecture hall at the University of Panama where the Cuban president was going to speak. The attack could have caused as many deaths as the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, according to experts. The Cuban-American National Foundation has helped to fund the team of lawyers responsible for defending the terrorists.

Another counterrevolutionary "leader" resident in Canada for many years is Antonio Tang Baez - who has been linked to Máximo Morales on several occasions - is exhibiting himself as a representative of the Alpha 66 terrorist organization and acknowledged as such in its publications. In 1985, Tang took part in a plot to assassinate the Cuban president, according to an Internet article by the group that openly reveals how "during one of his frequent visits to Miami, he received military training for terrorist activities."

CANADA, VICTIM OF ANTI-CUBA TERRORISM

The link between Ismael Sambra's group and the CANF in Miami, the criminal history of Máximo Morales who trafficked drugs through his accomplices in Florida and "activist" Antonio Tang's appointment as Alpha 66 representative in Canada, allows us to recall how anti-Cuba capos in the United States have used Canada to develop terrorist activities as well as attacking companies and organizations from that country linked to Cuba.

Cuban and Canadian press archives make it possible to establish a list of at least 15 Miami attacks on the island perpetrated by Miami terrorist mafia who have ties with Canada.
* August 9, 1964: attack on the Cuban boat María Teresa in the port of Montreal. Attributed to Guillermo Novo Sampoll, leader of the Cuban Nationalist Movement (MNC), currently detained in Panama with ringleader Luis Posada Carriles.
* October 5, 1966: bombing of the offices of the Cuban trade delegation in Ottawa resulting in considerable damage.
* September 22, 1966: bazooka attack on the Cuban embassy in Ottawa. Attributed to MNC leader Guillermo Novo Sampoll.
* March 11, 1967: bomb explodes in Montreal at the warehouses of Fraser Brothers, a Canadian firm that traded with Cuba.
* That same March 11, 1967: an explosion at Ruby Foo's restaurant in Montreal. Guillermo Novo Sampoll and his brother Ignacio were arrested on April 7 of that year and interrogated by the FBI in relation to both attacks, according to declassified documents. Neither of them charged.
* May 31, 1967: an explosive device detonated at the Cuba Pavilion in the Universal Exhibition in Montreal, an attack attributed to Cuban Nationalist Action (ANC), headed by Orlando Bosch. MNC leader Felipe Rivero Díaz was arrested in connection with the attack but never charged.
* October 15, 1967: another bomb explodes at the offices of the Cuban trade delegation in Montreal, attributed to Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll from the MNC.
* January 31, 1968: Guillermo Novo Sampoll affirmed that the MNC had terrorist groups in several different countries, including Canada, threatening embassies and merchant banks. The details came from an interview with Alfredo Izaguirre from La Prensa daily in New York, according to a declassified FBI document.
* July 4, 1968: attack on a Canadian tourist office in the United States, carried out by Poder Cubano (Cuban Power).
* October 18, 1968: attack on the offices of a Canadian airline in Miami.
* May 29, 1969: explosive device placed in the doorway of Cuba's General Consulate in Montreal.
* July 12, 1971: explosion at the offices of the Cuban trade delegation in Montreal, attributed to the Gobierno Secreto Cubano (GSC) organization.
* April 4, 1972: explosion at the trade section of the Cuban delegation in Montreal kills Sergio Pérez Castillo. Seven people wounded and significant material damage. The crime was attributed to Antonio Calatayud, then an MNC terrorist and currently leader of the Cuban National Congress in Miami.
* December 13, 1972: GSC plants a bomb at the office of Canadian firm Michael's Forwarding in the United States that traded with Cuba.
* January 21, 1974: bomb at the Cuban embassy in Ottawa attributed to Orlando Bosch.
* June 1974: Bosch creates the Secretariat of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) and later confessed to having sent a letter bomb to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa, according to a declassified FBI document.
* September 22,1976: explosive device lobbed from a car at the Cuban Consulate in Montreal. Orlando Bosch's CORU held responsible for the attack.
* February 10, 1978: Canadian diplomats threatened by Orlando Bosch's CORU organization.
* January 14, 1980: bomb goes off at the Cuban consulate in Montreal causing considerable damage to the building.
* December 1980: Pedro Remón linked to the campaign of attacks by Omega 7 for the first time after being interrogated by immigration officers at the U.S-Canadian border on his way back from Montreal accompanied by Ramon Saúl Sanchez Rizo.

None of the suspects have ever been charged by the courts for any of these acts of terrorism.