Netflix Sued for Defamation, Accused of Vilifying Cuban Exile Group in 2020 Film 'Wasp Network'

[Judi Lynn]

(Missed this information last year, just saw it tonight. )

Plaintiff Jose Basulto says the movie willfully painted his anti-Castro nonprofit Brothers to the Rescue as “terrorists” and “criminals”

Jose Basulto

Josh Dickey
June 14, 2022 @ 9:13 AM
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A prominent Cuban exile and anti-Castro activist has sued Netflix for defamation, claiming the 2020 film “The Wasp Network” – marketed heavily as being “based on a true story” – defamed him and his organization by portraying them as “terrorists and criminals” while glorifying communist spies.

The plaintiff, Jose Basulto, was a CIA-trained anti-communist activist, pilot and dissident leader who escaped Cuba to fight the Castro regime. In the early 1990s, he started Brothers to the Rescue, a Florida-based nonprofit that flew seaplanes to assist refugees struggling in open water; the Cuban government called those airspace violations “terrorist acts,” and even shot down two aircraft in 1996.

“The Wasp Network” focuses on “The Cuban Five,” a group of nationalist spies dispatched by the Cuban Ministry to oppose and sabotage anti-regime groups like Brothers to the Rescue. It was released June 19, 2020, on Netflix worldwide. Penelope Cruz, Gael Garcia Bernal, Edgar Ramirez and Ana de Armas make up the top-billed cast; Basulto is played by Leonardo Sbaraglia.

“The Film romanticizes, or glorifies, the criminal activity conducted by spies of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior, i.e., the ‘Cuban Five,’ whose espionage work was responsible for the death of four Americans in 1996, as being based on ‘True Events,’” reads the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Florida.

More:
https://www.thewrap.com/netflix-sued-defamation-cuban-exile-wasp-network/

[Judi Lynn]

1. What happened before the 5 Cuban spies went to Florida.....

Wayne S. Smith, the head of the American Interests Section in Havana, located in the Swiss Embassy (The U.S.'s substitute for an actual US embassy after the Revolution) has written about José Basulto's "exile" organization (Batista supporters working to overthrow the revolution) "Hermanos al Rescate" (Brothers to the Rescue) which flew old, retired US Air Force airplanes over Cuba continually, at very low altitude, so low that Smith said you could read their I.D. letters just standing on the steps of the Interests Section in Havana without binoculars, and threw metal medallions out, with some people on the ground getting scuffed up by them, along with "exile" leaflets, etc.

They invaded Cuban air space repeatedly, with Carter's Interests Section personnel there to witness it. at some point, Cuba became infuriated with this crap, and contacted the US repeatedly to keep these Brothers out of Cuban air space. Of course, Basulto always denied it, and continued to terrorize Cubans.

That happened before the 5 men went to Miami, and started working at the air base where the Brothers flew, apparently hoping to be able to keep an eye on their movements to prevent anything lethal from being dumped on the island by Basulto and his group of actual intentional terrorists. (Brothers to the "Rescue&quot (you bet) . They publicly claimed they flew over the Caribbean keeping their eyes on Cuban rafters travelling across the water to get to Miami, to save their lives.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Washington Post article from 1996 re: the shootdown

CUBAN ACTION'S TIMING PUZZLING TO OBSERVERS
By Douglas Farah
February 27, 1996

For the last year, the Cuban government has worked diligently to end its isolation. It obtained foreign financing for a crucial sugar harvest and reestablished diplomatic and trade relations with countries across the hemisphere. It even signed an unprecedented agreement with its nemesis, the United States, to stop illegal immigration.

These recent successes, which have accompanied a small but significant improvement in the Cuban economy after years of decline, make the decision to shoot down two civilian aircraft belonging to the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue group perplexing to many Cuba analysts.

A U.S. official traveling here with Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Washington has come up with "no credible explanation" for why the Cubans, after tolerating months of illegal flights, decided to shoot the planes down now. Washington has concluded at this point that the incident was a "screw-up," he added.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/02/27/cuban-actions-timing-puzzling-to-observers/681150c8-57ca-4f19-a423-91bfa2d1829f/

[Judi Lynn]

3. More from the Post article:

- snip -
Many in the hard-line Cuban American community in Florida never have trusted President Clinton. The distrust turned to a feeling of betrayal last May when the United States reached an agreement with President Fidel Castro's government that allowed Cuban rafters to be returned to Cuba, rather than granting them automatic political asylum in the United States. Later last year, the Clinton administration announced a loosening of some travel and communications restrictions as well.

Frustrated by what many viewed as a softening of the traditional U.S. hard line toward Castro, several groups, including Brothers to the Rescue, embarked on a much more confrontational approach.


This included an incident July 13, when the exile community organized a flotilla that tried to penetrate Cuban waters but was turned back. Two days later, Castro warned that Cuban patience "can run out" with those who violate Cuban waters and airspace. In August, the Cubans deployed several antiaircraft batteries along Havana's waterfront, and again warned that aircraft entering would be shot down.

Knowledgeable sources said that Castro ordered the Cuban military to make sure Cuban airspace and waters were not violated again.

On both Jan. 9 and Jan. 13, however, small airplanes flew over Havana, dropping anti-Castro leaflets, urging people to rise up against the government.

"The Cubans were absolutely livid, and the military was embarrassed," said Wayne Smith, who headed the U.S. Interests Section in Havana during the Carter administration and was in Havana during the January incidents. "The military promised Castro that they would not let this happen and it did. So the order went out to shoot them down. . . . And what had the U.S. government done to try to prevent those incursions? That group consistently filed false flight plans and no one lifted a finger."

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/02/27/cuban-actions-timing-puzzling-to-observers/681150c8-57ca-4f19-a423-91bfa2d1829f/


https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/02/27/cuban-actions-timing-puzzling-to-observers/681150c8-57ca-4f19-a423-91bfa2d1829f/