Lourdes, Cuba: Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) facility

Cuba has an agreement with Russia which allows Moscow to maintain a signals intelligence facility near Havana at Torrens [23°00'01"N 82°28'56"W], also known as Lourdes, which is the largest Russian SIGINT site abroad. The strategic location of Lourdes makes it ideal for gathering intelligence on the United States. It has been reported that the Lourdes facility is the largest such complex operated by the Russian Federation and its intelligence service outside the region of the former Soviet Union. The Lourdes facility is reported to cover a 28 square-mile area with 1,000-1,500 Russian engineers, technicians, and military personnel working at the base. Experts familiar with the Lourdes facility have reportedly confirmed that the base has multiple groups of tracking dishes and its own satellite system, with some groups used to intercept telephone calls, faxes, and computer communications, in general, and with other groups used to cover targeted telephones and devices. According to American intelligence, an unusually large number of Soviet ships delivered military cargoes to Cuba beginning in late July 1962, to support the construction of a variety of military activities, including setting up facilities for electronic and communications intelligence. In the area just south of Havana city, a number of farms were evacuated and the boys' reformatory at Torrens, two and one half miles on the road to San Pedro from Havana, was converted for living quarters for numbers of foreign personnel. The numerous Soviet personnel who moved in early in August 1962 wore casual, dirty, civilian clothes.

The SIGINT facility at Lourdes is among the most significant intelligence collection capabilities targeting the United States. This facility, less than 100 miles from Key West, is one of the largest and most sophisticated SIGINT collection facilities in the world. It is jointly operated by Russian military intelligence (GRU), FAPSI, and Cuba's intelligence services. The Federal Agency for Governent Conununications (FAPSI) evolved in the early 1990's from the former KGB's SIGINT service. According to Russian press sources, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) also has a communications center at the facility for its agent network in North and South America.

The complex is capable of monitoring a wide array of commercial and government communications throughout the southeastern United States, and between the United States and Europe. Lourdes intercepts transmissions from microwave towers in the United States, communication satellite downlinks, and a wide range of shortwave and high-frequency radio transmissions. It also serves as a mission ground station and analytical facility supporting Russian SIGINT satellites.

The facility at Lourdes, together with a sister facility in Russia, allows the Russians to monitor all U. S. military and civilian geosynchronous communications satellites. It has been alleged that the Lourdes facility monitors all White House communications activities, launch control communications and telemetry from NASA and Air Force facilities at Cape Canaveral, financial and commodity wire services, and military communications links. According to one source, Lourdes has a special collection and analysis facility that is responsible for targeting financial and political information. This activity is manned by specially selected personnel and appears to be highly successful in providing Russian leaders with political and economic intelligence.

From this key facility, first the Soviet Union and now Russia have historically monitored U.S. commercial satellites, and sensitive communications dealing with US military, merchant shipping, and Florida-based NASA space programs. According to a 1993 statement by Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro, Russia is said to obtain 75 percent of its military strategic information from Lourdes.

The Lourdes facility enables Russia to eavesdrop on US telephone communications. US voice and data telephone transmissions relayed by satellites visible to the facility are vulnerable to Russian intercept. Although sensitive U.S. goverrunent conununications are encrypted to prevent this intercept, most other unprotected telephone communications in the United States are systematically intercepted.

In addition to its military strategic value, Lourdes will increasingly be used to support the Russian economy, a current FAPSI priority. In addition to unprotected commercial information, personal information about U.S. citizens in the private and goverrunent sectors also can be snatched from the airwaves and used by Russian intelligence to identity promising espionage recruits in these sectors.

In October 1995, Cuba and Russia produced an agreement on the continued functioning of the site until the year 2000. Although the amount of Russian compensation for the site is unclear, a 1994 agreement called for Russia to provide Cuba approximately $200 million worth of fuel, timber and spare parts for various equipment, including military, for the operation of the facility during that year.

The strategic significance of the Lourdes facility has possibly grown since the 07 February 1996 directive from Russian President Boris Yeltsin directing the Russian intelligence community step up the acquisition of American and other Western economic and trade secrets. However in congressional testimony delivered on March 16, 1995, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Alexander Watson stated that pressuring Russia to discontinue SIGINT activities in Cuba "could limit our ability to promote reform and stability in Russia" as it could "be seen by the Russians as interfering with the exercise of their right under the START Treaty to monitor compliance with the agreement...." In contrast to the situation in the early 1980s, when the bulk of US voice traffic was carried by microwave, Lourdes can no longer intercept a significant fraction of US telecommunications, because most US telecommunications do not any longer travel via microwave radio. At the very best the Lourdes facility might possibly be able to see occasional microwave scatter traffic from southern Florida and the Caribbean on very good days. But the facility is well placed to intercept domestic and international satellite traffic from US satellites with footprints that include the Caribbean.

Section 106(d) of the Helms/Burton Legislation [P.L. 104-114] signed into law on 12 March 1996, withholds U.S. assistance from Russia by an amount equal to the sum of assistance and credits provided (on or after the enactment of this provision) in support of the Russian intelligence facility at Lourdes, Cuba. However, the provision includes a presidential waiver if such assistance to Russia is in the US national security interest, and if the President certifies that Russia is not sharing intelligence data collected at Lourdes with officials or agents of the Cuban government. On October 17, 2001, Russian President Putin announced that the Lourdes facility would be shut down. President Bush welcomed the decision. Yet, on 15 July 2003, a US government-funded broadcasting agency condemned Cuba for allegedly jamming US international broadcasts to Iran. A statement released by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent federal agency which oversees all U.S. non-military international broadcasting, including the Voice of America, called the Cuban action "a 'deliberate and malicious' effort to block Iranian audiences from getting access to truthful news and information." The jamming was reportedly first detected on 06 July 2003, on the date of VOA's launch of a daily half-hour Persian language television news and analysis program.

Well if Putin doesn't want it anymore and it is proving a nucience for our broadcast to Iran, I say we unplug it!

Time to call up the Marines!

Russian Spy Station Casualty of War against Terrorism

Cuba Blasts Russian Decision to Close Lourdes Base

Nick Miroff
World Press Review Correspondent
Oct. 26, 2001

From the Ground: The Lourdes Electronic Surveillance Station, Russia's largest overseas covert military station (Photo: AFP).

On Oct. 18, the Cuban government released an official declaration firmly rebuking Russian President Vladimir Putin's abrupt announcement that Russia is cancelling its lease on the Lourdes Electronic Surveillance Station, labeling the decision "a special gift" to U.S. President George Bush. While both U.S. and Russian officials spoke last week of "retiring a Cold War relic" and a sensible reallocation of Russian military funds, the Cuban declaration painted a different picture—one that further illustrates how quickly the world is realigning itself as a result of the new international war on terrorism.

The view from a U.S. spy plane (Photo courtesy of the Fedaration of American Scientists)

The Cuban government's statement occupied the entire front page of the Oct. 18 edition of Havana's government-owned Granma. In a measured but forceful tone, the statement described the history of the Lourdes Base and the political developments that Cuba perceives as having led up to Russia’s unexpected decision. According to the statement published in Granma, during Putin’s visit to Cuba last December, he spoke not of a Russian withdrawal from Lourdes, but of developing and modernizing the facility, saying that "Russia and Cuba are interested in continuing to promote its function."

The Lourdes Station was built just outside Havana by the Soviets in 1964. According to U.S. and British newspaper reports, the station—one of the largest of its kind in the world—employs 1,500 Russian military personnel, and is capable of tapping into White House communications, NASA transmissions, and regional U.S. military signals. The Cuban statement explains that while the Soviet Union was allowed to operate the base "without paying a cent" until the 1990's, Cuba decided to charge the new Russian Federation rent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, since "not even the most minimal political or ideological connection existed between them."

In recent years, Cuba had been receiving some U.S. $200 million a year in rent for the facility from Moscow. Russian officials have reportedly been grumbling about the rent for some time, citing Cuba’s massive foreign debt to Moscow.

Understandably, Cuba is not willing to lose the station without a fight. In their Oct. 18 statement, the government insisted that "the agreement has not been cancelled, since Cuba has yet to give its approval."

According to Havana, Russia’s decision came at "the most inopportune moment, at the exact moment when the United States is more bellicose and politically aggressive than ever, leading many countries to feel threatened." This is both a reference to Cuba’s presence on the U.S. blacklist of seven nations that harbor terrorists, and to President Bush’s earlier warning to foreign governments that they "are either with us or [they] are with the terrorists." Though Cuba signed a broad U.N. resolution to fight terrorism on Sept. 28, and has repeatedly offered its sympathy to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Havana remains adamantly opposed to the current U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, arguing that the conflict should be resolved through the United Nations instead.

The Lourdes Base has been a sticking point in Moscow's relations with Washington for years. Its presence has been cited as an obstruction to Congressional approval of new Russian aid packages.

According to the Cuban statement, the Russians rushed to "declare publicly and immediately" that the Lourdes agreement had been nullified prior to Putin’s meeting with President Bush in Shanghai. The ensuing scenes of jocular exchanges and new-found fraternizing between Putin and Bush have certainly only added to Cuba’s frustration and sense of betrayal.

The closure of the base not only robs the Cuban government of an important source of revenue and intelligence, it also drags a familiar skeleton from the Cold War closet. In 1962, former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev brokered a secret deal with the Kennedy administration to remove Soviet missiles from the island, effectively resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuban President Fidel Castro was not privy to those negotiations either. At least that time Cuba was compensated with additional Soviet aid and new military facilities such as the Lourdes base. This time, the Russians have not yet publicly offered anything to compensate Cuba for the loss of the Lourdes base, and Cuba fears that it may now be left with little more than another Cold-War skeleton.

I don't know about tinfoil in respect to the Cuban's, but in respect to the Chinese and their use of Lourdes, well that's another matter!!

From: freecubanow@hotmail.com (freecubanow)
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Intelligence news: China to build new communications spy base in Cuba

The recent meeting between China's Minister of Defense Chi Haotian and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro, has led to a joint military agreement that threatens the United States, the Orlando Sentinel reports. China has agreed to build a new electronic spying facility and modernize Cuba's satellite tracking base at Jaruco, Cuba. The facility neighbors the large Russian-manned signal intelligence complex at Lourdes, which can monitor U.S. civilian and military telecommunications in an area that covers from California to Europe. Under the agreement, the Chinese will also modernize Castro's telecommunications monitoring base in Havana.

CUBA
Whilst the US and NATO were busy in Yugoslavia, China was cementing relations with Cuba and is now financing and modernising Cuba's telecommunications and electronics industry. Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with Cuban President Fidel Castro 13th April 2001 and signed contracts for US$400 million of business. In addition to the telephone system and electronics the agreements cover sports, educational exchange, maritime relations, a fiscal agreement to avoid double taxation, economic and technical exchanges, a bank credit for a hotel now being built in downtown Havana and a US$150 million credit for the purchase of Chinese television sets. During Jiang's visit a high level American trade delegation left Cuba empty handed.

China's Defence Minister visited Cuba over one year ago. China already has a techno-spy base and communication bases in Cuba and is building intelligence facilities at Torrens/Lourdes adjacent to a massive Russian facility already in operation. It has been reported that the Lourdes facility is the largest such complex operated by the Russian Federation and its intelligence service outside the region of the former Soviet Union. The Lourdes facility is reported to cover a 28 square-mile area with some 1,500 Russian engineers, technicians, and military personnel working at the base. Experts familiar with the Lourdes facility have reportedly confirmed that the base has multiple groups of tracking dishes and its own satellite system, with some groups used to intercept telephone calls, faxes, and computer communications in general, and other groups used to cover targeted telephones and devices. The Lourdes facility also monitors the U.S. Atlantic fleet and elements of U.S. Pacific fleet operations as well as domestic, commercial and military communications throughout the Americas.

The Cuban Missile Crisis between Russia and America in October 1962 successfully stopped Russia from installing strategic missiles on Cuba. Today China has a strong presence within Cuba and could position strategic missiles on the island relatively easily. Nothing has been done to address this potentially dangerous situation of cities throughout North America becoming targeted by missiles to be launched out of Cuba.

http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/chinagrowingthreatapr01.shtml

May 6 The recent meeting between China's Minister of Defense Chi Haotian and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro, has led to a joint military agreement that threatens the United States, the Orlando Sentinel reports. China has agreed to build a new electronic spying facility and modernize Cuba's satellite tracking base at Jaruco, Cuba, The facility neighbors the large Russian-manned signal intelligence complex at Lourdes, which can monitor U.S. civilian and military telecommunications in an area that covers from California to Europe. Under the agreement, the Chinese will also modernize Castro's telecommunications monitoring base in Havana.
http://www.afpc.org/crm/crm201.htm

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