Frank Calzon

Frank Calzon is the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.

In 2007 Calzon noted that: "I am a Cuban refugee who has spent most of my life advocating human rights for Cubans and others. From l986 through 1997 I was Freedom House’s Washington representative. I have testified before the U.N. Commission for Human Rights in Geneva and for the last ten years I’ve been the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.

"During the current fiscal year the Center for a Free Cuba has received from USAID $l, 081,164 and from the National Endowment for Democracy $21,472.84. We also raise about a quarter of a million dollars a year from the Cuban American community."

"In 1981, Calzon founded the American National Foundation, along with Jorge Mas Canosa, Francisco Jose "Pepe" Hernandez and other emigrés of Cuban origin known for their terrorist activities against Cuba. In CANF, he was executive secretary, a position he used to promote laws against Cuba in the U.S. Congress, as well as to set up the well-known subversive radio station Radio Marti.

"During this time he was also responsible for spearheading a number of aggressive press campaigns against the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) of Cuba.

"Calzon left the CANF in 1987, after a power struggle with president Jorge Mas Canosa. Afterwards, he joined the New York based nongovernmental organization Freedom House...

"With the fall of the socialist camp, Freedom House intensified the development of programs directed to subverting Cuba, fomenting the creation of counter revolutionary organizations and ringleaders in the national territory. Between 1995 and 1997 Calzon directed the Cuban Program of Freedom House, using the same methods employed against former socialist states in Eastern European. His long history with the CIA, beginning at a young age, was a perfect reference point for this post."

In June 2005 Counterpunch noted that "Through his lawyer, Frank Calzon, an anti-Castro zealot, has taken issue with Diana Barahona's article on Reporters without Borders, which recently ran on this site, and in which Calzon featured in a very marginal role.Calzon’s lawyer tells us his client says that he is not a "former special CIA agent", has "never been employed by the CIA", "has never been a member – much less a leader – of the National Liberation Front of Cuba" and "has never supported violence as a means of liberating Cuba”.

"We have removed the relevant passages concerning Calzon from Barahona’s report."


 * Director, The Democracy International