Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia Victor Manuel Rocha is charged with illegally acting as an agent for Cuba.
A former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia is accused of calling Cuban dictator Fidel Castro “Comandante” and describing the United States as the “enemy,” according to an unsealed criminal complaint Monday.
At the top of a meeting of the DOJ’s Reproductive Rights Task Force, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland first announced a “significant national security related enforcement action” the Justice Department has taken in charging Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, with “illegally acting as an agent of a foreign government.”
Rocha, who is from Miami, Florida, is a former U.S. Department of State employee who served on the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 and ultimately as U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002.
His service also included deputy principal officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba, Garland said.
After leaving the State Department, Rocha served as adviser to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, a joint command of the United States military whose area of responsibility includes Cuba, from about 2006 to 2012.
“This action exposes one of the highest reaching and longest lasting infiltrations of U.
