IKEA's Dirty Little Secret .Kelly Cogswell

I love IKEA. Their stuff is cheap. It looks good. They were among the first to use same-sex couples in their advertising. In 2002 the Swedish company ran a print ad in the Netherlands that showed two men kissing while their daughter perched atop a pair of tables, the copy declaring, "My daddies are also a set."
So I was mortified to learn that in the 1970s and '80s they used slave labor. That's what it's called when you use the cut-rate work of political prisoners who get locked up in their cells every night and can't exactly negotiate a raise or even a coffee break.
The news that IKEA used East German forced labor was reported as early as July 2011 in a German.........

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-cogswell/ikeas-dirty-little-secret_b_1510027.html

STASI records show Cuba deal included IKEA furniture, antiques, rum and guns

Posted on Wed, May. 09, 2012

STASI records show Cuba deal included IKEA furniture, antiques, rum and guns

By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

The controversial contract to use Cuban prison labor to build IKEA furniture was part of a broader deal between firms run by the Cuban and East German security services that also involved Cuban antiques, cigars and guns, according to a researcher in Berlin.

Documents on the deal, found in the archives of East Germany’s notorious STASI security agency, also refer to Cuban prison labor and indicate that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro personally approved the overall deal, said researcher Jorge Luis García.

Garcia told El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday he published an article about the deal in 2006 that mentioned the Cuban manufacture of furniture “for export to Sweden,” and posted a note about it in his blog, STASI-MININT Connection, early last year.

But the deal blossomed into scandal last week after a German newspaper reported that an IKEA subsidiary in Berlin and an East German company had contracted for Cuban prison labor to build 45,000 tables and 4,000 sofa groupings in 1987.

The Berlin Wall fell two years later and East Germany — officially the German Democratic Republic — disappeared in 1990 into the Federal Republic of Germany, also sometimes called West Germany.

It remains unclear how much of the 1987 deal was carried out, said the Cuban-born García, who was interrogated in the STASI’s underground cells in East Berlin in 1987. He now guides tours of the cells and researches the agency’s archives.

It was also unclear if prison labor was used to make Cuban products that were not part of the IKEA contract.

One document Garcia found in the archives show the East German firms involved in the deal were Delta GmbH and Art and Antiquities, known as KuA, both controlled by the Interior Ministry, in charge of domestic security. The STASI, which monitored and repressed domestic dissent, was a much feared part of the ministry.

But the companies were officially branches of the government’s foreign trading agency, Kommerzielle Koordinierung. The agency was led by the notorious wheeler-dealer Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, a STASI officer who defected in 1989.

The document shows that the Havana side of the deal was EMIAT, and described the company as owned by Cuba’s Interior Ministry, or MININT. Like its East German counterpart, MININT is in charge of domestic security and runs Cuba’s prisons as well as the General Directory of State Security, which monitors and cracks down on dissidents.

García said the German-language document shows that three officials of KuA and Delta visited Cuba and met with MININT and EMIAT officials Sept. 17-26 of 1987 to discuss a broad array of deals.

“There were visits to production centers. In part, those centers are in penitentiary establishments of the MININT,” Garcia quoted the document as saying. “EMIAT wants to increase the use of those installations for the manufacture of products for export.”

The same document reported that Cuban Foreign Commerce Minister Ricardo Cabrisas had met with the East German visitors and told them “This cooperation has been authorized by Compañero Fidel Castro.”

García added that the document also reported that EMIAT “supplies the guest houses of the government and the Central Committee” of the Cuban Communist Party. “It is also a commercial branch of the MININT.”

A separate document, in Spanish and dated Sept. 26, 1987, is a memorandum of understanding that lists all the agreements reached by the East German visitors and their Cuban hosts, but does not give all the details of all the deals.

The memo notes that the agreements included a deal on “the production of furniture for export to Sweden” — the world headquarters of IKEA — with a total value of 12 million German Marks. But it does not specifically mention IKEA or prison labor.

It appears from the memo that Delta acted on behalf of the Swedish furniture and housewares chain.

Also mentioned in the memo are deals on textiles as well as 10,000 tons of grapefruit juice valued at 4.5 million marks, 200,000 bottles of rum and 200,000 cigars — all three products highly coveted in East Germany because of their “tropical” image.

KuA also ordered three containers of “antique furniture,” the memo added. Castro’s government seized tens of thousands of valuable antiques, paintings and sculptures as wealthy families fled abroad in the early years of the revolution and had to leave their property there.

The Cuban partners also asked for KuA help in exporting to the non-communist world what the document called “Oldtimers” — the antique U.S.-made cars and trucks still seen in Cuban streets to this day. “400 Oldtimers are ready for export,” the document said.

Also mentioned in the memo were sales to East Germany of Cuban shellfish, coffee, precious metals and even coffins, García said by telephone from Berlin. He also provided digital copies of some of the documents.

But there was no indication of which agreements were turned into legal contracts, or which contracts were actually carried out.

Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin in the late 1980s as Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev began cutting subsidies to the island.

Other documents published in Germany last week showed that the initial batch of IKEA sofas produced in Cuba had quality problems, and that a group of Delta officials had to travel to the island to fix the issue. There was no indication of what happened.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by three representatives of Delta and KuA as well as EMIAT chief Lt. Col. Enrique Sanchez, the first secretary at the Cuban embassy to East Germany and Gen. Santiago Borges. García said other STASI documents show Borges ran MININT logistics.

García said another document in the STASI archives, reporting on the East Germans’ trip to Cuba, showed Havana authorities were so happy that they made KuA president Axel Hilpert an honorary MININT colonel and upgraded his flight home to first class.

After he returned to East Berlin, Hilpert brokered the sale of 2,200 U.S.-made Colt pistols in Cuban stockpiles — apparently left over from pre-Castro days — to a Los Angeles weapons dealer, according to the document quoted by García.

Hilpert, a long-time STASI agent code-named “Monika,” became wealthy after the collapse of East Germany, telling reporters that he had made profitable contacts with Western business people during his years at Kommerzielle Koordinierung.

He was investigated in the 1990s in a case involving forged Cuban mail stamps, and the mishandling of some funds during the final days of East Germany, and is now jailed while under investigation on other complaints.

But he is still the co-owner of record of the four-star Resort Schwielowsee in the former East Germany, which hosted a 2007 gathering of G-8 finance ministers. A single room at the lakeside resort near Berlin goes for about $160 a night.

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© 2012 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.

We bring to your attention a Photo / Picture in prison of the Ministry of State Security, or simply DDR Stasi. (Total 27 Photos)

http://www.bggd.com/BBS/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=153153&page=1

Is your .45 an ex-Cuban?

 Is your .45 an ex-Cuban?

Story

17th May 2007, 12:31

A spy tale from the Wall Street Journal - read the bold parts. Makes you wonder, considering the dealer paid about $63 per pistol...

Secret Police Past
Doesn't Cramp
Style of Stasi Agent
His Resort Outside Berlin
Plays Host to G8 Ministers;
The Files on Axel Hilpert
By MARCUS WALKER
May 17, 2007; Page A1

BERLIN -- Gordon Brown, the next prime minister of Britain, a deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury and other grandees of global finance will convene here tomorrow at a lakeside luxury resort featuring American-style clapboard villas, rose-petal baths and tai chi classes.

Their unusual host: a longtime agent of the former East Germany's feared secret police, the Stasi.

Axel Hilpert, the resort's co-owner, rented it to the German government for the meeting of ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialized economies. Long before the 59-year-old became a successful and well-connected property developer, Mr. Hilpert was an undercover agent, code name "Monika," decorated by both the German Democratic Republic and Fidel Castro's Cuba.

 http://forum.m1911.org/archive/index.php/t-30875.html

Abstracts of Documents:The cooperation between the Ministry of Internal Affairs of People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republic Cuba /Bulgarian Intelligence & Security Services in the Cold War

 
Cold War Research Group-Bugaria
Coordinator: Dr. Jordan Baev
e-mail: baevj@mail.orbitel.bg

  Research Blog by Jorge L. García Vázquez: "The Havana-Berlin Connection
                                                                                                                              CC BCP Secretariat Secret Resolution re: Training Cuban security officers in Bulgaria, 8 June 1966 [Source: CDA, Fond 1-B, Opis 64, File 352] RESOLUTION "B" No 8 Of The Secretariat of The Central Committee of The Bulgarian Communist Party from June 8th 1966. The CC BCP Secretariat approves the proposal Comrade Pineiro to visit our country. We can accept 30 people for training only on counterintelligence work. We have no conditions to train people on sabotage.1 Top Secret [Translated by Kalina Bratanova] 1 Handwritten resolution by Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary CC BCP and Prime Minister of PR of Bulgaria .

 TO THE SECRETARY OF THE CC BCP COMRADE LUCHEZAR AVRAMOV Comrade Avramov, At a meeting with Comandante Sergio Del Valle – Politburo member of the Cuban Communist Party, captain Osmani Cienfuegos – head of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the CC of the CCP and Secretary General of the Tricontinental Committee and Comandante Manuel Pineiro - member of the CC of the CCP and head of the State Security service, before my departure from Havana on May 21st there was a demand for accepting 30 Cuban comrades for training in sabotage and contra revolutionary activity. They consider the training period to be about a year and the training itself should be at our expense. They expect to receive an to our country to coordinate the details. I answered I would report the issue to the respective people and they would be informed aanswer in principle not later than June 5th or 6th this year. They can send Comandante Pineiro bout the result. I would like to ask you for your instructions. June 4th 1966 Sofia [Gen. Angel Solakov, Chairman of the State Security Committee]  Ministry of the Interior. Sofia, Fond 1, Record 10a, File 561). 
  
"We have sent information to MVR-Cuba concerning a completed case, information and materials on the operational-investigating work, the organization, structure and activities of VAI - Ministry of Defense."(1). Trad. Greta Keremidchieva).   AMVR Fond 1 Record 12 File 43

Agreement for collaboration between Bulgarian and Cuban Ministries of the Interior, Source: AMVR, Fond 1, Record 10, File 1214]    
 /Bulgarian Intelligence and Security Services in the Cold War years Cold War Research Group-Bulgaria. Coordinator: Dr. Jordan Baev (2)Handbook of the Comunist Security Apparatus in East Central Europe Institute of National Remembrance, Warszawa, Poland /Bulgaria, Jordan Baev, Kostadin Grozev/

[

Draft!

Top secret!

Only copy

AGREEMENT

For cooperation between the Ministry of Internal Affairs of People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republic Cuba

[…]

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the People’s republic of Bulgaria and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Cuba […] agreed upon the following:

Article 1

Both countries will cooperate in the obtaining of political, economic and military information for the USA, Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Great Britain, France, Italy, Turkey, Greece, China and Albania, NATO, the Vatican, Latin America, about the activities of the USA and NATO in the African countries, for other organizations and military pacts, as well as about the contradictions in and between them and will exchange information on the following issues:

- about the forms and the methods of the activities of the hostile intelligence services and the planned and fulfilled actions and operations implemented by them, about the activities of the Zionist centers, Maoism, emigrant and other reactionary organizations and sects, conducted against the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Republic Cuba and the other socialist countries, about the staff and the agents of these services, centers, units and organizations;

- about different companies, institutions and organizations used by the intelligence of the capitalist countries, which carry out subversive activities against the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Republic Cuba, about the activities of the military attaches and the intelligence agents working from legal positions, about provocative actions against the citizens of against the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Republic Cuba; about data and materials, obtained by .....Translated by Yulia Cherneva]

[

     
 Research Blog by Jorge L. García Vázquez: "The Havana-Berlin Connection: State Secrets and Notes on the Collaboration between the Stasi and MININT "                                                                                                                           www.stasi-minint.blogspot.com/ http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/media/Pdf1/CartadeRC.pdf

"East German foreign intelligence: myth, reality and controversy"

 http://books.google.de/books?id=WZOyf8bAStIC&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false

Johann Sebastian Bach, the “Stasi” and Cuba

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Arch Ritter

By Arch Ritter

My wife Joan and I completed our J. S. Bach “Pilgrimage” in late November, 2011, travelling to the various locations where he lived and worked. Our first stop was his birthplace Eisenach where he attended the same school as Martin Luther – but about two centuries later. Then came Ohrdruf, where he lived from age 9 to 15 with his eldest brother, J. C. Bach, also an organist and composer, with whom he studied the organ – both its music and its maintenance and construction. Bach then was capellmeister, organist or court musician in a variety of locations, namely Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, and Köthen before moving to Leipzig for his last 23 years.
http://thecubaneconomy.com/articles/2011/12/johann-sebastian-bach-the-%E2%80%9Cstasi%E2%80%9D-and-cuba/