Counter-Terrorism Article: There appears to be a lack of references for various pieces of information in this article, such as the very first paragraph in the History section. Despite this, other parts of the article that are cited seem to be done so properly from reliable sources. I think the first paragraph in the Preparation section could be expanded upon with some examples. The 'Command and Control' subsection needs to be cited, as well as the 'Military' section. Outside of those few things everything is well written.
Left-Wing Extremism Article: Good article, but the continent of Africa seems to be grossly underrepresented. So much so that the word Africa is only mentioned once in the article and is not mentioned or cited again. I will do further research into finding specific left-wing terrorist groups that existed in Africa, but I am willing to bet there had to have been a few given the proxy wars that took place there during the Cold War. The article could also make mention of the Animal Liberation Front who has been known to take part in terrorist activities. Despite these small few things everything is well written and cited properly. I will edit my critique after I dig deeper into left-wing resistance in Africa.
OMEGA 7 ARTICLE OUTLINE:
I. Lead Section
a. Omega 7 was a Cuban terrorist group created September of 1974 by Cuban exiles, and headed by Eduardo Arocena. Omega 7 was formed on the basis of its members having mutual disdain for Fidel Castro, the Cuban president at the time. Arocena loosely created two units of the group, with one unit being based out of New Jersey, and the other in Miami. According to the Global Terrorism Database, Omega 7 was responsible for at least 55 known terrorist attacks over the span of 8 years with a majority of them being bombs. The group also took part in multiple high profile murders and assassination attempts and has committed 4 known fatalities. Among their assassinations was Felix Garcia Rodriguez a Cuban delegate who was gunned down on the 6th anniversary of the group. The group had conspired to assassinate Fidel Castro during the Cuban leaders visit to the United Nations in 1979.
II. History
a. Eduardo Arocena was born in Cuba on February 26th 1943, and was in school until the start of Castro’s regime in 1959. Arocena was a gifted amateur wrestler who had considered taking part in the Olympics, but was instead selected by the government to continue his studies in Soviet Union where he was taught aviation. Prior to his move to the Soviet Union, Arocena had been corroborating with other Cuban expatriates and exiles and taking part in activities against Castro that included the destruction of many crucial industrial and agricultural locations. Arocena eventually left to the United States out of fear of his anti-Cuban actions being exposed. While in the U.S. Arocena resided in New Jersey where he worked in a warehouse and started a family. Dissatisfied with the political opposition to Fidel Castro at the time, during the 1970’s Arocena began to recruit Cuban veterans from the Bay Of Pigs Invasion in 1961. In addition to this Arocena would go on to pull members in other anti-Castro exile groups as well, eventually forming his Omega 7 group on September 11, 1974. The New Jersey branch was made up of 7 members (for which the group was named after) including Arocena himself, Jose Juilio Garcia, Pedro Remon, Andres Garcia, Alberto Perez, Eduardo Ochoa, and Eduardo Losada-Fernandez. As the tactical commander of the group, Arocena has stated that the CIA trained him in 1967 in bomb making and a variety of other warfare skills and tactics, although the CIA has never directly confirmed this. Pedro Remon took part in most of Omega 7’s attacks and had the duty of calling local radio stations after each assassination or bombing. Most of the other members typically participated in more minor roles within the group. It is believed that the amount of members in Omega 7 has never exceeded 20. The group was primarily funded by Cuban businessmen, but received additional funding in the early 1980s from marijuana drug traffickers. Although the group never took part in selling, buying, of narcotics the group did perform collection tasks as well as other assignments given to them by the drug traffickers. There was one narcotics supplier in particular known as Manuel Fernandez that would offer Arocena and the group large quantities of cash in exchange for their services. One of these tasks included an assassination attempt on Luis Fuentes a rival drug dealer to Fernandez. Fernandez eventually went on to testify against Arocena and Omega 7 claiming that they were paid up to $150,000 for their services despite never receiving his collection money from group, he also stated that he had sold two submachine guns to Omega 7.
III. Known Attacks
a. On February 1st, 1975 the group bombed the Venezuelan consulate in New York City
b. Arocena confessed to putting a hit out on Eulalio Jose Negrin who had negotiated with Cuba about the release of political prisoners. Arocena did not approve of any diplomatic negotiations with Cuba and therefore ordered Remon to kill Negrin. Remon completed the hit by murdering Negrin with a submachine gun in front of Negrin’s teenage son.
c. Felix Garcia Rodriguez was murdered on September 11, 1980 while driving a station wagon after being shot in the neck by a member of Omega 7
d. During the indictement of Eduardo Arocena, Omega 7 was found guilty of at least seven bombings in the Miami, Florida area.
IV. Indictment of Eduardo Arocena
a. Eduardo Arocena was arrested in Miami on July 22, 1983 On September 22, 1984 Eduardo Arocena was convicted on 26 charges which included murder and bombings, many of which Arocena confessed to prior to his conviction. Arocena was ruled to serve a mandatory life sentence. During Eduardo Arocena’s trial, he claimed to have been taken to the FBI offices in New York City where he accused the Bureau of drugging him to the point of unconsciousness to which he found needle marks in his arms when he awoke. According to Arocena, the FBI had tried to coerce him into speaking about a variety of terrorist groups and operations. This story has never been confirmed by the F.B.I. When Eduardo Arocena was put on trial he initially denied being the leader of Omega 7, claiming that he was simply “obsessed with Communism” and had worked alongside the C.I.A. in Cuba in order to look into communist activities in Cuba. Arocena also denied ever taking part in terrorist actives in the United States, but did state that he was trained in the use of explosives by the C.I.A. in Florida. Arocena also stated that he once traveled Cuba, and releasing “germs” in the environment in order to start a chemical war between Cuba and the United States. In 2008 Arocena’s wife Miriam led a campaign, which petitioned for the release of her husband. Miriam suggested that the life sentence her husband received was unwarranted given the nature and patriotic reasons of Eduardo Arocena’s actions. During the 2008 presidential election, Republican frontrunner John McCain showed his support for Arocena claiming that if he won he would motion to release Arocena from prison.
References
http://www.freelawreporter.org/flr3d/f2d/778/778.F2d.943.84-1390.99.html
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/arocena/MN-7-23-1983-1.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/23/nyregion/suspected-head-of-omega-7-terrorist-group-seized.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/11/nyregion/exile-denies-he-is-omega-7-s-leader.html
http://m.openjurist.org/778/f2d/943
http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/download/terrorism/n323.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58297-2005Apr16.html
PEER REVIEW (Ryan Murphy)
Overall, I found your information for the Omega-7 article to be quite informative, detailed and clearly written. There are a small handful of grammatical errors that could be fixed with a proofread before you actually implement your information into the article (mostly just missing a few commas throughout). In the first section, the sentence: "Among their assassinations was Felix Garcia Rodriguez a Cuban delegate who was gunned down on the 6th anniversary of the group" could be moved into the known attacks section and also I think that the word 'fatalities' is proper yet it just doesn't sound smooth within the framework of the sentence. In section II, History, I think that the last quarter of the paragraph (with the sentence beginning with 'Although') can be slightly condensed and possibly moved into section III of the article because you are describing the attempted assassination along with mentioning their services being bought by Fernandez. Also, I think that you could simplify the sentence in part I that starts with "There was one drug dealer"; it also doesn't sound too encyclopedic. In the 'Known Attacks' section part b. I think it would make the statement for helpful for the reader if you could briefly describe who Negrin was. I haven't read the actual Wiki article about Omega-7, and therefore do not know what is already included, but if you plan on putting all of your sandbox directly into the article then its acceptable. However, if you are going to be adding pieces of this information into the existing article then I would to suggest breaking up your main sections into part a,b,c, like you did in the 'Known Attacks" section. You have done a great job explaining the history of the organization and what the purpose of the group was and I am looking forward to seeing your final product.
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