Extradite Posada Carriles Now
The U.S. government has released known terrorist Luis Posada Carriles from jail and allowed him to return to Miami. Pasada is well-known for numerous terrorist actions, including blowing up a Cubana plane and killing all 73 people on board. The judge who ordered his release even sited some of his crimes, then claimed they had nothing to do with the case at hand. This only further exposed U.S crimes and double standards. While Posada is a terrorist and Bush has repeatedly claimed he will not tolerate any terrorist or those who harbor them, Bush is refusing to have Posada charged and tried for his terrorist crimes. Bush is refusing to extradite him to Venezuela to stand trial, and refusing to extradite him anywhere where he would be held responsible for his mass killings. Similarly, while the government is raiding immigrant communities with machine guns and summarily deporting tens of thousands on the grounds that they entered the country illegally and pose a “security” threat. Posada a known terrorist, is being charged with entering the country illegally. He is being given a trial and released on bail.
Posada was trained, equipped, funded and repeatedly protected by the U.S. government, specifically the CIA. He has openly bragged about his terrorist actions and said he would do them again. Clearly one of the reasons the U.S. is refusing to charge him with terrorism is that such a trial would reveal the crimes of the government. It would reveal that not only Bush but many previous U.S. Presidents, back at least to the 1960’s, are guilty of terrorist crimes against Cuba and all of Latin America. Posada, for example was a part of the governments “Operation Condor” which was a brutal campaign of terrorism and repression against the peoples of Latin America. The U.S. terrorists, the worst in the world, do not want to expose one of their main henchman responsible for actually doing the dirty work.
The U.S. double standard when it comes to terrorism is also evident in the fact that five Cubans who attempted to expose the very circles in Miami that Posada was a part of, were falsely charged and imprisoned with long jail terms. They have faced solitary confinement and very difficult conditions for being anti-terrorists and opposing forces like Posada. Yet they remain in jail while Posada, known worldwide as a terrorist, walks free.
Buffalo Forum denounces the government’s double standards and its refusal to extradite Posada to Venezuela. We join millions worldwide in demanding his immediate arrest and extradition for crimes of terrorism. We urge everyone to support the International Day of Action May 11 to insist that the U.S. Extradite Posada Carriles Now.
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May 11 Demonstrations
Posada’s Release Is a Crime of George W. Bush
The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five and the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, have conducted a two-year campaign to demand the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela to stand trial for his terrorist crimes. We denounce in the strongest terms the release of Posada Carriles to walk the streets of Miami.
Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, said, “The release of Luis Posada Carriles is an absolute outrage, and George W. Bush is directly responsible. He is fully aware that Posada has murdered dozens of people, from the 1976 mid-air plane bombing which killed 73 people, to the torture and murder of Venezuelan citizens, to the bombing of Havana hotels in the late 90s which took the life of Fabio di Celmo. Bush has never uttered a word to denounce Posada’s presence in the United States.” La Riva added, “It is Posada who should be in prison, not the Cuban Five.”
“On May 11, when his trial on the ridiculously minimal charge of immigration fraud takes place, many organizations and churches will hold a national demonstration in front of the courtroom in El Paso. We call on people in cities across the country and around the world to protest on that day.” Brian Becker, national director of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, said, “The people of the United States are being subjected to an Alice in Wonderland world; everything is turned upside-down. Bush refuses to characterize Posada as a terrorist and he walks the streets free, while the Cuban Five who fought terrorism, languish in U.S. prisons. We are demanding that Luis Posada Carriles be extradited to Venezuela to stand trial for his monstrous crimes.”
José Pertierra, attorney for the Venezuelan government, added: “The Bush Administration, by freeing this international terrorist, shows the level of disrespect that the government has for its own system of laws.The law requires that he be held. This release makes a mockery of the memory of the victims of Posada, and is an insult to their families. By freeing Posada Carriles, he is a threat not only to flee, but a threat to the whole community. From Miami he can continue to carry out acts of terrorism.” Andrés Gómez, national coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, also denounced the release of Posada. “Posada’s presence in Miami is a grave and present danger to our communities in Miami. Posada, Bosch, and other terrorists are men with no regard for human life. They store their illegal arsenals next to our homes and children. The government’s actions demonstrate that is the same policy of supporting terrorists that Bush’s father had.,” who released Orlando Bosch. Now George W. Bush is repeating the same outrage.”
Calendar of Events for International Day of Action May 11
Extradite Luis Posada Carriles! Free the Cuban Five! No to Double Standards!
El Paso, Texas, 11 am: Press conference and protest at the El Paso Courthouse, featuring former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and former U.S. Congressperson Cynthia McKinney
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 11:30am: Picket, Federal Courthouse. Sponsored by Southwest Organizing Project.
Los Angeles, California, 12 noon: Protest & Press Conference, downtown Federal building.
San Francisco, California, 12 noon: Rally at Federal courthouse
Seattle, Washington, 4pm: Westlake Park.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 4pm: Demonstrate Reuss Federal Plaza.
Chicago, Illinois, 5pm: Protest and rally at Federal Plaza.
Detroit, Michigan, 5pm: Demonstrate, Old Federal Building.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 5pm: Protest at the William S. Moorhead Federal
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4:30pm: Speak Out and Picket, Federal Courthouse
New York City, New York, 5 pm: Protest at Federal Plaza
Boston, Massachusetts 4:30pm: Protest at Government Center subway stop
Washington, DC, 12 noon: Press conference and rally at Justice Department
Charlotte, North Carolina, 7pm: Screening of "Mission Against Terror," at Charlotte Energy Solutions
Miami, Florida, May 12, 11am: Rally in front of Immigration Headquarters.
At U.S. Consulates Worldwide: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Canada; Juarez, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Madrid, Spain, and elsewhere.
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A terrorist walks:
Luis Posada Carriles Has Boasted of Bombing
Havana Hotels, Yet
American Justice Lets Him Go Free
With a misguided decision upholding bail for Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has done more than free a frail old man facing unremarkable immigration charges. It has exposed Washington to legitimate charges of hypocrisy in the war on terror.
By allowing Posada to go free before his May 11 trial, the court has released a known flight risk who previously escaped from a Venezuelan prison, a man who has boasted of helping set off deadly bombs in Havana hotels 10 years ago and the alleged mastermind of a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airplane that killed 73 people. Posada’s employees confessed to the attack, and declassified FBI and CIA documents have shown that he attended planning sessions.
In other words, Posada is the Zacarias Moussaoui of Havana and Caracas. Moussaoui is serving a life sentence without parole in a federal prison in Colorado for conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks; Posada is free to live in Miami.
Posada, a 79-year-old Bay of Pigs veteran who served time in Panama for plotting to kill Fidel Castro, has never been charged with crimes of terrorism in U.S. courts. Instead, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement nabbed him for lying to immigration authorities after he sneaked in the country in March 2005 and held a news conference announcing his triumphant return. Both Customs and the Justice Department lobbied to keep Posada behind bars, but U.S. law enforcement has never shown a strong interest in trying him for more serious crimes. In turn, Posada’s lawyer has preemptively warned that if charged, his client would likely reveal extensive collaboration with the CIA.
The United States keeps 385 suspected terrorists imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, many in isolation and all without U.S. norms of due process. Yet Posada, a confessed terrorist, is sent home with an ankle bracelet.
The United States has not been able to persuade any of seven allied nations to accept Posada. A federal judge has ruled that he can’t be extradited to Cuba or Venezuela because he might be tortured. The best solution would have been for the court to refuse bail until trial while the State Department keeps searching for a third-party country that would agree to try him on terrorism charges.
Instead, Castro receives a propaganda victory gift, the White House has its moral authority undermined and the victims of Carriles’ alleged crimes see justice delayed once more.
The U.S. government has done many odd things in 46 years of a largely failed Cuba policy, but letting a notorious terrorist walk stands among the most perverse yet.
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Extradite Luis Posada Carriles! Free the Cuban Five!
International Denunciation of U.S. Double Standards in “War on Terror”
Worldwide denunciation of the U.S. double standard in the case of notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is increasing. Thousands have signed the international petition demanding Posada Carriles be brought to justice, including many well-known personalities such as Nobel prize winners, cultural figures, intellectuals and political leaders.
In Cuba, demonstrations have been taking place with increasing vigor with the release of Posada Carriles and his impending trial. Cuban workers are preparing for May Day with marches against terrorism, in rejection of the U.S. decision to free the international terrorist Posada Carriles and to demand that the U.S. free the Cuban Five Cuban patriots. The Cuban Five, organizing against terrorists connected with Pasada Carriles in Miami were unjustly charged and jailed and continue to serve long prison sentences under brutal conditions. (see www.freethefive.org for more information). Below we reprint the worldwide petition.
Worldwide Petition: Luis Posada -Carriles Must Be Tried for His Crimes
While in the name of the fight against terrorism, hundreds of thousands of people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and others — arbitrarily detained — are tortured in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the United States government protects the most notorious terrorist in this hemisphere, attempting to deceive public opinion through interminable pseudo-legal maneuvers and refusing to try him for his real crimes.
Luis Posada Carriles was accused and brought to trial in Venezuela for the 1976 attack against a commercial aircraft in which 73 people died. After escaping from Venezuelan prisons in 1982 — leaving his trial unconcluded — he served the CIA as part of what was known as the “Iran-contras” operation and also in the implementation of the genocidal Plan Condor. In 1997 he prepared a series of terrorist acts against hotels in Havana — in one of which the young Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, lost his life — and in the year 2000, the projected attempt against President Fidel Castro’s life at the University of Panama.
In March 2005, Posada Carriles entered the United States illegally. Only after reiterated public denunciations that revealed the presence of this criminal in U.S. territory, the government of George W. Bush proceeded to detain and charge him for immigration crimes and false witness, without the slightest reference to terrorism.
Through their handling of Posada Carriles, the U.S. authorities, pressured by groups of Cuban extremists in South Florida, have made evident the double morality of their war against terrorism in the name of which they torture, kidnap and bomb. At the same time, as has been denounced by numerous international forums and United Nations’ agencies, five Cuban anti-terrorist activists remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States, subjected together with their families to cruel and discriminatory treatment.
All honest people of the world who raise their voices against war and terrorism, have before them irrefutable proof of the lack of ethics upon which the current administration in Washington bases its actions. We, the undersigned, demand that the government of the United States, in compliance with international obligations, charge Luis Posada Carriles for all of his crimes or attend to the request for his extradition to Venezuela, which until now has received absolutely no response.
To view signatures or to sign go to: www.porlajusticia.cu/index
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Worldwide Denunciations and Actions
Extradite Posada Carriles to Face Charges of Terrorism
Organizations around the world are denouncing U.S. refusal to extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela to go on trial for charges of terrorism, including the killing of 73 people, killed when their Cubana plane was bombed in mid-air. Below are some of the many actions worldwide.
Canada
The Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC), an umbrella organization of 25 member groups representing more than 55,000 people across Canada, has been following and documenting Luis Posada Carriles’ career and finds his release and trial a “complete miscarriage of justice.” The statement added “It is disturbing that Mr. Posada is on trial for illegally entering the U.S. when he should be on trial for terrorist activities.” Responding to Venezuela’s demand that Posada Carriles be extradited to that country to continue his trial interrupted 20 years ago when Posada fled the country, “There is no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Posada will be tortured there as the U.S. government claims,” Mr. Pagliccia said. “This is just a case of protection of an ex-CIA agent that might reveal the agency’s involvement in terrorist activities,” he added.
Mexico
The Mexican Senate exhorted the Mexican government to speak out against the unjustified release of Posada Carriles. A unanimously approved agreement in the Senate urges the Foreign Affairs Ministry to send a diplomatic note to Washington urging respect of United Nations accords on terrorism. The note says the U.S. Congress must honor the Venezuelan extradition request to present Posada Carriles to that nation’s court. At least 204 important Mexican figures have joined the call to denounce U.S. double standard thus far.
Venezuela
“Venezuela is outraged with the protection the U.S. government continues providing the man known as the father of terrorists in the American continent,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez said freeing Posada Carriles totally unmasks the Bush Administration and shows the world the double standard employed by the U.S. in its highly trumpeted war against terrorism. “We demand the assassin and terrorist be extradited to Venezuela,” he stressed. The Venezuelan Committee for the Extradition of Posada Carriles announced that it would begin a new series of actions to detain the criminal. Venezuela is also taking their demand to various international fora, including the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS) Permanent Council. Venezuela is also spearheading a move to present the issue before the World Inter-Parliament Summit, meeting in Indonesia from April 29 to May 4. Both Venezeula and the Latin American, Caribbean Parliament Group (GRULAC) will call on the U.S. Congress to declare itself on the decision to release Posada Carriles.
Bolivia
Bolivian President Evo Morales and Culture Vice-minister Pablo Groux and Deputy Gustavo Torrico, parliamentary leader of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) are amongst the notable Bolivian signatories to the worldwide petition. Filmmaker Jorge Sanjines, several parliamentarians, leaders of social organizations and movements of solidarity with Cuba have also publicly repudiated the terrorist’s recent release.
Ecuador
Ecuadorian indigenous peoples have raised their voices to condemn the release of international terrorist and former CIA operative Posada Carriles. The Confederation of Kichwa People of Ecuador (-ECUARUNARI) said setting him free was another example of the double standard of the U.S. government. ECUARUNARI president Humberto Cholango linked CIA operations in Central America in the 1980s, the Condor Plan to eliminate progressive leaders in South America and an assassination attempt against Cuban President Fidel Castro in the Panama University in 2000. Faced with this decision, he called for the national government of President Rafael Correa to suspend all military contact with United States and close the base in Manta used by U.S. forces.
El Salvador
Salvadoran workers will march on May Day to demand punishment for terrorist Posada Carriles, whose release has raised strong indignation. Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a deputy for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), made the announcement on Saturday, at a public assembly in Barrios Park, San Salvador’s historic heart. The head of the FMLN parliamentary bloc said that political organization is concerned about an eventual deportation of Posada Carriles to El Salvador. That criminal has built a structure supported by U.S. and Salvadoran military officers to commit terrorist actions against the peoples of the region, he recalled.
Barbados
The July 26 Movement (Barbados) and other organizations in a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush call for extradicting Posada Carriles to Venezuela to stand trial for the airline bombing. The letter follows:
Dear President;
The July 26 Movement (Barbados), Cuban Barbadian Friendship Association, Cuban Five Justice Committee (Barbados) and all progressive forces in Barbados demand that the Government of the United States of America start the immediate process for the extradition of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for the killing of 73 persons on board the Cubana Airline flight on October 6, 1976 in Barbados. Our Movement sees the release of Luis Posada Carriles, of Cuban origin, as U.S support for terrorist acts against the Government and People of the Republic of Cuba. […] Our Movement will never forget the pain and suffering on October, 6 1976. The people of Barbados also felt that pain and suffer from the bombing. Our Movement will continue to remain in solidarity with the Cuban people against all terrorist acts against the Government and People of the Republic of Cuba.
Europe
Spanish parliamentarian and European Deputy Willy Meyer urged the European Union Council to condemn the release of terrorist Posada Carriles. Meyer said Posada Carriles’ release “emphasizes the U.S. government’s complicity with the acts committed by this individual.” He asked the EU to issue a statement denouncing the release and demanding the U.S honor the extradition requests presented by Cuba and Venezuela. British playwright and Nobel Literature Prize winner Harold Pinter has condemned the felony committed by the U.S. justice system in releasing Posada Carriles on bail. Pinter, who considers the George W. Bush government as the most dangerous regime that has ever existed, more dangerous than that of Nazi Germany itself given the extension and depth of its activities and intentions all over the world, has added his name to the international petition.
South Africa
The people and government of South Africa also condemned Posada Carriles’ release by the United States and feel indignant about that situation, that country’s Ambassador to Cuba Thenjiwe Mtintso said.
Iran
On April 23, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, on a two-day visit to Cuba, stated that the U.S. supported terrorism in various parts of the world, criticizing the release of former CIA operative Posada Carriles. “He is a terrorist protected by the United States,” the minister said.
Russia
The Russian left-wing political, solidarity, trade union and social movement We Shall Overcome (Venceremos) sent a condemnation note to the U.S. Embassy in Russia demanding the U.S. put notorious Posada Carriles back in prison. “We join the international demand from many personalities for Posada to be judged, and we demand the U.S. government stop every kind of aggression against Cuba,” coordinator Anatoli Latzhen said. We Shall Overcome will continue its activity for solidarity with Cuba including a meeting close to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Russian cosmonauts Vitali Sevasrianov and Svetlana Savitskaia and a dozen members of that country’s Parliament have also demanded that Posada Carriles be tried for his crimes or extradited to Venezuela.
China
The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spoke out against U.S. double standards, not only in the anti-terrorist struggle but also in international policy. The ministry stated that double standards will not favor the fight against international terrorism.
Vietnam
In Ho Chi Minh city a rally was held at the Museum of War to expose the U.S. double standard with the arbitrary jailing of the Five Cuban anti-terrorists. Participants read letters by two of the Cuban Five, Antonio “Tony” Guerrero and Ramon Labanino, answering a solidarity letter from veteran combatant Ho Thi Minh Nguyet. During the ruthless U.S. invasion of Vietnam, Nguyet survived torture and abuse at the southern city of Con Dao, to emerge as a symbol of struggle for his people.
Laos
At the end of an official visit to Bolivia, Laotian foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Thongloun Sisoulith, condemned U.S. aggressions against Cuba for over 45 years as well as the recent release on bail of notorious terrorist Posada Carriles by the Bush administration. Sisoulith said his government is against violence and added his signature to the worldwide petition.
Sources: Agence France Presse, Agencia Noticias de Cuba, El Universal, Granma, People’s Daily, Prensa Latina and internet.
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Reflections of Cuban President Fidel Castro
A Brutal Reply
George W. Bush is undoubtedly the most genuine representative of a system of terror forced on the world by the technological, economic and political superiority of the most powerful country known to this planet. For this reason, we share the tragedy of the American people and their ethical values. The instructions for the verdict issued by Judge Kathleen Cardone, of the El Paso Federal Court last Friday, granting Luis Posada Carriles freedom on bail, could only have come from the White House.
It was President Bush himself who ignored at all times the criminal and terrorist nature of the defendant who was protected with a simple accusation of immigration violation leveled at him. The reply is brutal. The government of the United States and its most representative institutions had already decided to release the monster.
Their backgrounds are well-known and reach far back. The people who trained him and ordered him to destroy a Cuban passenger plane in midair, with 73 athletes, students and other Cuban and foreign travelers on board, together with its dedicated crew; those who bought his freedom while the terrorist was held in prison in Venezuela, so that he could supply and practically conduct a dirty war against the people of Nicaragua, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives and the devastation of a country for decades to come; those who empowered him to smuggle with drugs and weapons making a mockery of the laws of Congress; those who collaborated with him to create the terrible Operation Condor and to internationalize terror; the same who brought torture, death and often the physical disappearance of hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans, could not possibly act any different.
Even though Bush’s decision was to be expected, it is certainly no less humiliating for our people. Thanks to the revelations of “Por Esto!” a Mexican publication from the state of Quintana Roo later complemented by our own sources, Cuba knew with absolute precision how Posada Carriles entered from Central America, via Cancun, to the Isla Mujeres departing from there on board the Santrina, after the ship was inspected by the Mexican federal authorities, heading with other terrorists straight to Miami.
Denounced and publicly challenged with exact information on the matter, since April 15, 2005, it took the government of that country more than a month to arrest the terrorist, and a year and two months to admit that Luis Posada Carriles had entered through the Florida coast illegally on board the Santrina, a presumed school-ship licensed in the United States.
Not a single word is said of his countless victims, of the bombs he set off in tourist facilities in recent years, of his dozens of plans financed by the government of the United States to physically eliminate me.
It was not enough for Bush to offend the name of Cuba by installing a horrible torture center similar to Abu Ghraib on the territory illegally occupied in Guantánamo, horrifying the world with this procedure. The cruel actions of his predecessors seemed not enough for him. It was not enough to force a poor and underdeveloped country like Cuba to spend 100 billion dollars. To accuse Posada Carriles was tantamount to accusing himself.
Throughout almost half a century, everything was fair game against our small island lying 90 miles away from its coast, wanting to be independent. Florida saw the installation of the largest station for intelligence and subversion that ever existed on this planet.
It was not enough to send a mercenary invasion on the Bay of Pigs, costing us 176 dead and more than 300 wounded at a time when the few medical specialists they left us had no experience treating war wounds.
Earlier still, the French ship La Coubre carrying Belgian weapons and grenades for Cuba had exploded on the docks of Havana Harbor. The two well synchronized explosions caused the deaths of more than 100 workers and wounded others as many of them took part in the rescue attempts.
It was not enough to have the Missile Crisis of 1962, which brought the world to the brink of an all-consuming thermonuclear war, at a time when there were bombs 50 times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It was not enough to introduce in our country viruses, bacteria and fungi to attack plantations and flocks; and incredible as it may seem, to attack human beings. Some of these pathogens came out of American laboratories and were brought to Cuba by well-known terrorists in the service of the United States government.
Add to all this the enormous injustice of keeping five heroic patriots imprisoned for supplying information about terrorist activities; they were condemned in a fraudulent manner to sentences that include two life sentences and they stoically withstand cruel mistreatment, each of them in a different prison.
Time and again the Cuban people have fearlessly faced the threat of death. They have demonstrated that with intelligence, using appropriate tactics and strategies, and especially preserving unity around their political and social vanguard, there can be no force on this earth capable of defeating them.
I think that the coming May Day celebration would be the ideal day for our people — using the minimum of fuel and transportation — to show their feelings to the workers and the poor of the world.
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Message to the Solidarity Movement
Dear friends:
Our people have learned with profound indignation of the decision by Kathleen Cardone, a federal judge in El Paso, Texas, to grant release on bail to Luis Posada Carriles, the most dangerous terrorist in the Western Hemisphere, main perpetrator and the mastermind behind the mid-flight bombing of a Cuban airliner in October 1976 with 73 people on board, including a delegation of young Cuban athletes.
President Bush said: “Any person, organization or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.”
Bail for this dangerous and unscrupulous murderer and the attempt to solely try him for immigration crimes against the United States, is the absolute responsibility of the White House and further proof of the falseness and hypocrisy of George W. Bush’s administration as well as another confirmation of the double standards in its supposed crusade against terrorism.
The ruling by the federal judge on April 6 coincided with the 10th Anniversary of the start of a series of attacks on tourist resorts in Havana, which cost the life of Italian citizen Fabio Di Celmo and injured many Cubans. Another of Posada Carriles’ criminal actions, which he himself admitted, with matchless cynicism, to the United States media.
With respect to his release, international news agencies reported that the judge’s decision included consenting to Posada Carriles’ residing in the city of Miami, Florida. The same city that since 1959 has been home to the most notorious anti-Cuban terrorists and the cradle of hundreds of genocidal plans against our people. The same city where five heroic young Cubans, anti-terrorist fighters, today the protagonists of an immense international solidarity movement for their freedom, were unjustly subjected to brutal sentences in a trial plagued with irregularities and held amidst the intimidation and terror of those same terrorist groups.
For two years, Comrade Fidel Castro has been exposing the attempts by the United States government to protect the murderer Posada Carriles, and alerting international public opinion so that this notorious terrorist does not escape justice, and so that the suffering of the families of his victims over the loss of their loved ones is not aggravated by the pain of their murderer’s impunity.
Today, comrade Fidel, in his reflections on the granting of bail to Posada Carriles, described this action as a brutal response by the United States government to protect someone who trained in the art of killing and was faithful to his trainers by killing and sowing pain not only among Cuban families, but also among Latin American brothers and sisters, given his complicity in the notorious Operation Condor. Posada Carriles, as Fidel describes him, is a monster of torture, physical disappearance and death. For that he should stand trial.
ICAP urges all friends of Cuba throughout the world to create a mass movement to protest the perpetration of another attack on justice and human dignity.
We demand justice for the crimes of Posada Carriles not to go unpunished. This battle is not only for Cuba and its glorious martyrs in defense of their people, it is for humanity, the happiness of future generations and the guarantee of a peaceful world.
Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples
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Declaration by Committee of Relatives of the
Victims of the Cubana Airliner
Sabotage in Barbados
Compatriots:
At a time when we share the profound pain of relatives and the American people, because of the massacre of young students at Virginia Tech, we are faced with the horrendous and outrageous decision of the United States government to release on bail the notorious international assassin and terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.
We are filled with indignation that this assassin, protected by the American authorities, is able to return safe and sound to Miami, the lair of terrorists who for more than 40 years have committed numerous crimes against our people.
Once again, the senselessness and impunity overtakes reason, truth and justice.
The news communicated yesterday by the world press has plunged us again into mourning and it reminds us of those terrible bitter moments we lived through in October 1976, while we were children we suddenly lost relatives as the result of the abominable crime committed by Posada and Bosch against innocent civilians when they exploded a bomb on board the Cubana airliner in mid-flight off the coast of Barbados.
Today we would like to alert the world to the danger posed by the liberation of the worst assassin in the western hemisphere.
This repugnant henchman was recruited and trained by the CIA to carry out horrible terrorist acts against Cuba, together with the other terrorist Orlando Bosch who is freely strolling through the Miami streets, protected by the amnesty granted him by Bush Sr. when he was president of the United States.
Luis Posada Carriles participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, in Operation Condor and was the organizer and intellectual author of the sabotage and explosion on board of the Cuban Airlines plane in mid flight, taking the toll of 73 lives on October 6, 1976. Assisted by the CIA, he escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, and immediately got involved in the dirty war against Nicaragua.
A well-known drug dealer, he was responsible for sending drugs to the United States. He gave invaluable service to the Cuban-American Foundation with a series of terrorist acts committed against tourist facilities in Havana during the 90's. He was actively involved in plans to assassinate our Commander in Chief.
The decision to allow Posada Carriles to go free in Miami is the clearest demonstration of the double moral standards of the American government: they free a terrorist while they keep five anti-terrorist heros cruelly and unjustly incarcerated.
We, the relatives of the victims of terrorism are totally astounded by so much cynicism. The government of the United States has mocked our agreements and treaties that oblige them to judge Posada Carriles as a terrorist. On May 11, Posada appeared in court accused only of lying; what infamy, what mockery of international public opinion, of the American people and of the relatives of the victims of the crimes committed by this assassin who ought to be immediately sent back to prison, that is our demand.
We can never forget his defiant words, saying that he regretted nothing and that if he were to be born again he would do exactly the same. When he was interviewed about the bomb that he ordered to be blown up in the Copacabana Hotel, which ended the life of Fabio Di Celmo, he spoke with complete disdain for life: the young Italian "was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Those words uttered by this infamous assassin were inconceivably repeated by President Bush, when he referred to the young students massacred at Virginia Tech as having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This vigil which we begin today is to alert the world about the responsibility of the Bush administration in the liberation and harbouring of the terrorist Posada Carriles, to demand that the assassin be returned to prison, that he be judged for what he is: a notorious terrorist or that he be extradited to Venezuela; there is no other alternative, the people are anxious that justice be done.
At this moment of indignation we remember the poem "I Ask for Punishment" by the unforgettable poet Pablo Neruda:
For those who spilled blood in our country, I ask for punishment
For the executioner who sent us murder, I ask for punishment
For those who prospered from our slaughter, I ask for punishment
For he who gave the order that caused our agony, I ask for punishment
For those that defended this crime, I ask for punishment.
Committee of the Relatives of the Victims of the Cubana Airliner Sabotage in Barbados
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Luis Posada Carriles is "old, frail and has ample ties to the community," and his activities evoked by Federal Judge Kathleen Cardone to support her argument allegedly occurred years ago in foreign countries. With these implausible reflections that open the door to suspicion, Cardone summed up her thinking on the terrorist, torturer and killer whose release she ordered in the final lines of her ruling on Friday, April 6.
The existence of Luis Posada Carriles is "associated with some of the most infamous events of twentieth-century, Central American politics," she states at the beginning of her document in a somewhat strange summary of the accused, who she notes was a U.S. Army officer and linked to the CIA.
Throwing together in one sentence the "Bay of Pigs invasion, the Iran-Contra Affair, the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455, the tourist bombings of 1997 in Havana, and even — according to some conspiracy theorists — the assassination of President John F. Kennedy," the judge abruptly affirms that his possible relation to those events has nothing to do with the current case.
After summing up Posada's appearances in various courts, Cardone notes how she accepted the last petition for bail, presented by attorney Arturo Hernández who, in line with the law, had to offer the court new evidence.
He did so by saying that the prosecution had omitted to present evidence that Posada constitutes a "terrorist risk" that would justify his detention, as asked for by District Judge Philip R. Martínez. A pirouette that the court magnanimously accepted.
His Crimes and His History Weigh in His Favor
In one astonishing paragraph, Cardone assesses that "the nature and circumstances of the offense" with which he is charged "weigh in favor of the Defendant."
"He is not charged, in this or any indictment, with a crime of violence or other crimes which directly involve the immediate safety of the community," she writes.
Then she goes further: "The Court finds that the history and characteristics of the Defendant weigh in his favor."
Of course she takes up the argument that no country wants to take in the criminal, but them emits this admirably arrogant reasoning: "If he were to flee to another country, the Defendant would not have access to the same rights, benefits, and support that he receives in this country (the United States)."
Cardone finally considers herself authorized to assure that Posada has "ample ties to the community, as evidenced by the thousands of supporters who have signed petitions on his behalf."
Evidently, the federal judge avoided informing the court that the hearing room was full of known terrorists and supporters of the use of violence against Cuba, the same individuals who, for weeks on end, collected signatures using their dominant force within the Miami community.
At the end of her findings, Cardone says that Posada appears to be a man lacking the financial resources that would make him a flight risk," before granting him bail of $250,000 in cash or corporate surety bond.
A Suspicious "Computer" Error
For those who suspect that the "computer error" that occurred the previous Thursday, announcing that Posada's bail plea had been rejected, was not so erroneous, the entire erratic text of the legal decision would seem to demonstrate that something happened.
In the country in which it is suspected that Attorney General Alberto Gonzáles recently fired a number of judges for refusing to respect his instructions, this is not the first time that the wind has abruptly changed direction at an opportune moment.
In 2005, right there in El Paso, on receiving Posada's case, Immigration Judge William Lee Abbott, appeared to be perfectly prepared to order his extradition to Venezuela. Federal Judge Gina Jackson herself alleged that that South American nation did not constitute a "danger" for the international criminal.
However, during a subsequent hearing, Abbott had recourse to the testimony of a Venezuelan lawyer, Joaquín Chaffardet, one of Posada's collaborators when the latter was heading up bloody counterinsurgency operations in Venezuela for the CIA, to order that he should not be deported to that country.
Jackson abstained from presenting the least evidence against this ridiculous testimony and silently accepted the decision that saved Posada from a trial for terrorism.
Two Anti-Terrorist Federal Attorneys
In an extremely paradoxical way, Alberto Gonzalés, in other words the White House, which always refuses to charge Posada with terrorism, is trusting in none other than the federal attorneys of the Anti-Terrorist Section of the Justice Department to handle his dossier.
The two attorneys who lost the legal dispute over the killer's bail in El Paso are John W. Van Lonkhuyzen and Paul Ahern, both experts in that section, with offices in Washington on 10th Street and Constitution Avenue.
Ahern has already informed Agence France Presse that the United States does not have the jurisdiction to try Posada for the sabotage of the Cubana Aviation passenger plane in 1976.
Is the Anti-Terrorist Section of the Justice Department unaware of the existence of the Convention for the Repression of Illicit Acts against Civil Aviation signed in Montreal in 1971, and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, in effect since 2001, both cited many times in relation to this case?
Van Lonkhuyzen and Ahern asked Judge Cardone to allow them up until Friday, April 13 to present a new strategy to keep Posada in his New Mexico prison, in spite of this latest decision. Cardone immediately agreed.
Will they present the court with evidence of the terrorist nature of Luis Posada Carriles this time around? The "hot potato" is, once again, in the hands of Bush, his "loyal" Gonzáles and his representatives in this new chapter of the dirty war on Cuba: John W. Van Lonkhuyzen (john.van.lonkhuyzen@usdoj.gov) and Paul Ahern (paul.ahern@usdoj.gov).
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