Voice of Revolution

June 13 Day of Action

No Asylum for Luis Posada Carriles! Extradite Him to Venezuela Now!

On Monday, June 13, actions will be held across the country to demand the extradition of the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. A regional action is being organized in El Paso, Texas, where Posada Carriles is currently being held. The rally is planned for 6:30am at Immigration Court, outside of Posada Carilles' immigration hearing. Many locally coordinated protests in cities across the country are also taking place as Americans join the Venezuelans, Cubans and all the world’s people in demanding justice — that Posada Carriles be extradited to Venezuela to be tried for crimes of international terrorism.

Voice of Revolution vigorously condemns the U.S. government for funding and protecting Posada Carriles now and while he carried out brutal crimes of terrorism. Posada Carriles is the confessed perpetrator of a chain of terrorist acts involving the placing of bombs in numerous Cuban hotels, one of the men responsible for blowing up a Cubana civilian plane which claimed the lives of 73 people and a fugitive from Venezuelan justice. Numerous documents declassified by federal agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the State Department, unquestionably demonstrate that Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who freely walks the streets of Miami today, were responsible for sabotaging the Cubana flight in 1976 and that U.S. authorities had prior knowledge of the crime. Both are an integral part of the decades-long U.S. campaign against Cuba.

Bosch and Posada Carriles and their group of Cuban-born terrorists are also implicated in the murders of Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Orlando Letelier, his assistant, the American Ronnie Moffit, Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert (all perpetrated at the service of the CIA and Pinochet’s DINA). They participated directly in the planning and execution of the sinister acts of torture, disappearances and murders of “Plan Condor,” in coordination with the CIA and security services of the Southern Cone military dictatorships.

Posada Carriles was funded and directed by the CIA and committed these many crimes of terrorism. The U.S. government has protected him and given him full impunity in part because they are also guilty of these crimes. The refusal now to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela and the maneuvering to secure him asylum in a country outside the U.S. fully reveal that the U.S. “war on terrorism” has nothing to do with stopping terrorism and everything to do with protecting U.S. state terrorism and providing impunity for the government abd its hired hands.

Venezuelan authorities have requested extradition, a request backed by that country’s parliament and supreme court. More than 20,000 letters have been sent to Congress demanding that no asylum and that Posada Carriles be extradited. Over twenty U.S. congress-people have also backed the extradition request.

Voice of Revolution joins Americans, Canadians, Cubans, Venezuelans and all the peoples of the Americas who are demanding justice in the Posada Carriles case. We demand that the U.S. act immediately to extradite him to Venezuela for trial. There is no justification for the U.S. double standard of claiming to oppose terrorism while itself carrying out terrorism and protecting terrorists like Posada.

We also demand that Bosch be arrested and extradited to Chile for his crimes of terrorism and that those government officials responsible for organizing and funding these crimes also be charged.

Actions Across the Country

New York City, NY: Gather at 5 pm, at 26 Federal Plaza. Call 212-533-0417 or email nyc@internationalanswer.org for details. Initial New York City co-sponsors: Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle, A.N.S.W.E.R. New York, Casa de las Americas, Cuba Solidarity New York, Dominican Friends of Cuba, Freedom Socialist Party, Fuerza de la Revolución, Haiti Support Network, International Action Center, Jane Franklin, Marxist Leadership Collective, Movimiento Revolucionario Nueva Patria, New York Committee to Free the 5, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Popular Education Project to Free the 5, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, Queers United in Solidarity with Latin America & the Caribbean, Rev. Lucius Walker IFCO/Pastors for Peace, San Romero de las Americas-UCC, Socialist Front of Puerto Rico-New York, The Caribbean & Latin America Support Project, The National Lawyers Guild, Venceremos Brigade, Workers World Party.

Rochester, NY: The Rochester Committee to Extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela has called for a protest picket at the Rochester Federal Building, 100 State Street on Monday, June 13th @ 12:30 PM www.Upstate-Extradite-Posada-Carriles.org; email info@Upstate-Extradite-Posada-Carriles.org. Call (585)486-9713

Buffalo, NY: Picket at the Federal Building downtown, 12:30 pm

Boston, MA: Information will be available soon; info@july26th.org

Hartford, CT: Information will be available soon

Hackensack, NJ: Gather at 6pm at Park across from Bergen County Seat (Main & Essex). Email hackensackrally@internationalanswer.org for details. Sponsored by Bergen County Hands off Cuba Committee

Washington DC: Gather at 12 noon at the White House - Lafayette Park. Call 202-544-3389 or email dc@internationalanswer.org for details.

Charlotte, NC: Gather at 5 pm at the Federal Building (401 W. Trade St.). Email charlotterally@internationalanswer.org for details. Sponsored by Action Center For Justice.

Miami, FL: Call 305-757-3113 for details.

Detroit, MI: Gather at 12 noon at the Federal McNamara Building, Michigan Ave, (Cass and First) downtown Detroit. For more info contact: Justice for Cuba Coalition and US/Cuba Labor Exchange at (313) 561 8330 or email: laborexchange@aol.com

Chicago, IL: INS Building (10 W Jackson), 5pm. Call 773-878-0166 or email chicago@internationalanswer.org

Milwaukee, WI: Gather at 12 noon at Reuss Federal Plaza (3rd & Wisconsin). Email milwaukeerally@internationalanswer.org for details. Sponsored by WI Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba

Seattle, WA: Gather at 5 pm at Federal Building (2nd & Marion). Call 206-568-1661 or email seattle@internationalanswer.org.

San Francisco, CA:Gather at 12 noon at the Federal Courthouse (7th and Mission Sts.). Call 415-821-6545 sf@internationalanswer.org for details.

Los Angeles, CA: Gather at 11 am at the Downtown Federal Building (300 N. Los Angeles Street) Call 323-464-1636 or email la@internationalanswer.org for details.

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International Conference Against Terrorism and for Truth and Justice, Havana, Cuba, June 2-3, 2005

Conference Addresses Need for United Front Against Reaction

The International Conference Against Terrorism and for Truth and Justice held in Havana, Cuba successfully concluded its proceedings on June 3. The conference was convened by the Cuban chapter of the Networks in Defense of Humanity with contributions by intellectuals, artists, union leaders, social activists, parliamentarians and politicians from around the world. More than 600 delegates from 60 countries participated. As Cuban President Fidel Castro stated during one of his interventions, the aim of the conference was to wage a battle of ideas against fascism, the ideological framework which permits state terrorism to carry on. The focus of the conference was the case of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, linked to the coordinated campaign of U.S. imperialism during the Cold War and after to exterminate the people's forces that were gaining the upper hand in Latin America and around the world.

Posada Carriles’actions are a vivid example of the long history of criminal actions by the U.S. against the Cuban people. Many peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have equally been victims of U.S. organized actions by Posada Carriles and others.

Internationally, numerous organizations have vigorously condemned the U.S. and demanded justice for all the victims of the various terrorism campaigns, including those by Posada Carriles and his accomplices such as Orlando Bosch. For example, members of the Benito Juarez International Court (BJIC) in Mexico demanded that the U.S. government immediately extradite Posada to Venezuela to be tried for crimes against humanity. The Committee of Relatives of the Victims of Barbados, the place where the Cubana flight exploded called for relatives of the September 11 victims to join the condemnation of international terrorism and support Cuba’s demand for justice in the case of terrorist Posada Carriles. For its part, the 13th National Convention of Solidarity with Cuba held in Sao Paulo, Brazil with 45 groups from 21 of the 26 Brazilian states, denounced Washington’s double standard in its “war on terrorism.” In Colombia, activist organizations urged the extradition of Posada Carriles and called on all to protest Washington’s protection of the terrorists and continuing crimes of terrorism against the people.

The Havana Conference proceedings began with the screening of a documentary, a vivid testimony to terrorist attacks in Cuba and other countries, such as the bombing of the Cubana passenger plane in October 1976 and the consequences of Operation Condor, organized by the CIA in Latin America's Southern Cone region to suppress liberation movements. Panels were held on the topic of terrorism, including the Miami connection, Plan Condor, the Venezuela connection, the role of the media and the systematic manner in which U.S. imperialism utilized fascist groups such as Patria y Libertad in Chile and CORU in Miami and tactics of terror to wipe out its adversaries. Presentations were made by researchers, political personalities and victims of U.S. terrorism, giving a historical, detailed and assiduously documented overview of the period from the end of the Second World War to the present.

Vice-President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela José Rangel presented crucial insights into U.S. tactics and methods during the April 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez and the subsequent destabilization campaign. He also impressed upon everyone the urgency of creating a united front against fascism when he pointed out that Chavez's life is in serious danger. He said this not from the standpoint of calling for sympathy but to express the urgency and significance of the all-round battle to stop U.S. state terrorism.

A main emphasis of discussion was the role of the Cuban mafia in Miami and its consistent presence in terrorist acts in Latin America. The examples of the terrorist attacks organized against Cuba by the CIA and FBI, carried out by the Cuban terrorists based in Miami, clearly established that the Cuban people have faced U.S. state terrorism for more 40 years. It was shown that the Miami mafia has carried out terrorist attacks against progressive forces all over Latin America, in Europe, Canada and the United States.

At the conference, the links between the Miami mafia and the drug-trafficking cartels in Colombia used to launder money were also revealed. The role of U.S. government security agencies in this was brought out. The role of former U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. in working to unite the various factions of the Cuban mafia showed that without the backing of the U.S. state these terrorists would have no future.

President of the Cuban National Assembly Ricardo Alarcón presented damning evidence showing that the CIA and the FBI were both aware that Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, the head of the Cuban mafia, were planning to blow up a Cubana airliner in 1976 and did not notify Cuban authorities or any other relevant parties. Furthermore, after the bombing of the airliner in which 73 passengers were killed, the U.S. government did not state that it had knowledge of who was responsible. Instead it organized to ensure the escape of Bosch and Posada Carriles. The evidence also proved that the U.S. government knew that these gangsters had organized the assassination of Orlando Lettelier, the Vice-President of Chile under Salvador Allende, and his assistant in New York in a car bombing. President Castro drew the appropriate conclusion that the aim of assassinating Lettelier was to ensure that the Chilean progressive forces could not regroup after the U.S.-organized coup against Allende, September 11, 1973, which brought the the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet to power.

In the course of sharing the overall experience of Plan Condor, various presenters including well-known journalists and activists from Latin America, gave testimony on the crimes they had witnessed and been subjected to. A young Chilean recounted the kidnapping and murder of his father and the torture he and his sister were subjected to as children at the hands of the Chilean police. He, like all others who presented their testimony, ended by calling for justice not revenge and affirmed that the generation that grew up with the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s will build socialism together.

Representatives of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo from Argentina were also present. These courageous women, whose children and grandchildren were disappeared under Plan Condor, have formed groups to demand justice for the disappearances. Hebe de Bonafini gave one of the most militant and spirited interventions of the conference. She recounted the experience of many of the mothers who had taken up revolutionary politics in the course of their struggle to end the ability of the state to act with impunity. She, like many, thanked Fidel Castro and the entire Cuban people for their principled and constant stand in favour of humanity. She ended by saying that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have learned from the Cuban Revolution the importance of education and self-reliance. She explained that the mothers have established their own printing press and are building educational institutions in order to develop the revolutionary spirit of their members and the next generation of Argentineans. Her intervention was met with a standing ovation and the joy of all that these mothers represent an example of the role consciousness and organization play in releasing the initiative of the people to build another world.

The atmosphere was truly electric as the collective experience of humanity in this period of history came together to find a way forward. Many pointed out that this was their first participation in such a convergence. The energy released by the gathering was calling on everyone to go further. During lunches and break sessions delegates met to further discuss and work out how to continue the discussion amongst the broad masses of the people.

President Castro, who participated in all the proceedings of the conference, closed the gathering by pointing out that the crimes of the past have not succeeded in keeping the people away from realizing their yearning for justice. "I have never heard such moving and brilliant testimonies. I have seen the mothers taking the places of their sacrificed and disappeared children and children taking the place of their parents, and that is something that imperialism's sophisticated machinery could not imagine," he said. Referring specifically to the case of Posada Carriles, he said, "the genie has been released from his bottle, and I want to see what imperialism will try to do now to get him back into his bottle."

The proceedings ended with a concert on June 4 dedicated to famous Chilean singer Victor Jara who was assassinated in September 1973 at the start of the military dictatorship in Chile. He is greatly admired throughout Latin America for standing with the people and for his songs of resistance. The concert was a truly international affair. Five thousand people packed the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana. Among the musicians were Cuba's Silvio Rodríguez, Sara González, Gerardo Alfonso and Amaury Pérez; Puerto Rican singer/songwriter Roy Brown; and Víctor Víctor from the Dominican Republic.

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We Demand the Extradition of Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

- Call of the Executive Secretariat of OSPAAAL*, May 24, 2005 -

Compelled by the forceful denunciation of Cuba that made a positive impact upon wide progressive sectors of international public opinion and upon important segments of the United States society, the government of president George W. Bush has started a new deceitful and disrespectful move against public opinion and International Law and against the very laws of the United States and the interests of its people by arresting the international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and pretending to reduce the case to a simple violation of its migratory laws, in spite of the large amount of irrefutable evidence that the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, has been systematically presenting and the existence of an official demand of extradition made by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Posada Carriles has an abominable history of criminal actions against the Cuban people, being guilty of the blowing of an aircraft of Cubana de Aviación with 73 passengers on board in October 1976 and repeated attempts of assassination of President Fidel Castro, among other terrorist actions. Other peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have equally been victims of his bloodthirsty conduct: at the service of the CIA, he was part of the repressive bodies created to torture and assassinate Venezuelan revolutionaries; he collaborated with the DINA in Chile in the sinister Condor Plan to exterminate opponents of the South American military dictatorships, as in the case of the murder of the former Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Orlando Letelier; he played a leading role in the dirty war against the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and was involved in the Iran-Contras scandal, just to mention a few cases.

It is evident that the farce set up by the Bush Administration with the arrest of Posada Carriles is part of a plan to avoid his extradition to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, where he is a fugitive of justice since 1985. Venezuela signed a Treaty of Extradition with the United States since 1922, and this country has always complied unconditionally with it and has the first right, since Cuba has renounced to judging Posada in the Island and underlined that the Cuban people demands justice and not revenge.

There is obviously an attempt to repeat the same process followed with terrorist Orlando Bosch, an accomplice of the misdeeds of Posada Carriles, who was pardoned by President George Bush senior in spite of the arguments timely exposed even by the Department of Justice of the United States, when he determined that due to his terrorist history Bosch did not qualify to remain on U.S. soil.

These intentions become evident in the communiqué issued by the Immigration and Customs Department of the United States (ICE), which states: “As a policy and for reasons of migratory laws, the ICE does not usually send persons to Cuba, nor does it send anyone to countries believed to be acting in favor of Cuba,” in a direct reference to the request of extradition presented by Venezuela.

Although in violation of the very U.S. laws, there is likewise an attempt to avoid that the action of the law fall upon the accomplices of Posada Carriles, who introduced him in Miami from the Island Mujeres, in Mexico, and granted him protection and all the possibilities for his illegal stay in that city in the eyes of all the people and the alleged ignorance on the part of the huge intelligence apparatus available to the United States of America. The present Government of the United States stands before the difficult alternative of acting in accordance with the alleged anti-terrorist crusade launched by President George W. Bush, which in truth is a new imperial instrument of territorial conquest to assume control of the economic—mainly energy—resources in key points of world geography to continue strengthening its one-polar predominance; or submit itself once more to the Anti-Cuban mafia based in the city of Miami, to which it owes so many favors, including the election fraud that placed Bush in the Presidency in the elections of 2000 and which he evidently fears because of the information it possesses of countless disguised actions, crimes and terrorist activities carried out in several Latin American countries and even in the territory of the United States.

The George W. Bush Administration shows no consistency whatsoever with the alleged combat it claims to be waging against international terrorism, which it presented as the excuse to carry out the criminal aggressions against Afghanistan and Iraq and under whose cover it pretends to legitimate the hundreds of thousands of civil victims, the disastrous economic and ecological damage and the more than 1,600 young American victims fallen in an unjust war based on lies, in flagrant violation of International Law and without consent of the United Nations.

The Executive Secretariat of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL) calls upon all revolutionary, anti-imperialist and progressive forces, upon all honest persons and defenders of truth in the world, to raise their voices in support of the claim for justice demanded by the Cuban people, which has been a victim for more than forty-five years of the most cruel terrorist actions encouraged and financed by the United States of America. The force of reason and of the ideas that assist the Cuban people was evidenced by the impressive and combative action carried out last May 1 at the Revolution Square in Havana with the participation of more than 1,200,000 Cubans and the March against Terrorism held last May 17 by more than 1,300,000 inhabitants of the capital city.

Our call is particularly addressed to the people of the United States that, after enduring in their own territory the mortal effects of the brutal terrorist actions of September 11, increasingly begins to -demand respect for its constitutional rights, particularly the reception of truthful information, and the end of the arbitrary limitation of its individual civil rights, which the George W. Bush Administration carries out under cover of an alleged crusade against terrorism that on one side shelters and protects international terrorists such as Posada Carriles inside its own country, and on the other side is used as an instrument and justification for the achievement of its new imperial targets.

We urge all honest men and women in the world, all those who love peace and justice, to firmly reject the farce launched by the Bush Administration to protect Posada Carriles; to demand from the White House to abide by both the international and U.S. laws and send this CIA-paid murderer back to Venezuela to be judged for his crimes against Cuba and other peoples of Our America; to demand that also Orlando Bosch, co-author of such acts of vandalism, be judged together with Posada. Mankind is eager of justice!

* OSPAAAL is the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

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Venezuelan President Announces Relations with U.S. Will Be Affected if Posada Carriles Is Not Extradited

Granma International, May 22, 2005—During his regular Aló Presidente program, President Hugo Chávez confirmed that if, within a specific time frame, the government of the United States fails to enforce the application for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, diplomatic relations between the two countries will be affected.

“We will have to make certain decisions if they do not respect the treaty signed in 1922. They are giants with respect to violations, but we are giants of morality and dignity,” commented the head of state.

“He tortured, killed and ‘disappeared’ people here,” he remarked, going over the notorious terrorist’s criminal history on Venezuelan territory, where he founded a school of terrorists as part of DISIP (the political police). “They poisoned many officials. We have to sort all that out, because that injection was a deep one,” said Chávez.

Jesús Marrero, a 58-year-old economist, affirmed during a conversation with the president that he and other comrades were tortured in the presence of Captain Basilio, also known as Posada Carriles.

He exposed the murder of Pancho Alegría and Jesús M. Castillo, to whom the “law of escape” was applied, and also the disappearance of Noel Rodríguez. “Thirty-three years may have passed,” he confirmed, “but it will never be erased. I was taken to the basement of the DISIP building where I remained for two months. They took us out at night to a house where we were tortured and where they staged mock executions by firing squad,” revealed Marrero.

During the regular Sunday broadcast—this week transmitted from the Caracas Military Club—Chávez said that he was highly concerned at the initial response of the United States with respect to terrorist Posada Carriles.

“They lied when they said they knew nothing of his whereabouts,” he stated. “Then they couldn’t keep him in his hiding place. The king was disrobed,” he said, after commenting that that was the moment when they began the show, despite the fact that the world has irrefutable evidence of this terrorist’s guilt.

The Bolivarian leader mentioned that Posada Carriles was supported by the CIA. Chavez brought out that thte U.S. is not extraditing Posada Carriles because “They’re afraid that he’ll talk; they’re protecting him,” insisted Chávez.

Finally he emphasized that, in Venezuela, Posada must pay for his crimes, “he must face Venezuelan justice,” and reiterated that if the United States does not comply with the established laws, the mutual position of the two embassies will be reassessed.

“Embassies for what purpose? For the sake of appearance? Things either stand or they don’t. If, with all the evidence, a government such as that of Mr. Bush brazenly spits in the face of the world and Venezuela, we will have to review if it is worth us having a diplomatic representation there and they, here,” he underlined.

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Mexico Demands Extradition of Posada Carriles

Mexico has joined many others in demanding that the U.S. extradite terrorist Posada Carriles to Venezuela for his crimes of terrorism, including blowing up a Cubana civilian flight and bombing tourist hotels in Cuba, acts that resulted in the deaths of more than 70 people.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said alleged bomber Luis Posada Carriles was a terrorist and Washington should extradite him to Venezuela.

Posada is a Venezuela citizen and organized the bombing of the Cubana flight in 1976 from Venezuela.

Posada Carilles is also a long-time CIA operative. Recently released documents show that the CIA and U.S. government knew of the planned attack and did nothing to stop it. Today, they are pretecting Posada Carilles and refusing to extradite him although there is an extradition treaty with Venezuela.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister said, “The extradition treaty between Venezuela and the United states must have supremacy over any other course of action.” He added, “Mr. Posada Carriles is a terrorist, a person who unfortunately and disgracefully, thinking wrongly that the end justifies the means, committed terrible crimes against humanity,” he said .

Mexico said Posada entered its territory illegally on his way to the United States, but Derbez made clear the government would simply send him on to Venezuela if the U.S. government extradited him to Mexico.

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U.S. Congress Members Demand Extradition of Posada Carriles

Two dozen U.S. congress members have asked President George W. Bush to deny political asylum to the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and to permit his extradition to Venezuela.

In a message that came into the hands of Prensa Latina, the legislators demand that the president support the criminal’s deportation to Caracas, where he is a “fugitive from justice.”

In the letter, the politicians remind Bush that on August 26, 2003, he said: “If you harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you are just as guilty as the terrorists.”

According to these legislators, the United States should not only reject the asylum application because Posada Carriles is a notorious international terrorist, it should also deport him to Venezuela “for a proper adjudication of the case against him.”

“As a sovereign nation, Venezuela has the right to pursue justice in this case,” the letter states.

In addition, it affirms, many people died at the hands of Posada Carriles in the attack on a Cuban passenger plane in 1976 with 73 people on board, a crime similar to that of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington.

“It is not only inconceivable to imagine the possibility of granting this terrorist asylum, but also of denying justice to all of the victims of his crimes,” the letter states.

Declassified FBI documents demonstrate participation by Posada Carriles in the criminal sabotage of the airplane over Barbados, the letter states.

Likewise, it points to the terrorist’s participation in the car bombing of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his U.S. assistant, Ronnie Moffit on September 21, 1976 in Washington.

“That attack was one of the worst acts of foreign terrorism on American soil to that date,” the message states.

The letter, which is still being circulated in Congress in search of additional signatures, was signed by Congress members Dennis J. Kucinich, José Serrano, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, James McGovern, Lane Evans, Lynn Woolsey, Sheila Jackson and Ed Pastor.

President Bush’s government has chosen to try Posada Carriles for illegal entry into the country, and announced that his case will be ruled on during a hearing on June 13.

Venezuelan President Announces Relations with U.S. Will Be Affected if Posada Not Extradited

Granma International, May 22, 2005 —During his regular Aló Presidente program, President Hugo Chávez confirmed that if, within a specific time frame, the government of the United States fails to enforce the application for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, diplomatic relations between the two countries will be affected.

Jesús Marrero, a 58-year-old economist, affirmed during a conversation with the president that he and other comrades were tortured in the presence of Captain Basilio, also known as Posada Carriles.

“Embassies for what -purpose? For the sake of -appearance? Things either stand or they don’t. If, with all the evidence, a government such as that of Mr. Bush brazenly spits in the face of the world and Venezuela, we will have to review if it is worth us having a diplomatic representation there and they, here,” he underlined.

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Send Posada Carriles to Venezuela

Beating Around the Bush

- Tom Crumpacker, Counterpunch -

The Bush Administration has done an excellent job of confusing the public about its plans regarding Luis Posada Carriles, former CIA operative who blew up a civilian Cubana airliner in 1976 killing 73 innocent civilians. He resurfaced in the U.S. a couple of months ago and is now being held in El Paso, Texas on a minor illegal entry charge brought against him by Homeland Security. Numerous reporters of several newspapers and magazines have talked to unnamed Administration officials and quote them as saying the U.S. has decided Posada Carriles will not be deported or extradited to Venezuela because it has a policy not to do so to a country which “acts on behalf of Cuba.”

Indeed, Homeland has stated it does have such a policy and Venezuela is such a country. If such a policy exists, this is the first time Homeland has implemented it or made it public. In any event, it is Homeland’s policy and has no relevance to extradition, and there is so far no official statement by the State Department that this policy would prevent extradition to Venezuela.

If the U.S. honors its laws, Constitution and treaty obligations (as its President in January took an oath to do), it has to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Venezuela has an 83 year old extradition treaty with the U.S. which has always been honored by both countries. For years Venezuela has had a standing request under this treaty to extradite Posada for trial in the Cubana bombing. He apparently has visited Miami occasionally in the past. Venezuela renewed its demand two weeks ago. The crime started in Caracas, where Posada Carriles and his partner Orlando Bosch made the bomb, their two agents then got on the Cubana flight with it in Trinidad, at the Barbados stop they put it in the plane restroom and got off the plane, and the plane exploded after take off. The agents caught a flight back to Caracas which stopped in Trinidad where they were apprehended. One of them, Posada Carriles' employee, later confessed Posada Carriles made the bomb and he did it under Posada Carriles' direction.

An immigration case is something entirely different from extradition. In immigration proceedings (handled by Homeland Security under supervision of its Director and the President), the question is the right to immigrate and where an immigrant should be sent to live (usually his home country) when he is removed for illegal entry or deported for certain conduct in the U.S. Extradition (handled by the State Department under supervision of the Secretary of State and the President) concerns the question where an alleged criminal should be tried for his crime, regardless of his immigration status. Venezuela is the only place where Posada Carriles could legally be tried for this crime, because of his Venezuelan citizenship and the fact that his crime was committed there. In fact he was being tried there when in 1985 he was allowed to escape and go to Nicaragua to work under Col. Oliver North in the Contra supply operation.

Posada Carriles also has Cuban citizenship since he was born there. Once Cubans set foot in the U.S., whether the entry is illegal or legal, they have the right to stay here and work and apply for U.S. permanent residency after a year. This is under the Cuban Adjustment Act and the so-called “wet foot, dry foot” policy. They do not need to file asylum cases, and usually do not.

Homeland has charged Posada Carriles only with not reporting immediately to them on entry. This would normally not be worth filing on, in any event it is a simple matter which could be determined within a few minutes and a small fine. However it has been set for hearing on June 13 and Posada Carriles' Miami lawyers are talking about filing motions to move the case to Miami, filing asylum petitions, and other technical maneuvers. From Secretary Rice’s statement today, one could surmise that the Homeland’s case will go on for many months. Reportedly Posada Carriles is very ill and he may not be around much longer.

Our CIA and State Department were at least very aware of the plans for the Cubana bombing, and neither (or anyone in our government) gave Cuba or prospective passengers any warning of the coming attack. Posada had been trained in the 1960s by the CIA in explosives. Posada Carriles was on the CIA payroll for many years up until about four months before the Cubana bombing (the CIA now says). He went back on when he was sent to Nicaragua. Recently released CIA and State Department reports indicate that a few months beforehand, they were made aware that Posada Carriles and Bosch were planning to bomb a Cuban civilian airliner, and just a few weeks beforehand, they knew that Posada Carriles and Bosch were going to bomb a Cubana flight traveling from Panama to Havana. The CIA also had reports about the planning meetings in Caracas and Santo Domingo. These reports were not made available to the Venezuelan officials who were prosecuting Bosch and Posada Carriles in the eighties. It would be interesting to learn if the CIA Director informed President Ford of the impending attack.

George Bush Sr. was the CIA Director at the time of the bombing. He was Vice Present at the time when Posada was allowed to escape during his trial in Venezuela and report to Oliver North in Nicaragua. He was President when he pardoned Bosch against the recommendation of his Justice Department.

There is no valid reason why Posada Carriles should not be extradited to Venezuela now. There is no necessity to wait while lawyers mess around with Homeland’s insignificant illegal entry claim or any asylum claim. The case should be promptly submitted to the extradition judge.

It seems like the Administration is using these immigration cases, with Posada Carriles' cooperation, to try to delay decision on the extradition request in hope of avoiding evidence of the CIA’s involvement in the bombing from becoming public in a Venezuelan proceeding. Part of its plan seems to be to make reporters and the public think the U.S. cannot extradite until the immigration proceedings are ended and they have some policy preventing extradition. Neither of which is so.

Tom Crumpacker is a lawyer who works with the Miami Coalition to End the US Embargo of Cuba.

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The Cry in Havana: Posada Carriles is a Murderer

- Commentary, by Jim DeFede, Miami Herald -

Editor's Note: The Miami Herald is well known for its anti-Cuba stance and as a defender of the Cuban mafia and its numerous crimes against Cuba. This report comes from Defede, in Havana, and was published in the Miami Herald.

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HAVANA—María Rojo Alvarez was 10 when her mother showed up unexpectedly at her school on the afternoon of Oct. 6, 1976. “She was very emotional, very nervous,” Maria recalled. “She told me my father was dead.”

It was hard for her mother even to say the words, and she wouldn’t be able to say them again. So the school principal told Maria to retrieve her youngest brother, 5-year-old Camilo, from his kindergarten class. There was no time for tears as Maria walked alone down the hallway to her brother’s classroom. “I knew at that moment I was going to have to be the strong one,” she recalled. “I understood immediately my mission would be to help raise my brothers.”

Entering her brother’s kindergarten class, Maria walked up to her brother and said matter-of-factly, “Papi está muerto.” Daddy is dead. As she tells me the story, her brother reaches over and takes hold of his sister’s hand, just as he did on that day 29 years ago. “When she came to me that day in the classroom, I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying,” Camilo said. “I couldn’t understand how my father could possibly be dead. How could it be? How could it happen?”

María and Camilo’s father was Jesús Rojo Quintana, one of the 73 victims aboard Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 when it crashed into the sea after a bomb exploded on board shortly after the jet took off from Barbados on its way to Cuba. Jesús Rojo Quintana was 33. Among the victims were Cuba’s national fencing team.

Camilo is wearing a white T-shirt with the face of his father emblazoned on the front. Maria is wearing her own white T-shirt, but this one has the face of another Cubana victim, Manuel A. Rodríguez Font. “His family is all dead now,” she said. “But I didn’t want his name to be forgotten, so I decided to wear it for him.”

The three of us are gathered in a room alongside El Palacio de Convenciones, the city’s convention center where the Cuban government is hosting a three-day conference on international terrorism. As we talk, a television in the room is broadcasting live from inside the hall. Cuban President Fidel Castro’s image fills the screen as he directs a panel titled “Terrorism: The Miami Connection.”

The conference is a media show to keep the spotlight on the U.S. government and Luis Posada Carriles, a man many people believe masterminded the bombing of Flight 455 in 1976, as well as more recent attacks, including a series of bombings at Havana hotels in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo.

The Full Treatment

There have been speeches and panel discussions and even political cartoons. In one three-minute cartoon, Posada Carriles' head morphs into a steaming potato that falls into the hands of President Bush, who promptly tosses it to members of his Cabinet. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice immediately throws it back to Bush.

“Posada Carriles is a hot potato,” Castro said, laughing, after the video played. There is little doubt that Castro is relishing the discomfort being felt in Washington over what to do with Posada. The Venezuelan government has said it intends to ask for his extradition so that he can be retried on the Cubana massacre. (Posada Carriles was acquitted twice in Venezuela but escaped from prison in 1985 while the case was being appealed.)

The United States has strongly suggested it will refuse Venezuela’s request, believing Venezuela might in turn ship Posada Carriles to Cuba to stand trial. That could be politically disastrous for President Bush. Although there have been no significant protests on behalf of Posada Carriles, a recent poll by Sergio Bendixen suggests that Posada enjoys surprising support among Cuban Americans in South Florida.

The survey of 300 Cuban Americans last month found that 61 percent believed Posada Carriles to be a patriot while 15 percent considered him a terrorist. (The margin of error was plus or minus five percentage points.) While Bush tries to figure out what to do, Castro accuses the United States of being hypocritical in its war on terrorism.

The Cuban government’s willingness to allow me, a writer for the much-hated Miami Herald, into the country to cover the conference is proof of that government’s confidence. (This is only the second time in more than seven years Cuba has granted the Herald a visa.) Unfortunately, in the United States, and particularly in South Florida, this has led people to view the Posada case as merely a contest between Castro and Bush.

What Americans fail to realize is how strongly Cubans in Cuba view Posada Carriles. Leaving the government-sponsored conference, and without any government minders or escorts, I wanted to see just how deeply these feelings ran among ordinary Cubans.

“He’s a murderer,” Mario, 69, told me as he waited for a bus in Havana’s Central Park. “I’m not a revolutionary. I do not support the government. But I tell you that my idea, and the idea of the majority of Cubans, is that Posada Carriles is a terrorist and he must be brought to justice.”

At a small fruit-and-vegetable market a short distance away, Osvaldo Hernández, 37, and Carlos Cardosa, 36, became agitated when I mentioned Posada Carriles' name. “The victims on that plane, the Italian at the hotel, they were innocent victims,” Hernández said while sorting through a bin of small and discolored tomatoes. “They had nothing to do with politics.” “If the American people have enough common sense, they should see him for what he is, a terrorist,” Cardosa added.

Time and again, the same thoughts were expressed. William LeoGrande, dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington and a respected expert on Cuba, said he encountered the same anger toward Posada Carriles by Cubans on the street during a recent visit to Havana. He said the feelings were very similar to the emotions felt on the island during the Elián González affair.

On his most recent trip to Cuba, he arrived the day Castro led more than 100,000 people on a march in Havana demanding that the United States arrest Posada Carriles and extradite him to Venezuela.

People ‘Energized’

“The marches weren’t large because people were ordered to march by Castro,” LeoGrande said. “They were large because the people are truly energized by this event. It could have been their son or daughter on the fencing team. It could have been their mother or father on that plane. The anger Cubans feel has that same immediacy as it did with Elián.”

Even among dissidents, Posada Carriles carries little support. One man, who asked that his name not be published, said the United States was doing a terrible job handling Posada Carriles , because it had allowed Castro to claim the high ground in the war on terrorism. “Every time Castro can find an excuse to attack the United States, he uses it in order to distract from the problems we have here,” the man said. “The United States has to find a way out of this.”

On Friday at the convention center, I met with Giustino di Celmo, father of Fabio di Celmo, the Italian killed in one of the hotel bombings in 1997. He was in a reserved seat near the front of the hall, not far from where Castro was sitting. At age 85 he is still filled with fire. “Posada Carriles said he slept like a baby after he killed my son,” Giustino said, referring to an interview Posada Carriles gave to The New York Times in which he took credit for the hotel bombing. “But if I ever have a chance to put my hands on him, I’ll cut him to pieces.” He then invited me to join him for pizza next week. He operates a pizza parlor in Havana in memory of his son. “For you, I’ll make it a big pie,” he said, patting my belly.

The families of the victims from the Cubana de Aviación disaster are readily apparent in the hall, since many of them are wearing buttons and items of clothing bearing their loved ones’ pictures. They are strikingly reminiscent of the American families of 9/11 victims we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. When I mention this to Carlos Alberto Cremata Malberti, whose father died on the Cubana flight, he nods. “This was our September 11, that’s what you have to understand,” he said. “We want justice and the only justice is Posada Carriles on trial.”

Although it has been 29 years, the pain doesn’t fade. “I’m going to confess something to you,” Cremata said. “I dream that my father is still alive. They only recovered eight of the 73 bodies. Most of us were left with nothing to bury. So I dream that my father is still alive, that he is somewhere, doing some sort of very delicate mission. It is a hope that helps me to live.” Camilo Rojo Alvarez—whose 10-year-old sister told him their father was dead—understands what Cremata is experiencing.

Poignant Connection

Today, Camilo is 33, the same age his father was when he died. And like his father, he has three children, two boys and a girl. “When I am with my children, playing with them, I think about my father and how much I miss him,” Camilo said. “I want to give to my children all of the things those terrorists didn’t let my father give to me when I was growing up—love and attention.”

Recently, he was swimming off the beach with his 9-year-old son. “He asked me, ‘Are we close to my grandfather’,” Camilo recalled. “He knew that the plane crashed into the water and he knew that his grandfather’s body had never been recovered. And so I said, ‘Yes we are with him. He will always be with us.’ Our days on the beach now are not sad, they are good days. But I realized the pain that I have been feeling isn’t just limited to me and my brother and my sister. It is a pain that goes from generation to generation.”

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Posada Carriles Bust Blows Bush’s Anti-Terror Cover

- Saul Landau -

President George W. Bush has made it clear that the punishment for even being suspected of planning, abetting, or carrying out a terrorist act is, at a minimum, getting tossed into a dark hole. Bush has thrown out even the Magna Carta when it comes to Muslims suspected of pernicious thoughts toward the United States.

But if suspected terrorists turn their ire toward Fidel Castro, these rules do not apply.

Indeed, those who try to bomb and assassinate Cuban targets, or those related to Cuba, receive special treatment. This double-standard casts a shadow over the president’s commitment to fight terrorism.

In mid-May, Homeland Security cops arrested Luis Posada Carriles. As TV footage showed, these officers did not even handcuff him. Justice Department spokespeople said they plan to charge the foremost terrorist in the western hemisphere with “illegal entry into the United States.”

The FBI has reams of files on Posada Carriles, affectionately called “Bambi” by his terrorist friends. Former FBI Special Agent Carter Cornick told New York Times reporter Tim Weiner that Posada Carriles was “up to his eyeballs” in the October 1976 destruction of a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados. All 73 passengers and crew members died. Recently published documents from the FBI and CIA confirm Cornick’s statement. Published cables also reveal that U.S. agencies had knowledge of the plot and did not inform Cuban authorities or try to stop the bombing.

Posada denied involvement at the time, but police nabbed two of the plotters who had disembarked in Barbados. They fingered Posada Carriles as the man who hired them to place the bomb on the plane. His name became ubiquitous in the files of U.S. agencies that monitored terrorists. Nevertheless, several weeks after Posada Carriles announced his presence on U.S. soil, Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, still claimed he had no information that Posada Carriles had even entered the country.

Posada Carriles' International Profile

Posada Carriles himself promoted his international profile. To make sure that the world knew of his exploits, he boasted to New York Times reporters Anne Bardach and Larry Rohter in 1998 that he had organized a sabotage campaign of Cuban tourist spots. In 1997, a bomb placed by a Posada Carriles agent at a Cuban hotel killed an Italian tourist. Did this bother his conscience? Posada Carriles replied that “it was a freak accident, but I sleep like a baby.”

In 1999, Panamanian police discovered that the 71-year-old Posada Carriles, between visits to his proctologist and gerontologist, conspired with three other anti-Castro geezers to assassinate Cuba’s leader in Panama. Castro was to give a public speech there.

This quartet of seniors, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Remon, Gaspar Jimenez, and Posada Carriles, planned to blow up the platform from which Castro would speak. After Panamanian police arrested them, they denied any involvement. They sneered at the Panamanian prosecutors, claiming that no proof existed—just a set of their fingerprints on the explosives found in their rented car.

This March, Posada Carriles entered the U.S. surreptitiously. He left Panama less than a year after out-going Panamanian President Mireyea Moscoso pardoned him and his accomplices.

Moscoso also apparently contravened Panamanian law by issuing the pardons before the appeals process had ended. The Panamanian press openly “suspected” that more than a coincidence existed between the almost simultaneous issuing of pardons and the mysterious $4 million deposited in her Swiss bank account.

After she had pardoned the four, Moscoso phoned U.S. Ambassador Simon Ferro, saying she had complied with Washington’s request to release the men.

On May 20, 2004, the four caught a waiting airplane that took them to Honduras. There, Posada Carriles, the padrino of Latin American terrorism, disembarked while the other three continued to Miami so their arrival could coincide with President Bush’s campaign stop.

On November 26, 2001, Bush had declared that “if anybody harbors a terrorist, they are a terrorist.” He apparently forgot to mention that he had made exceptions for “zealous patriots” who wanted to assassinate Castro and anyone else who happened to be near him when the bomb went off.

Long History of Terrorist Actions

Indeed, all four pardoned Castro-haters had long histories of involvement in assassination plots and sabotage conspiracies against Cuban officials and properties in New York, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

A Washington, DC jury had convicted Guillermo Novo of perjury in 1982 for lying about his knowledge of the assassination plot against former Chilean Chancellor Orlando Letelier. In September 1976, five Cubans working with Chilean secret police agents had car-bombed Letelier on Washington’s Embassy Row.

Ronni Moffitt, Letelier’s young colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, also died in the bombing. The FBI also knew that Posada Carriles had knowledge about the plot to kill Letelier.

Born Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles in Cienfuegos, Cuba in 1928, the infamous Cuban expatriate served on dictator Fulgencio Batista’s repressive forces until the January 1959 revolutionary takeover. Posada Carriles then swore vengeance.

The CIA recruited him to invade Cuba in the 1961 Bay of Pigs plot. The agency placed Posada Carriles in a Cuban version of the Waffen SS, a squad designed to “mop up” after the invaders had prevailed. Following the April fiasco, the CIA sent Posada Carriles for “training” at Fort Benning, Georgia to learn about spying, using explosives, and other lethal devices. In 1971, he partnered with Antonio Veciana, founder of Alpha 66, another anti-Castro terrorist group, to plan an elaborate plot to assassinate Castro.

In a 1996 interview, Veciana told me how he and Posada Carriles had recruited a couple of Venezuelan hit men, disguised them as a TV news crew and sent them to Santiago, Chile before Castro arrived on a visit. Meanwhile, the assassins “blended in” with the press corps. CIA technicians had outfitted a news camera with a gun. Fortunately for Fidel, the assassins chickened out. Posada Carriles became enraged over their cowardice. He and Veciana recruited other assassins to use the same camera on Castro when he stopped in Caracas for a press conference on his return to Cuba. Those whackers also had second thoughts and the plot failed again.

Perhaps Posada Carriles' frustration over the failed 1971 hits abated after the “success” of his 1976 Barbados air sabotage. Venezuelan authorities charged him with responsibility for the airline bombing and threw him in prison until August 1985. Leaders of the Cuban American Nation Foundation in Miami apparently—according to Lt. Col. Oliver North’s notebooks, published by the Iran-Contra congressional subcommittees—bribed prison authorities to help Posada Carriles “escape.”

North then engaged him in the late 1980s to resupply the CIA-backed [Nicarauguan] Contras from El Salvador. From there Posada went into the business of bombing hotels in Cuba, as he told Times reporters Bardach and Rohter, with money that came from wealthy Cubans in Miami.

What the U.S. Must Do

Given Posada Carriles' record, both from his own boasting and from the published documents, the Justice Department must either try him for terrorist acts or deport him to Venezuela, which has requested his extradition since he plotted the bombing from there and escaped from prison—and apparently committed other serious crimes as well. Despite the overwhelming published evidence, however, the Justice Department rejected Venezuela’s extradition request to try Posada Carriles for this crime on the grounds that the request lacked sufficient detail.

Did Posada Carriles announce his illegal -presence in the United States with the idea that his knowledge of U.S. complicity in aiding and abetting past acts of terrorism would protect him? After all, documents show that U.S. authorities did not inform Cuba or try to stop the 1976 air-bombing plot. In 1971, as Veciana stated, the CIA made the gun that Posada Carriles' agents put inside the camera to assassinate Castro. And what does Ollie North know about Posada Carriels' activities for U.S. intelligence?

Given the history of U.S. terrorism aimed at Cuba and other targets around the world, Bush should rethink his own dogmatic statements. Terrorism is indeed a scourge on all of us. From the aftermath of the foul 9/11 deeds on, Bush should have left the struggle against the terrorists to police and judicial agencies. But he insisted on his wars. As we have seen, by employing the military for such tasks, and in the process justifying the erosion of human rights as necessary to fighting terrorism, the world has come to think of our government as hypocritical—at best.

As the Posada Carriles case illustrates, one old U.S. terrorist chicken has come home to roost in Bush’s nest. And that has exposed the president’s anti-terrorist policies as a hoax.

* Saul Landau is a foreign policy scholar who teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.

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