5th Anniversary of June 15 Joint Declaration Between North & South Korea
• Vigorously Support the Reunification of Korea!
• Grand Festival for National Reunification Opens in Pyongyang
People’s Movement Against State Terrorism
• Protests Demand International Terrorist Posada Carriles Face Justice
• Those In the Know • Posada Carriles: The Double Acquittal Myth
5th Anniversary of June 15 Joint Declaration Between North & South Korea
Vigorously Support the Reunification of Korea!
June 15, 2005 marks the 5th anniversary of the signing of the historic June 15 Joint Declaration between north and south Korea. To commemorate this important occasion, the June 15 Grand Festival for National Reunification was held in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from June 14-17. Delegations from the south, north and overseas have joined together to participate in social, cultural and political activities to celebrate the achievements of the last five years.
The June 15 Joint Declaration, signed by the leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Il and then President of the Republic of Korea Kim Dae Jung, was issued at the historic north-south summit held in Pyongyang in 2000. The principles laid out in the declaration provide a framework for 70 million Koreans to jointly work without foreign interference to achieve national reunification, their deepest desire since Korea was divided by the U.S. imperialists following the Second World War. The declaration opened a new era in relations between the north and south. It declared to the world that the Korean people are determined to prevent the U.S. imperialists from subjugating the entire Korean peninsula as part of its drive to take over Asia and achieve a world empire.
The Korean people have achieved many successes in the last five years. There has been steady improvement in bilateral relations between the north and south on the political, cultural and economic fronts. This has increased the collective confidence of the Korean people and strengthened their resolve to rid their nation of the U.S. military occupation and to achieve independent, peaceful reunification as soon as possible.
One of the main achievements has been the development of the reunification movement despite every effort of the U.S. to sabotage it. From outright interference in north-south dialogue, to funding fraudulent human rights organizations operating in the DPRK, to enacting the equally fraudulent North Korea Human Rights Act to provoke “regime change” in the DPRK, to threatening the DPRK with a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike and the continued military occupation of the south, the U.S. has been unable to divert the Korean people from working to achieve reunification. The successes of the Korean people in their nation-building project have the full sympathy of all of humanity and represent a bulwark against U.S. ambitions in the region, its preparations for fascism and war and its ultimate aim of dominating the world.
On the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration, Voice of Revolution sends its warmest revolutionary greetings to the Korean people and their leadership and wishes them every success in their historic mission to reunify their nation. By relying on their own efforts, defending their independence and defying the U.S. imperialists on the basis of their principles and convictions they are sure to achieve victory.
Voice of Revolution calls on all its supporters and readers to support the Korean people in their historic task of national reunification. Concretely we as Americans have the responsibility to demand that all U.S. troops and weapons be removed from Korea now, that the U.S. disarm all its nuclear weapons and ban the policy of pre-emptive first strike, and immediately act to normalize relations with the DPRK.
Vigorously Support the Reunification of Korea!
U.S. Troops Out of Korea!
Korea is One!
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Grand Festival for National Reunification Opens in Pyongyang
The grand festival for national reunification marking the fifth anniversary of the historic June 15 joint declaration was opened with splendor at the Kim Il Sung Stadium in Pyongyang Tuesday evening. Present at the opening ceremony were representatives of the Workers’ Party of Korea and other political parties including Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim Yong Dae, chairman of the Central Committee of the Korean Social Democratic Party, Ryu Mi Yong, chairperson of the Central Committee of the Korean Chondoist Chongu Party, who are honorary chairpersons of the north side’s preparatory committee for joint functions of Koreans in the north, the south and overseas to implement the June 15 joint declaration, and those of the Central Committee of the Democratic Front representatives of the Uri Party, the “Grand National Party,” the Democratic Workers’ Party, the Democratic Party and other political parties and pro-reunification organizations including the Reunification Solidarity for the Implementation of the June 15 South-North Joint Declaration and Peace on the Korean Peninsula, the All-Peoples Council for National Reconciliation and Cooperation, the Headquarters of the Movement for Reunified Korean Nation, representatives of peace movement organizations and representatives of various circles, different fields and regions of south Korea.
(L) Delegation of workers from south Korea arrives in Pyongyang. (R) Rally in Pyongyang
Present from the overseas side were Kwak Tong Ui and Mun Tong Hwan, co-chairmen of the overseas side’s preparatory committee for joint functions of Koreans in the north, the south and overseas to implement the June 15 joint declaration and representatives of pro-reunification organizations, peace movement organizations and Korean organizations for national rights and other Korean bodies representing different fields in various countries and regions including China, Russia, Japan, the United States, Europe, Canada and Oceania.
The opening ceremony was attended by the delegations of the north and south authorities respectively headed by Kim Ki Nam, vice-chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, and Jong Tong Yong, minister of Unification, and personages at home and abroad who have contributed to the sacred cause of national reunification and the work to implement the June 15 joint declaration, for the first time in the history of the national division.
More than 50,000 working people and youth and students in Pyongyang warmly welcomed representatives of the north, south and overseas sides, chanting “By Our Nation Itself” and “National Reunification” and other slogans.
North Korean workers and youth greet delegates from the south.
As female representatives of the three sides entered the stadium carrying a huge Korean Peninsula flag, the flag of the festival, and hoisted it amid the playing of the “Song of Great National Unity,” balloons soared into the sky over the stadium and pigeons flew high and fireworks were displayed, beautifully decorating the night sky over the city.
When An Kyong Ho, chairman of the north side’s preparatory committee for joint functions of Koreans in the north, the south and overseas to implement the June 15 joint declaration, declared the festival open, a huge balloon from which was suspended a streamer reading “Grand June 15 Festival for Reunification” soared into the sky from the center of the field of the stadium amid the sound of a bell heralding the opening of the festival.
Paek Rak Chong in his speech said that the grand festival for the national reunification is a grand festival of the nation which epitomizes the successes made in the last period in the spirit of the joint declaration. It is an assembly for great national unity that demonstrates to the whole world the nation’s aspiration for peace and its will for reunification.
Underscoring the need to let the world know that no obstacle or military threat could stop the Korean people’s advance to achieve peace and reunification, he called for making this year, 60 years since the division of Korea, a year of bringing about a turning phase of peace and reunification.
Kim Su Sik, vice-chairman of the overseas side’s preparatory committee, said in his speech:
“It is the lesson taught by the last five years since the publication of the joint declaration that without the struggle against the anti-reunification forces, it is impossible to implement the June 15 joint declaration. All the Koreans will surely punish the United States and the anti-reunification forces serving their master with the might of the strong unity under the banner of national independence, peace against war, and for reunification and patriotism.”
Yang Hyong Sop in a congratulatory speech said that the grand festival is the biggest-ever national assembly since the division of the country because broad strata of personages and compatriots representing different circles in the north, the south and overseas have gathered to share the will for reunification and patriotism.
The Korean nation succeeded in finding its way out at the historic turning point where a new millennium had begun, he said, adding that the June 15 joint declaration warmed the relations between the north and the south which had long been kept away from each other and put the inter-Korean relations characterized by antagonism and confrontation onto the path of reconciliation, cooperation and reunification.
He expressed the belief that the festival would achieve shining success and thus bring greater hope to all the fellow countrymen aspiring for national reunification and decorate this significant year as a year of opening a new phase in the movement for independent reunification.
Rev. Popjang, honorary representative of the south side’s preparatory committee in his speech said that the spirit of reconciliation enshrined in the joint declaration has served as a cornerstone of confidence and unity.
WIthout the June 15 joint declaration, it would have been quite impossible for Koreans in the south, the north and overseas and representatives of the south and north authorities to have such a grand assembly as today.
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People’s Movement Against State Terrorism
Protests Demand International Terrorist Posada Carriles Face Justice
In demonstrations across the country June 13, people took their stand against state terrorism, demanding that the government extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela to face justice for his crimes. Posada Carriles is known through out the Americas as one of the most notorious terrorists, trained, organized and funded by the U.S. He has been part of numerous U.S. terrorist crimes including the Bay of Pigs invasion against Cuba, efforts to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro, the torture, kidnappings and killings of Plan Condor in Argentina and many other countries of the Americas. Posada Carriles was convicted in Panama of attempting to assassinate Castro by planning to bomb the UNiversity hall where Castro was to speak. He is known as the main organizer of the bombing of a Cuban airline flight in 1976, killing all 73 people on board. Recently released CIA and FBI documents confirm his role in this terrorist crime.
Demonstrators targeted the government’s refusal to arrest Posada Carriles as a terrorist and immediately extradite him to Venezuela, where he is a fugitive from justice. Venezuela has now demanded his extradition three times, and the U.S. government refuses to honor it, breaking its own laws and extradition treaty.
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| June 13, 2005: Demonstrators outside the U.S. Embassy in Caracas demand Posada Carriles be extradited to Venezuela |
Main actions took place in El Paso, Texas, where Posada Carriles’ hearing took place, at the White House in Washington, D.C. and in San Francisco. People at the El Paso action came from as far away as Iowa as well as the surrounding region. Picket lines in D.C. and San Francisco each saw a hundred people demand extradition and oppose the on-going blockade and threats against Cuba. Demonstrators also spoke to the double standards of the U.S., which protects and defends terrorists like Posada Carriles and his co-conspirator Orlando Bosch, while unjustly jailing the Cuban Five. These are five Cuban patriots who were gathering information in South Florida about planned terrorist acts against Cuba and Cuban targets. In Chicago about 50 people demanded no asylum for Posada Carriles, including various peace activists, Mexican and Nicaraguan solidarity groups, Pastors for Peace, the National Lawyers Guild and others. Speakers targeted U.S. state terrorism and denounced efforts to block leafleting at the Chicago hotel where Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff was speaking.
The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition along with numerous others organized these and other actions, including demonstrations in Buffalo, Rochester and New York City, Boston, Hartford, Hackensack, Charlotte, Miami, Detroit, Milwaukee, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also took place in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Kitchener, and Vancouver, Canada, as well as in El Salvador and other countries worldwide.
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| Protesters confront the lawyer for terrorist Luis Posada Carriles outside the immigration detention center in El Paso on the June 13 Day of Action demanding the extradition Posada Carriles to Venezuela. |
Showing the government’s continued protection and support for terrorists, both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice refuse to arrest Posada Carriles as a terrorist. Instead, the very minor immigration charge of entering the country illegally is being used to buy Posada Carriles more time in the country and the U.S. more time to make other arrangements for him, such as asylum in another country. Consistent with this, the judge at the hearing made no decisions on the charges or asylum. He postponed the bail hearing until June 24 th and the asylum hearing until August 29 th. Posada’s lawyer, Eduardo Soto, has also requested that the procedings be transferred to Miami. Outside the hearing he confirmed Posada Carilles’ role as a hired hand of the U.S., saying he has “been a faithful soldier for the United States for quite a long time.”
Extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela Now!
Justice for the Victims of U.S. State Terrorism!
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The Department of Homeland Security, which has not managed to capture a single terrorist in the United States, is mobilizing to protect Luis Posada Carriles, the only one to fall into their hands.
Flaunting his total impunity, when Posada Carriles made his presence in Miami public as well has his intention to apply for political asylum in the United States, Cuba connected that fact with the arrival on Isla Mujeres of the Santrina shrimp boat, reported by the Mexican newspaper Por Esto! and brought to light the sea operation that took the terrorist from Mexico to Miami.
At that time it still would have been possible for the Homeland Security Department with its 180,000 employees, 22 federal agencies and 15 intelligence services, to take control of the situation rather than lending itself to corrupt political maneuvers.
What happened instead was that the huge institution acted the fool for the eight long weeks that Posada Carriles spent in Miami without any of its agencies or any U.S. official acknowledging the terrorist’s presence. Even more embarrassing was that they waited until the terrorist called his own press conference to arrest him.
From the gentlemanly-like arrest made by U.S. marshals, it was impossible to tell that this was Latin America’s most notorious terrorist, who in the last 20 years has carried out actions in more than a dozen countries, is a fugitive from Venezuelan justice, was tried by courts in Venezuela and Panama, is possibly tied to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and is wanted by INTERPOL.
Then on June 13th, with no valid reason, motive or excuse, in an obvious attempt to buy time, the U.S. immigration judge in El Paso, Texas, William Abbot, set a bail hearing for June 24 and continued Posada’s immigration hearing to August 29.
Posada Carriles’ entry into the United States was by way of Cancún then Isla Mujeres where, assisted by known terrorists Santiago Álvarez, owner of the Santrina vessel and José Pujol, he boarded the boat for Miami where he was received, lodged, financed and protected.
It is with tremendous gall that the U.S. government would have us believe that the high profile Posada Carriles, wanted by INTERPOL and marked by police and security services in a dozen countries, invented and executed on his own, the complicated operation that got him, supposedly undetected, into the United States.
The fact that the El Paso hearing was solely on migratory violations, sparks fears that there is a conspiracy afoot to hide the real way that Posada Carriles entered U.S. territory on the Santrina from Isla Mujeres.
U.S. public opinion is being alerted to the seriousness of the crime committed by all those supporting Posada’s entrance into the United States, because the Patriot Act specifically prohibits secretly introducing terrorists into the United States, which in this case, was achieved with a little help from international drug trafficking networks and traffickers in human beings.
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The Double Acquittal Myth
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| June 13, 2005: Demonstrators in San Salvador demand Posada Carriles' extradition to Venezuela and No Asylum in El Salvador |
CARACAS — The mass media repeats — in radio spots, television reports, wire services, and newspapers stories — the same news that “Luís Posada Carriles was twice acquitted in Venezuela.” We get the impression that Venezuela is still persecuting an innocent man.
Google’s search engine yields 1,229 references to the terrorist’s supposed double acquittal — 953 of these in English. A lie, if repeated often enough, turns into truth — the only truth. A fallacious conclusion always follows from a false major premise. Does it matter that the premise is unsupported by the court files in Venezuela? Does it matter that recently declassified documents from the CIA and the FBI leave no doubt that Posada Carriles is guilty of the murder of 73 people aboard a civilian airliner — plus an unborn child in a mother’s womb?
Posada Carriles’ own attorney, Eduardo Soto, fans the fallacy and says to the Miami Herald: “My client was acquitted twice in Venezuela.”
Hardly a coincidence, the State Department repeats the fallacy in a May 27 diplomatic note to the Venezuelan Embassy, when it rejected Venezuela’s first request for the preventive detention of Luís Posada Carriles. “There is no mention,” says the State Department in the diplomatic note “of the fact that Posada Carriles was acquitted by a military tribunal in Venezuela in a previous prosecution, and the legal affect that that decision will have under Venezuelan law.” Why is this false premise used so cavalierly by lawyers and the government alike? Why does the press today accept as gospel truth something that can so easily be shown to be false? What really happened in Venezuela in the case of Luis Posada Carriles?
The Facts
The [civilian airliner bombing] plot was carried out by two Venezuelans named Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo who boarded a Cuban passenger plane in Trinidad on October 6, 1976. They hid C-4 explosives in a camera that Mr. Ricardo placed in the rear bathroom of the plane. Both men deplaned in Barbados, and the ill-fated plane took off, exploding soon after in midair off the sandy beaches of Barbados, killing all 73 aboard, including a pregnant passenger.
Police in Barbados immediately focused their investigation on Lugo and Ricardo and arrested them a few hours after the attack. Under interrogation, both confessed and implicated two others in the plot: Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Venezuelan authorities arrested Posada and Bosch in Caracas. During a search of Posada Carriles’ home and business, police found evidence corroborating the confessions of the men in Barbados.
On August 25, 1977, Judge Delia Estava Moreno referred the case to a military tribunal, charging all four co-conspirators with treason. The military court absolved them, thus giving rise to the origin of the acquittal myth. But that is not the end of the story. Later, the Military Court of Appeals found that the military tribunal lacked jurisdiction to try the men, and nullified the previous proceedings. The Judge ruled that “those prosecuted in the case of the Cubana flight, brought down off Barbados on October 6, 1976, are civilians and the crimes imputed to them are governed by the penal (and not the military) code.” “Military jurisdiction,” said the Court, “is applicable to the military for military infractions. Civilians and common law crimes are not subject to the dispositions of the Code of Military Justice... The Military Court considers it necessary to clarify that it does not possess the subjective procedural capacity to take on the current judicial process.”
The Meaning of the Court’s Ruling
What did the Court mean that it has no “procedural capacity” to try the case? And that the lower Court’s decision is annulled, and that the entire record of the case is void, much akin to the legal effect that an annulment has on an attempt at a marital union. For example, a divorce legally tears asunder a marriage, whereas an annulment legally declares that the marriage never happened.
The four were then charged with aggravated homicide and treason before a Civilian Court: the 10th Superior Court in the Judicial District of the State of Miranda. The litigation began as if for the first time.
The Evidence on File and in the Venezuelan Press
The evidence from that trial is voluminous and is now corroborated by documents recently declassified by the CIA and the FBI by the National Security Archives of George Washington University. Posada Carriles admitted a scant few days before the downing of the plane, “We are going to attack a Cuban plane, and Orlando has all the details.” Venezuelan court files contain affidavits confirming that the person who actually planted the bomb in the rear bathroom of the plane, Hernán Ricardo, admitted to calling Luis Posada Carriles long distance from Barbados to inform him that the mission to blow up the plane had been accomplished, referring to the murdered passengers as “dogs.”
According to an FBI document dated October 21, 1976, the organization responsible for the bombing of the plane is CORU, a terrorist organization founded a few weeks earlier to carry out terrorist attacks throughout the Western Hemisphere. One of the members of CORU, Secundino Carrera, declared that the “bombing and the resulting deaths were fully justified because CORU was at war against the regime of Fidel Castro.”
Posada’s Escape from Prison
On the eve of the pronouncement of his sentence on August 8, 1985, he fled from the San Juan de los Morros penitentiary, located in the State of Guárico, where he had been confined after two previous failed escape attempts. No verdict was entered against Posada Carriles because according to the Venezuelan Penal Code judicial proceedings cannot continue without the presence of the accused. The court issued an arrest warrant against him.
His accomplices, Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo, were found guilty of murder on July 21, 1986, and sentenced to 20 years. The judge reduced the penalty to its lowest limit “due to the extenuating circumstance of no prior criminal records.” Orlando Bosch, however, was mysteriously acquitted.
Posada in El Salvador
After fleeing from that Venezuelan prison, Posada Carriles reappeared in El Salvador, using the alias of “Ramon Medina,” a name given to him by the Salvadoran government. According to FBI documents made available by the National Security Archives, he became the “support director” for the illicit contra re-supply operation being run by the Reagan White House out of the Illopango airbase in San Salvador.[Note: that was the Reagan-BUSH White House, and Bush had been the director of the CIA in 1976 when the bombing took place.] […] Posada Carriles continued his campaign of terror from his lair at the Ilopango air base in San Salvador. He admitted to the New York Times on July 12, 1998, that he organized a string of bombings in Havana that led to the murder of an Italian tourist and the wounding of several others. In 2004, he was convicted in Panama for “endangering public safety” in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, using powerful C-4 explosives, at the University of Panama, where the Cuban leader was to speak before a large gathering of students. Months later, he was pardoned by the President of Panama […]
If the Bush Administration is at all serious about the war on terror, Posada Carriles needs to be extradited to stand trial for the murder of 73 passengers aboard that ill-fated plane. His campaign of terror needs to end for the sake of the victims, for the sake of our safety and in the name of justice.
Rosa Miriam Elizalde is a Cuban journalist, and José Pertierra is a Cuban-American attorney with an office in Washington, D.C.
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