NEW! Fabian Escalante: Posada knows too much (June 2007)
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/junio/juev14/posad-%20know-%20too-much.html

Bombing of Cuban jetliner 30 years ago (October 2006)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB202/index.htm

U.S. Government Department of Homeland Security
Immigration and Customs Enforcement section has
officially and formally declared Posada Carriles to be
a danger to the national security of the United States!

NEW! and SENSATIONAL DOCUMENT!      
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs510.html

Luis Posada Carriles was arrested in Miami May 17, 2005:
At this location you can listen to a news conference
which posada held today, May 17, at a "secret location".
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11669225.htm
(above link not working as of 11-19-2005)

Text of U.S. criminal complaint against Posada collaborators,
filed in Miami federal court, November 18, 2005:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/santiago-alvarez_complaint.pdf

Congress members letter to Bush opposing Posada asylum bid
Supports extraditing Posada to Venezuela

Full Page NY Times ad opposing U.S. harboring of Posada
http://www.walterlippmann.com/posada-nyt-11-18-2005.pdf

Families for Justice: http://www.familiesforjustice.cu/

Luis Posada Carriles, left, speaks out at a press conference held at a secret location in Miami against Fidel Castro and said he had nothing to do with the bombing of a Venezuelan airliner in 1976.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







TIM CHAPMAN/HERALD STAFF

Luis Posada Carriles, left, speaks out at a press conference
held at a secret location in Miami against Fidel Castro and
said he had nothing to do with the bombing of a
Venezuelan airliner in 1976.


Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile terrorist
Click here to read 1998 New York Times interview with Luis Posada Carriles

Posada and the trial of the Cuban Five (Granma)

Jose Pertierra: Posada - Obvious Checkmate

Pertierra and Elizalde: Posada: The Double Acquittal Myth

Cuban Exile, Accused Terrorist Faces Extradition
Listen to this three minute interview with Peter Kornbluh 
conducted by NPR's Farai Chideya... 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4659968

Hear: Peter Kornbluh "Democracy Now" April 13, 2005

Hear: Ann Louise Bardach on "Democracy Now"

Find out what: Posada has on Bush & Company

Ricardo Alarcon:  Welcome Home, Bambi

Ricardo Alarcon:  "Is Posada Still Working for the White House?"

Ricardo Alarcon Posada Carriles, the U.S. Government's Invisible Man

Fidel Castro: Washington's aim is to protect Posada Carriles

Fidel Castro publicly rejects extradition of Posada to Cuba
Fidel reiterated the fact that Cuba has ruled out trying
Posada Carriles:
"Cuba has categorically rejected that
idea and will once again rejects the idea. Under no
circumstance, even if they call for it, even if they hand
him over, we have said that we will not try him; that we do
not want to try him even though we are a thousand
times more capable than the United States of trying him."
(May 19, 2005)

Andmany more links on Posada at the bottom of this page


Record of a terrorist

Official Name: Luis Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles.

Place of birth: Cienfuegos. Cuba.

Date of Birth: 15 de febrero de 1928.

Nationalities: Cuban-Salvadoran, but mostly NORTH AMERICAN

Race: White.

Sex: Male.

Height: 1.90 meters [6' 3.5"]

Complexion: Coarse.

Identifying Characteristics: Green eyes, grey-haired hair, white skin,
scars on the face.

Status: Wanted by justice authorities in Cuba, fugitive in Venezuela and El Salvador, and illegal in the United States

Aliases: Ramón Medina, Ignacio Medina, Juan Ramón Medina, Ramón Medina Rodríguez, José Ramón Medina, Rivas López, Juan José Rivas, Juan José Rivas López, Julio César Dumas, Franco Rodríguez Mena, Bezanquen, Commissioner Basilio in the Political Police of Venezuela, and recently Melvin C. Thompson. (Among intimates he is also known by the nick name of Bambi)

Hobbies: Hobbies: Fan of hunting, the fishing, drinking, gambling, the self-defense and the use of firearms, as well as the preparation of rudimentary explosive devices of all types.

Educational level: Educational level: Graduated in chemistry, trained by the CIA as expert in explosives and as expert in anti-guerrilla fight by the United States Army.

Profession: Terrorist.

Work history: Former employees of the United States transnational Firestone in Habana, collaborator of the Batista police, trainer of the Brigade Mercenaria 2506 that disembarked at the Bay of Pigs; ranger with degrees of lieutenant of the army of the United States in Fort Benning, Georgia; CIA agent and collaborator of the FBI; instructor in use of explosives; organizer of "infiltration" teams in operations against Cuba; head of department of the Directorate of Logistics of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP) and head of CIA team in Venezuela; head of the "Humanitarian Aid" department of the US State Department in Ilopango, Honduras; director of "Security Agencies" in Guatemala and Venezuela.
http://www.jrebelde.cu/2005/abril-junio/abril-17/ficha.html

=================================================

 


  By Gerardo Hernández



Our Man's in Miami. We Ought to Arrest Him
By Ann Louise Bardach
THE WASHINGTON POST
Sunday, April 17, 2005; Page B03

In 1988, the late, great Cuban exile director Nestor Almendros released his critically acclaimed film about political prisoners in his homeland -- a documentary that shattered whatever was left of the utopian view of Cuba. It was called "Nobody Listened." The title would work well for a sequel, this time set in Miami to shatter any lingering illusions about the nature of Cuban exile politics.

The anti-hero could be Luis Posada Carriles, the fugitive militant, would-be assassin of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and prison escapee who is wanted by Venezuela for the 1976 shootdown of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 civilians. Late last month, a South Florida television station offered a startling exclusive: Posada, last seen in Honduras, had slipped into Miami. Then last Tuesday, Posada's newly retained attorney had the temerity to request asylum for him.

Posada must have thought nobody would be listening. How was it possible that a self-described "warrior" and "militante" -- long a fixture on the U.S. immigration authorities' watch list -- had crossed into the United States with a bogus passport and visa? And is it remotely conceivable that the Bush administration, notwithstanding its purported commitment to the war on terrorism (Rule 1 of U.S. counterterrorism policy: "make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals"), would consider residency for a notorious paramilitary commando? He has even boasted of orchestrating numerous attacks on both civilian and military targets (including the 1997 bombings of Cuban tourist facilities that killed an Italian vacationer and wounded 11 others) during his 50-year war to topple Castro.

In any other American city, Posada, who is now 77, might have been met by a SWAT team, arrested and deported. But in the peculiar ecosystem of Miami, where hardline anti-Castro politicians control both the radio stations and the ballot boxes, the definition of terrorism is a pliable one: One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. His lawyer made the tortured argument that those who planted bombs in Havana could not be held responsible for innocent victims unless it could be proven that those victims were, in fact, targets. Other supporters have underscored that Posada was once a CIA asset who fought in its ill-fated excursion at the Bay of Pigs, and who played a crucial role in the Iran-contra operations during the Reagan-Bush years.

It is a story of keen interest to me as Posada had granted me an exclusive interview in June 1998. At a safe house and other locations in Aruba, I spent three days tape-recording him for a series of articles that ran in the New York Times. The urbane and chatty Posada said that he had decided to speak with me in order to generate publicity for his bombing campaign of Cuba's tourist industry -- and frighten away tourists. "Castro will never change, never," Posada said. "Our job is to provide inspiration and explosives to the Cuban people."

Instead of undermining Castro, such comments have enabled the Cuban leader to argue that his foes are lawless at best and killers at worst. And so Castro remains in power, and Posada is looking for a new home.

Posada and his Miami strategists are hoping that he can follow in the footsteps of his fellow conspirator, one-time cellmate and convicted terrorist, Orlando Bosch. In 1976, Bosch, Posada and two Venezuelans, were charged and imprisoned for the bombing of the Cuban civilian airliner -- the first act of airline terrorism in the hemisphere -- killing all aboard, including the members of Cuba's national fencing team, many of them teenagers.

The powerful exile leadership in Miami financed a legal crusade to free the two, challenging the trial process in Caracas, where bribery is widespread. Bosch would serve 11 years and Posada nine before their lawyers won acquittals. But both remained jailed pending prosecutors' appeals and new trials, in accordance with Venezuela's labyrinthine judicial system.

Their indictment was the result of the collective data and wisdom of three intelligence organizations: American, Venezuelan and Cuban. "Bosch and Posada were the primary suspects," a retired high-level CIA official familiar with the case confirmed in an interview, adding "there were no other suspects." A close confidante of the two militants told me, "It was a screw-up. It was supposed to be an empty plane." Others contend that the men believed the airliner to be a military craft, though neither man has ever expressed remorse for the civilian death toll. An unrepentant Bosch still calls the plane "a legitimate target," recently telling a Miami reporter, "there were no innocents on that plane."

Posada "escaped" from prison in 1985 after his Miami cohorts paid a $28,000 bribe to the warden. Three weeks later, he was in El Salvador, where Felix Rodriguez, a comrade from his early CIA days, was waiting for him with a very special job offer: to be his deputy in the covert Contra resupply operation directed by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North. In our conversations, Posada blamed a fellow commando (conveniently dead) for the airline bombing and cited political influence-peddling in the Venezuelan justice system for his and Bosch's long prison stints. Their critics argue the opposite: that Venezuela's endemic corruption enabled Posada and Bosch's supporters to buy them superb accommodations in prison and, ultimately, Posada's escape.

Bosch won release from prison in Venezuela not long after then-U.S. ambassador Otto Reich voiced concerns about his safety in a series of cables to the State Department. He flew to Miami in December 1987 without a visa and was promptly arrested. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh described Bosch as an "unreformed terrorist," who should be deported. But Bosch had a powerful advocate in Jeb Bush, who at that time was managing the campaign of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban exile to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In an unusual presidential intercession on behalf of a convicted terrorist, President George H.W. Bush overruled the FBI and the Justice Department and in 1990 approved the release of Bosch, who won U.S. residency two years later.

Posada is gambling that he will have Bosch's luck and is banking on the same supporters. But Bosch's presence in Miami has often proved to be an embarrassment to the Bush family. When Bill Clinton was questioned by a Newsweek reporter about his pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, he snapped, "I swore I wouldn't answer questions about Marc Rich until Bush answered about Orlando Bosch." Few Republicans raised the issue again.

In November 2000, Posada was arrested again, along with three other anti-Castro militants for plotting to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American summit in Panama. All of the arrested men had impressive rap sheets and had been charter members of the terrorist groups CORU or Omega 7. In April 2004, Panama's Supreme Court sentenced Posada and his associates to up to eight years in prison, but in August the quartet was sprung by a surprise pardon from departing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who maintains good relations with Miami's political leadership. Her pardon outraged U.S and Latin American law enforcement officials.

Three of the men were flown to Miami and met by their jubilant supporters just days before the 2004 presidential election. But Posada disappeared -- until his emergence here last month.

The quartet are not the only unsavory characters to be given the red carpet in Miami. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, with the backing of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote letters on behalf of several exile militants held in U.S. prisons for acts of political violence. Some were released in 2001, including Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for the notorious 1976 car bomb-murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington. Once released, instead of being deported like other non-citizen criminals, they have been allowed to settle into the good life in Miami.

South Florida's politicians have also tried, unsuccessfully so far, to convince the Justice Department to release Cuban-born Valentin Hernandez, who gunned down fellow exile Luciano Nieves in 1975. Nieves' crime was speaking out in support of negotiations with the Cuban government. Nieves was ambushed in a Miami hospital parking lot after visiting his 11-year-old son. A year later, Hernandez and an accomplice murdered a former president of the Bay of Pigs Association in an internecine power struggle. Hernandez was finally captured in July 1977 and sentenced to life in prison for the Nieves murder. Exile hardliners, though, continue to refer to him as a freedom fighter.

Polls show that Miami's political leadership and its radio no longer speak for most exiles. The majority of Cuban exiles, like other Americans, abhor terrorism, whether in Cuba or Miami, left or right. But as one convicted killer after another is allowed to resettle in Miami, the political climate there has chilled and few dare to speak out. And when they do, it seems that nobody is listening.

Since 9/11, the administration's double standard on terrorism, with its Cuban exception, is even more glaring. Just before the Justice Department announced a post-9/11 sweep of those "suspected" of terrorism, it had quietly released men who had been convicted of terrorism. Last Thursday, the administration congratulated itself on a sweep that netted 10,000 fugitive criminals, yet somehow Posada eluded it.

I remember Posada's sly smile when he told me that he had at least four different passports from different countries in bogus names, including an American one. When I asked when he last visited the United States, he chortled with amusement. "Officially or unofficially? I have a lot of passports," Posada said. "If I want to go to Miami, I have different ways to go. No problem." Evidently not.

Author's e-mail: havana2001@aol.com

Ann Louise Bardach, the director of the Media Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
is the author of "Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana" (Vintage)
and the editor of "Cuba: A Traveler's Literary Companion."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Spanish translation of this article from Alternative Visions website

washingtonpost.com

 

Cuban Terror Suspect Sets Off Propaganda Battle
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, April 14, 2005; 7:47 AM

It's the kind of propaganda duel that Fidel Castro relishes.

As the United States seeks approval this week of a U.N. resolution focusing on Cuba's human rights record, the Cuban communist leader has responded by charging that the United States is harboring a Cuban exile who, according to The Post and others, is linked to a series of terror attacks against Cuban targets.

This war of words is now making headlines in the online media in south Florida, Venezuela, the Caribbean and Central America. This is a natural venue for Castro. During the struggle over castaway boy Elian Gonzalez in 2000, the fatigue-clad Cuban president marshaled rhetoric, facts and law to win sympathy and isolate his political foes in Miami who came off as intransigent in opposing the reunification of the boy and his father.

Now Castro is using the same tactics to fend off a Bush administration that is using the sometimes neglected tool of multilateral diplomacy to advance its own vision for democratizing Cuba. The result is a fair amount of hot air from both sides but also a very practical test of who will define and defend human rights in the international arena in the coming weeks.

In Geneva, the Bush administration "has filed a new resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission criticizing Cuba's record on abuses and requested that the world body keep the communist country's record under observation," reported the Associated Press via The Guardian

Castro's government is furiously denouncing the resolution which is supported by 37 other nations, according to the Mexico City daily Cronica de Hoy (Spanish), as "hypocrisy."

The proof, said Castro in a Havana speech covered by the government-run daily Granma, is Posada's presence in the United States.

Castro's audience included relatives of the 78 people killed in the mid-flight explosion of a Cubana Airlines jet in October 1976, according to the paper's English language Web site. Posada was later arrested for putting an explosives laden suitcase on the plane. He spent nine years in a Venezuelan jail but his defenders say he was never convicted of the crime. He escaped from jail in 1985.

Castro claimed that Cuban security services had tipped off Panama in November 2000 about the plans of Posada and three other men to assassinate Castro by planting 40 kilograms of TNT in a university lecture hall where Castro was scheduled to speak. Posada was convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail. Last year, he and three accomplices were pardoned by the president of Panama.

Posada has been living in unspecified Central American countries since 2000, his lawyer told Prensa Grafica (Spanish) in El Salvador. He recently entered the United States via Mexico, the lawyer said.

In a three-hour appearance on Cuban television on Monday, Castro charged that the Bush administration knew Posada had entered the United States. "It is as if Bin Laden were in the United States and the US president did not know," Castro said according to the BBC.

In Venezuela, the government of President Hugo Chavez says it will formally demand that the U.S. extradite Posada, according to two leading dailies, El Observador (Spanish) and El Nacional (Spanish).

Venezuela is Cuba's closest ally in the hemisphere.

One target of Castro's rhetorical offensive is Europe. Both Unavision (Spanish), the mainstream Mexican broadcast network, and the leftist daily La Jornada (Spanish) noted that Castro is seeking European help in getting Posada extradited.

The governments of Spain, France and Germany, in the past sympathetic to Castro's socialist politics, have grown more critical of Cuba since a 2003 crackdown on dissidents. Cuba now has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world, according to the watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders.

The Cuban government says the journalists are instruments of a U.S. policy designed to overthrow Castro's revolution. By highlighting Posada's story, Cuba changes the subject and seeks to stoke mistrust of Washington.

In comparison, the U.S. public diplomacy is low-key. In a piece for the Jamaica Observer, on Wednesday Thomas Tighe, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kingston, said that the United States is pushing for a U.N. reporter on human rights in Cuba as part of its efforts to "encourage people struggling under repressive regimes."

"It was two years ago that the Cuban government began the most blatant act of repression against peaceful democracy and human rights activists in the history of Cuba. More than 100 activists were arrested; of those, 75 were summarily tried and sentenced to prison terms averaging 20 years each," Tighe said.

"We are urging our democratic allies in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean to stand behind the Cuban people on this resolution," he concluded.

The results of this clash will be in soon. The U.S.-backed resolution is expected to come up for a vote Thursday or Friday. The State Department is expected to make a decision on Posada's asylum request within a month.

© 2005 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive


Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles says he has been long opposed to President Fidel Castro.
Photo Credit: Marcos Delgado -- AP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47870-2005Apr12.html


U.S. Asylum Sought by Cuban Tied to Terror Cases
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 13, 2005; Page A02

Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA-trained Cuban exile implicated in a series of terrorist incidents, applied for political asylum in the United States yesterday, prompting at least one congressman to assert that granting the request would undermine the nation's credibility in the war on terrorism.

Posada is in hiding after recently slipping into the United States, said Eduardo Soto, the Miami area lawyer handling Posada's asylum application. Now 77, Posada is a hero among some Cuban exiles for his fervent, four-decade effort to topple and kill Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Trained by the CIA in the use of explosives as part of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, Posada has been linked through the years with the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner that killed 73 people; bombings in Cuban tourist hotels that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 other people; and a 2000 plot to assassinate Castro in Panama.

"If he is in the United States, he should be arrested and deported under the norms of international law," said Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.), who wrote a letter Monday to leaders of the House International Relations Committee calling for an investigation into how Posada entered the country.

"Given the enmity between the Cuban and U.S. governments, it is possible that U.S. officials may have turned a blind eye to Posada's entrance into our country -- or even worse, facilitated it," Delahunt wrote. "If that were true -- and even if it were not and Posada is allowed to remain here -- it would obliterate America's credibility in the war on terrorism, because it would suggest that we share the views of those who support al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents that 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.' "

Posada's defenders deny that he is a terrorist. They point out that Venezuelan courts twice acquitted Posada before he escaped from prison while awaiting a third trial there in the bombing of the Cuban airliner. Outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned Posada last year, after he served time in connection with the plot against Castro.

"Mr. Posada has never been convicted of any terrorist act," said Santiago Alvarez, a Miami developer who is a close friend of Posada, whom he calls a hero. "He's been a fighter against Castro all his life. He advocates violence, but that does not mean violence and terrorism are the same thing."

In the asylum request, Soto said that Posada cites his longtime opposition to Castro, saying he would be in danger if he were not granted protection by the United States. Soto said Posada is also seeking permanent residency in the United States under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cuban refugees to apply for the status after remaining in the United States one year.

Bill Strassberger, spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said asylum applications are reviewed for about a month, a process that includes a background check. Afterward, the applicant is called in for an interview with an immigration official who could grant asylum or refer the case for a hearing before an immigration judge.

The agency "is not going to provide safe haven to terrorists or killers," Strassberger said. But even if an applicant were denied asylum, he said, the United States would not turn the person over to a country where he is likely to face persecution and would arrange transfer to another country.

Posada has been viewed as an oft-sinister figure in the nearly half-century he has been exiled from Cuba. Alvarez said he served in the U.S. Army in the mid-1960s. A few years later, Posada worked with the Venezuelan secret police, tracking down leftist guerrillas. In 1976, he was arrested in Caracas for the bombing of the Cuban airliner. Although he was tried in absentia, he is still wanted by Venezuelan authorities in connection with his escape.

Later, Posada went to Central America where he oversaw supply operations for contra guerrillas fighting the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. In 1990, he was shot and seriously wounded in Guatemala City by gunmen who were widely suspected to be Cuban agents. Afterward, he was implicated in the Cuban hotel bombings and the plot to kill Castro in Panama.

Delahunt, co-chairman of a bipartisan congressional working group that aims to repair the long-frayed relationship between the Cuban and U.S. governments, said that given Posada's past, he should be sought for arrest, rather than considered for legal protection.

"I can't imagine how one could defend a terrorist where there exists overwhelming evidence that he was responsible or a co-conspirator in blowing up a civilian airliner. To me that is just inconceivable," Delahunt said. "If this individual is indeed in the United States, I think we have to determine how he arrived here and under what circumstances."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

 

From:            Presidencia anpp

To:                Walter Lippmann <walterlx@earthlink.net>

Subject:        Correction From Alarcón's Office

Date:            Fri, 6 May 2005 17:57:10 -0500

CC:               Karen Wald <kwald@california.com>

Dear Friends:

Regarding the plane it is true that neither Bosch nor Posada have directly acknowledged their responsibility although both have pretended to justify it on many occasions – the most recent Bosch, May 3, Miami TV Channel 41, three times on the same interview - and have never condemned or deplored it. They did acknowledge it, indirectly in a book by Alicia Herrera, a Venezuelan journalist.

On the other hand, the U.S. Attorney General acknowledged in his Decision about Bosch’s admission in the U.S. (June 23, 1989) that the U.S. Government had specific evidences “reflecting that the October 6, 1976 Cubana airline bombing was a CORU operation under the direction of Bosch.

Regarding Posada’s interview with the NYT a few days later it was published, he gave another one to CBS Telenoticias organized by CANF people.The purpose of that second interview was obviously to have Posada retracting from his previous allegation that Mas Canosa was providing his funding. He did retract on that (Mas’money) but he did not retract on his personal and direct involvement with the bombings in Havana. On the contrary, he was very clear, direct, live on TV reiterating his role and when specifically asked he replied: “I am totally responsible” of that acts and more.

 

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
April 16, 2005

U.S. aware of the responsibility of Posada Carriles and
Orlando Bosch for the sabotage of the Cubana passenger plane

BY JOAQUIN ORAMAS
Foto: ALBERTO BORREGO
U.S. aware of the responsibility of Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch for the sabotage of the Cubana passenger plane      
In a televised appearance, Ricardo Alarcón presents documents confirming US government complicity with terrorists.
Fidel Castro                                                          Ricardo Alarcon

IN what has become a historical trial of imperialism, in yesterday’s TV and national radio address, President Fidel Castro demonstrated the complicity of US governments in the acts of terrorism committed by Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, the culmination of which was the sabotage of a Cubana Aviation plane in full flight out of Barbados.

The former is already in US territory requesting asylum while the latter is at liberty on the streets of Miami.

Fidel spoke of the various acts of terrorism committed by those CIA-created counterrevolutionary elements and warned that the battle initiated with the current exposure is ongoing. He then gave the floor to Ricardo Alarcón, Cuban ambassador to the UN at the time of the Barbados sabotage, with diplomatic functions in Trinidad and Tobago, and who participated in the investigations that confirmed the guilt of Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch in that criminal act, which cost the lives of the 73 passengers and the crew of that Cuban civil airliner.

Fidel affirmed that while the government of the United States has an active policy on combating terrorism, earlier ones have not waged such a war, adding that terrorism was virtually created there in order to combat the Cuban Revolution. The school of terrorism for the world was the United States and its acts of aggression against Cuba. "It was that country which invented the hijacking of aircraft and our country that definitively brought it to an end, when we sent two hijackers in a hijacked aircraft there. And then it was obliged to punish subsequent hijackers," he stated.

He noted that with its underestimations and lies the United States tried to bribe the passengers of the last hijacked aircraft to remain in that country. "Let us see now, in the face of world opinion, whether it is capable of waging this battle to the end by acting as it should act," he added.

Alarcón gave a detailed account of the investigations undertaken by the Barbadian and Trinidad and Tobago authorities, which demonstrated that the two Venezuelans who were directly responsible for the sabotage were CIA agents. Both confessed that their chiefs were Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. He referred to the international commission that acted on the investigations, noted the visits made by the two Venezuelans to the US embassy in Barbados, and the evidence that demonstrated that the explosion of the plane was the result of sabotage. He quoted the trial held in Caracas, where a legalistic interpretation of the translation was used to exonerate Bosch, while Posada was sent to prison, from which he was helped to escape via bribery. Alarcón explained how he was then transferred to Ilopango so that the CIA could incorporate him into illegal international activities like the dirty war on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and those that culminated in the Iran-Contra scandal. 
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/abril/sabado16/17conoc-i.html


Full transcript of Fidel Castro's April 15 address
Very detailed and important explanation of the facts on Posada.



GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
April 7, 2005

Havana. April 7, 2005

POWELL AND REICH PERSONALLY INTERVENE
Moscoso obtained $4 million for pardoning Posada and his accomplices

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—

THE pardon of international terrorists Luis Posada Carriles, Pedro Crispín Remon Hernández, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo and Guillermo Novo Sampol was negotiated in Miami by Ruby Moscoso, sister of the then Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, for the sum of $4 million, according to documents published on the internet.

It is also revealed that Posada Carriles used false documents provided by the US embassy in Panama to leave that country.

The documents, titled "All the corruption and bribes in Panama’s pardon of the four anti-Castroites" and "The implication of the ex-Panamanian police chief, the Miami anti-Castroites and the US government in the release of the four anti-Castroites pardoned in Panama," signed by Raúl Gómez, were published on the website Rebelión a few days before Posada’s "reappearance" in Florida. Their contents corroborate information that has been circulating in Panama and Miami ever since their controversial release on August 26.

The texts reveal that the money was delivered to the Moscoso sisters in the form of a commercial transaction payment through a bank in Liechtenstein, Europe’s financial paradise. The operation was directed by Pedro Gómez, a Cuban-American linked to the Mellon United National Bank in Miami, who also took care of payments to the Panamanian defense lawyers, headed by narco-lawyer Rogelio Cruz, famous for the degree of his financial demands.

Gómez was part of the so-called Committee for the Freedom of the Imprisoned Brothers in Panama, which was collecting money to pay for legal expenses. The "treasurer" is a member of the movement led by Ramón Saúl Sánchez, whose exploits in the terrorist organization Omega 7 – together with Pedro Remón – are well known.

The document’s author explains that during his visit to Panama in March of 2004, on the occasion of the trial of Posada and his cronies, Gómez boasted in a luxurious restaurant in that country’s capital that he was certain that the four terrorists would be released. "In any case, the boys will be free before the year is over," he affirmed.


TAKEN OUT OF THEIR CELLS AT 4:30 A.M.

Beginning at 12 midnight on August 26, an impressive security operation was mounted around the Panamanian prison El Renacer, with units from the Institutional Protective Service (SPI) and elite police agents. The prison’s director, Mr. Carlos Arjona, was present.

At 4:30 a.m. (local time) on August 26, Posada and his three accomplices were taken out of El Renacer, some 40 kilometers from the capital. They were driven, in hoods, to Tocumen International Airport, where two small planes were waiting – after having arrived the morning of the previous day – to take them to San Pedro Sula, in Honduras.

The special operation to remove the pardoned criminals was personally overseen by Carlos Barés, former chief of the National Police.

The airplanes were chartered and paid for by known Miami capos, including Leopoldo Fernández Pujals; Jorge Mas Santos, of the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF); the terrorist Santiago Álvarez, and members of the so-called Cuban Liberty Council (a split-off of the CANF), which does not exclude the monetary intervention of the US government and the advisement of its special services.


FALSE DOCUMENTATION PROVIDED BY THE US EMBASSY

A few days prior to the pardon, narco-lawyer Rogelio Cruz informed Barés that Posada possessed false documents provided by the U.S., and that "using them, he could leave Panama with no problem whatsoever, as long the terrorists had his support." The decision to free Posada and his accomplices was agreed "in early August" during a meeting of ministers "by unanimous vote," leaving the president the "option of setting a more convenient date."

Mireya Moscoso, whose mandate ended on August 31, signed decree No. 317, issued on August 25, to grant a presidential pardon.

The morning of August 25, 2004, a meeting convened by Moscoso was held at Garzas Palace, the seat of the presidency, where decisions were made on details of the operation for the clandestine exit. Upon her arrival, both Cruz and Barés were welcomed by Ruby Moscoso, first lady of the Republic and the sister of the president.


POWELL AND REICH INTERVENE

The text affirms that "according to sources with direct access to the presidency," the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell brought up the subject of Posada Carriles with Moscoso during a visit to Panama in December of 2003, and informed her that it was in the interest of the US government for the terrorists to "benefit from the legal process."

Powell "went to tell her in person that Bush was interested in the Cuban prisoners being judged in absentia." That information was reflected at the time by the Panamanian daily El Siglo.

Previously, during a meeting of the Panamanian National Security Council (CSN) at the end of 2003, US Ambassador Linda Watt intervened to ask for a solution to the Posada case that would not benefit Cuba.

On January 20, 2004, Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, met at the US embassy in Panama with the CSN coordinator, who assured him "that President Mireya Moscoso would pardon the terrorists before September."

Moscoso met with Reich on January 21. One of Posada’s lawyers later affirmed that Foreign Minister Harmodio Arias had confided to him that Reich had asked for the release of the extremists.

On another occasion, Mayín Correa, a former mayor and a radio personality on KW Continente, confirmed that information by specifying that Mireya Moscoso promised at the time to put an end to the trial once the sentence was handed down.

During that same period, information was circulating in Miami to the effect that Otto Reich had "arranged everything."

Nevertheless, in August of 2004, Moscoso, denying the existence of a plan to pardon them, affirmed: "I haven’t thought about it, but now I am going to think about it."

The document also indicates that the former Panamanian president made a "private trip to Miami" at the end of June of 2004, when she came under heavy pressure" from Bush administration officials and extremist Cuban-American groups in that city. In Panama, her decision to live in Miami – where she had previously lived for 10 years – is well known.

According to the document, in addition to the millions negotiated by her sister, Moscoso received a 2005 Lincoln Town Crown car, valued at $125,000.

Since September, Moscoso has been the object of various charges of embezzling $23.4 million in presidential discretional funds and $45 million donated by the Taiwanese government during her mandate (1999-2004).

The Panamanian press has published some details of the millions spent by the former president, including purchases of jewelry, fancy dresses, trips and gifts totaling $23 million.


A VISITOR CALLED "JOHN"

In August of 2002, an American called John visited the prisoners. Carlos Barés, ex-chief of the Panamanian police, put a car – with a police corporal as its driver – at the disposal of that individual. This John person arrived at and left the jail without having to ask permission, just as he did at police headquarters and at the US embassy. At the request of Leopoldo Fernández Pujals, the former Spanish pizza "king", Barés provided police headquarters as a venue for supposed OAS officials to meet with the remanded terrorists Carlos Barés on February 12, 2004.

 


Havana. April 15, 2005

Call for investigation into how Posada Carriles entered the United States
• US legislator expresses concern over Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles’ request for asylum

BY JOAQUIN ORAMAS

DURING his special appearance on Cuban television and radio, President Fidel Castro referred to an article published in the US daily The Washington Post that states that a positive response to Posada Carriles’ request for asylum would undermine the credibility of that nation in the war on terror.

Call for investigation into how Posada Carriles entered the United StatesIt went on to say that Eduardo Soto, a Miami-based lawyer who is responsible for Posada’s asylum petition, has affirmed that the terrorist is currently residing at a secret location after surreptitiously entering US territory.

The newspaper mentions that, having been trained by the CIA in the use of explosives as part of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Posada has been related for many years to, amongst other events, the sabotage of a Cuban passenger plane that caused the deaths of 73 people in 1976.

Last Monday, Democrat Representative William Delahunt from Massachusetts sent a letter to the House International Relations Committee urging it to investigate how Posada entered the country.

Given the enmity between the governments of Cuba and the United States, it is possible that US officials may have turned a blind eye to Posada’s entry into our country or worse still, helped to facilitate it, wrote Delahunt. He continued that whether or not this is true and Posada is allowed to remain in the country, US credibility with respect to the war on terror would be shattered… because it would suggest that they share the beliefs of Al Qaeda supporters and Iraqi insurgents in the sense that a terrorist for some is a freedom fighter for others.

In his reflections, Fidel referred to different articles published in the United States, many of which described the Cuban terrorist in positive terms.

Prior to the Cuban president’s address at the International Conference Center in Havana where the event took place, images of some of the terrorist attacks perpetrated by the CIA and Posada Carriles were projected onto a large screen for the benefit of those gathered.

"I have no doubts that many people in the United States are going to react against this outrage," stated the leader of the Cuban Revolution.  
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/abril/vier15/17fpc2-i.html

Senator Tom Harkin questions Bush, Sr. on Posada - 1988

Amid Cheers, Terrorists have Landed in the U.S.
by Julia Sweig and Peter Kornbluh
Los Angeles Times September 12, 2004

Cuba at the UN Security Council on Posada

Cuban UN Delegate Bruno Rodriguez, April 25, 2005

Posada and Noriega: One picture worth 1000 words

Albor Ruiz: Terrorists Welcome, If They're Anti-Castro (2004)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/237319p-203507c.html

Frosty Wooldridge: Placing Americans In Danger (2005)
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10813.shtml

Cubana Bomb Tragedy - New Focus on USA
by Ricky Singh, Jamaica Observer, May 1, 2005

"Is Cuba a sponsor of terrorism? Is the U.S.
by Wayne S. Smith, May 2005

Malice, Contradictions and Lack of Fair Play in the Cuban Five Case
Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) May 9, 2005

Ricardo Alarcon interview on Democracy NOW! program May 9, 2005
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/09/148248&mode=thread&tid=25

Ann Louise Bardach interview on Democracy NOW! May 9, 2005
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/09/148243

Democracy NOW programs where Posada was mentioned
http://www.democracynow.org/search.pl?query=Posada

Afrocuba Web page on Posada
http://www.afrocubaweb.com/posada.htm

NEWSWEEK: Hypocrisy? (May 5, 2005
A Cuban militant poses a terror conundrum for Bush
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7750967/site/newsweek/

Gaeton Fonzi: The Arrogance of the Bush Government Matches Posada's
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/mayo/lun9/20fonzi.html

DeWayne Wickham: US promotes double standard in "terrorist" cases
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/wickham/2005-05-09-wickham_x.htm

Posada: Papers connect exile to bomb plot (Miami Herald)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11606450.htm

Ex-officer: Bomb suspect lying
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11602550.htm

Victim's kin oppose Posada bid for asylum
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/11586780.htm

Shore up our borders: letter to Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/editorial/letters/11586775.htm

Get rid of Posada: letter to Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/editorial/letters/11566469.htm

Jim DeFede: Posada puts White House in a quandary
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/jim_defede/11488979.htm

Jim DeFede: Family haunted by fugitive's bid for U.S. asylum
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/jim_defede/11474216.htm

Jim DeFede: Cuban militant's image depends on whom you ask
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/jim_defede/11370715.htm

Miami New Times: articles on Luis Posada Carriles
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/search/results?search_keyword%3Astring=Luis+Posada+Carriles&Submit=GO

Jose Pertierra: Unpunished Coyotes (April 2005)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs132.html

Jose Pertierra: The United States of Miami (April 2005)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs130.html

Gaeton Fonzi: Arrogance of Bush gov't matches Posada’s
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/mayo/lun9/20fonzi.html

Jesús Arboleya Cervera: Posada Carriles returns home
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Arboleya&otherweek=1115701200

Miami Herald editorial opposing Posada asylum bid
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/11447619.htm

Venezuelan Torture Victim Denounces Posada Carriles
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={3AB36AB3-F14F-4DC6-A777-F7073E353BF1}&language=EN

US: Between Bin Laden and Posada Carriles
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={0C38304E-FF13-467C-AD40-3D686ADEBCCA}&language=EN

The “Santrina” ran aground in Cuba
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=santrina_ant&otherweek=1115701200

‘Carriles is not eligible for asylum’
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Fidel&otherweek=1115701200#_edn1

Sun-Sentinel editorial: "War on terror"
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-editafcubaterroristmay11,0,1533130.story

http://www.radiohc.cu/ingles/posada/portadaprincipal.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=749225

Carlos Fazio: The Flight of a Terrorist (2004)
http://www.tribuna.islagrande.cu/opinion/dondeingles.htm

Eugene Robinson - Toll of a Terrorist (2005)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201560.html

History turns against Venezuela's "Inspector Basil"
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12265869.htm

A Terrorist Comes Home to Roost
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=28658

Posada and the "Coca-Contra" Scandal, the report the FBI preferred to forget
http://granmai.cubaweb.com/ingles/2004/febrero/mar17/7posada-i.html

Peter Kornbluh and Julia E. Sweig: Will U.S. harbor terrorist?
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.
terrorism15may15,1,4724647.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines



 

 


 

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