HARBORING TERRORISTS AND OTHER CONTRADICTIONS: The U.S. and Luis Posada Carriles

Why would the United States give asylum to a man who has placed explosives in foreign embassies, companies and public facilities; acknowledged masterminding hotel explosions with the financial and logistical aid of an influential mobster; aided in the 1976 mid-air explosion of a civilian aircraft that killed 73 people and much, much more? Besides the fact that the CIA trained him, the man has always targeted Cuba, something fully justified in extreme right-wing and paramilitary circles.

Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan fugitive and admitted terrorist, surfaces in Miami in April to formally present a political asylum petition to U.S. authorities. It was only last August that Posada Carriles and three of his cohorts were pardoned and released by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso. Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Ramon and Gaspar Jimenez had been serving time in Panama after being caught in November 2000 with 33 pounds of C-4 explosives intended for the assassination of Cuban President Fidel Castro as he spoke to an auditorium full of faculty, professors and students at Panama University - many of whom would also have perished.

The man's repertoire is lengthy and brutal. Trained in espionage, explosives, demolitions and fire arms by the CIA, he led and trained paramilitary groups in the 1960s and placed bombs in Cuban embassies in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Panama, Ecuador and Venezuelan in the 1970s.

Posada Carriles was instrumental in the 1976 downing of a civilian Cubana de Aviación aircraft, according to recently declassified documents from the National Security Archive. He later admitted to -The New York Times- that he had organized the 1997 hotel bombing spree in Havana targeting the tourism industry; the attacks killed an Italian tourist and wounded many others. Posada Carriles also admitted to receiving financial aid from the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) president, Jorge Mas Canosa throughout the years.

Posada Carriles’ collaborator in the 1976 Cubana airliner downing was notorious terrorist Orlando Bosch, also a Cuban exile, who faced deportation (and possibly justice) in 1989. Then U.S. Associate Attorney General Joseph D. Whitley stated in Bosch’s deportation orders, “The United States cannot tolerate the inherent inhumanity of terrorism as a way of settling disputes. We must look on terrorism as a universal evil, even if it is directed toward those with whom we have no political sympathy.” George H.W. Bush pardoned Bosch anyway.

Over fifteen years later, Posada Carriles’ lawyer assumed that his client would enjoy the same liberties. His attorney, Eduardo Soto, held a press conference in early April to announce that Posada was in the United States and would be requesting political asylum.

Since the public announcement, activists working for U.S. policy change towards Cuba and in solidarity with the island have mounted a letter-writing campaign to congressional representatives and sent op-eds to newspapers throughout the nation. In a May 10 editorial, The New York Times expressed that Posada should be extradited to Venezuela, from where he escaped prison in 1985, to face justice, adding that the asylum option was unacceptable, as it would amount to harboring a terrorist. On May 5, Roger Noriega, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, declared the State Department was unaware of Posada's whereabouts and suggested that Posada Carriles’ returning to Miami and the asylum application could be fabrications of the Cuban government. In an interview with Democracy Now! on March 9, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón questioned how U.S. authorities could wrongly arrest hundreds of immigrants who are innocent of any violent crime and who are only trying to improve their quality of life, while carelessly allowing a known terrorist pass undetected. Many suspect that Homeland Security knowingly allowed Posada Carrlies cross the border into the U.S.

As news of the asylum petition diffused, New Jersey state authorities announced an increase in the bounty for Black Panther Assata Shakur, who has been living in Cuba since 1986. Placed on the U.S. government's terrorist watch list on May 2, 2005, Shakur was convicted by an all white jury for the death of a New Jersey state trooper - despite forensic testimony that she was shot while in position of surrender and there was no evidence that she had fired a weapon. (www.blackamericaweb.com) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales raised the reward for Shakur from $150,000 to $1,000,000. Cuban President Fidel Castro has rejected the demand that Cuba deport Shakur to the U.S. Many people have suggested that this action is intended to distract from the Luis Posada Carriles scandal and to establish that Cuba itself is harboring a terrorist.

THE WORK OF THE CUBAN FIVE

Think what you will of the Cuban government. The fact remains that any sovereign nation has the right to defend itself from the types of attacks perpetrated by Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and the many others who have callously plotted such attacks throughout the years. Due to the lack of intervention on behalf of successive U.S. administrations, the “Cuban Five” came to the U.S. to monitor the activities of the groups masterminding the violent overthrow of Fidel Castro. As a result of their attempt to intercept information about assassination and terrorist plans, likely preventing death, injury and grief among their people, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, Rene Gonzales, Fernando Gonzales and Gerardo Hernandez, are currently imprisoned in federal penitentiaries throughout the U.S. Two of them have been prevented from seeing their wives.

Bush’s action regarding the asylum petition remains to be seen. Though Cuban-American community has a str--ong influence in Washington and is of great importance to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, granting Posada Carriles asylum would contradict Bush's war on terror and undermine his position on harboring of terrorists.