Subject: Alarcon / Posada Carriles: Undocumented alien or VIP guest? Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:12:10 -0500 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD0202DA261F@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Glenn, Larry R." <GLENNLR@uwec.edu>
US supports terrorism--but you aleady knew that--
Larry
______________
ZNet Commentary
Posada Carriles: Undocumented alien or VIP guest? June 16, 2005 By
Ricardo Alarcon
"For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible" (George W. Bush,
State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004)
The Bush administration's handling of the Luis Posada Carriles case and
some of the related media coverage should be a matter of grave concern
to the people of the United States. This situation has a lot to do with
US credibility. A recent manifestation of this occurred just last week
here in Havana, at the International Conference Against Terrorism For
Truth and Justice which was attended by hundreds of scholars, writers
and political and social leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean,
along with representatives from other Continents, as well.
The International and US media have almost unanimously chosen to ignore
this Conference. In the very few and exceptional cases where mention has
been made, the intention seems clearly to be to reduce its significance
to yet another "gathering of Leftists." As an unrepentant leftist myself
I gladly accept the compliment. The progressive movement is certainly
alive and well, and growing in this Hemisphere. Perhaps that explains
why it was possible for this meeting to take place in Havana with such a
broad representation of peoples -- including government leaders,
senators and parliamentarians, church dignitaries, and some of the
international community's most important intellectuals. In addition, it
should have been of interest to note that the meeting was organized in a
matter of days. People were invited with very short notice - less than
five days - yet hundreds attended. Many others who were unable to come
sent messages of solidarity and support.
What prompted all those individuals to come here precisely now? There
are probably two main reasons: the outrage that millions in Latin
America feel at the Bush Administration's refusal to extradite Posada to
Venezuela, and the decision to deal with him as if he were simply an
undocumented alien.
On the latter, Latin-Americans know quite well how US authorities and
the so-called "minutemen" and other vigilantes generally treat
"illegals." Just last year, according to recently released official
data, more than 14,000 Mexicans were expeditiously returned to Mexico.
How many of them spent two months living in comfortable conditions with
easily identifiable friends and protectors issuing public statements
through their pals and lawyers? How many were able to give interviews
which were published in newspapers and broadcast on TV and radio? And
how many of them were able to organize and hold a nationally and
internationally publicized press conference on their own behalf?
When Mr. Posada was finally taken into custody -- as reported / shown on
US Television -- he was rather gently "apprehended," without the use of
handcuffs. He was seen being kindly escorted to what appeared to be a
golf cart for his transfer to "custody." He looked more like a V.I.P.
than an undocumented person who had entered the country illegally. He
also was able to give an interview to the Miami Herald which sent a
journalist specifically for that purpose to the El Paso, Texas detention
center where he is being held. (Is this a right afforded to everyone
imprisoned at INS facilities?)
The Herald published the interview, of course, and described how Mr.
Posada enjoys many other special privileges, including: unrestricted
visits from friends, family and legal counsel (and as we've seen, even
from the press!); unlimited phone privileges; and special food and
lodgings where he is living completely separate from the rest of the
general inmate population, at his request. Understandably, he
acknowledged in the Herald piece that he feels he is being treated very
well and does not have any complaints.
What a contrast to the treatment being imposed on the five young Cubans
currently serving multiple life sentences in separate, maximum security
prisons spread out across the U.S., far from family and loved ones, with
only severely restricted contact with their lawyers and "embassy" (The
Cuban Interests Section) in Washington. And what was their crime?
Fighting terrorism -- literally! They were low-level "members" of
Miami-based terrorist groups and thus able to obtain information and
prevent the execution of plans for bombings and other violent attacks on
Cuban civilian targets, designed to both scare off tourists and
traumatize the Cuban population, without regard for the loss of innocent
lives.
So their only crime was to fight Miami-based terrorism and their trials
-- in fact the entire judicial process to which they were subjected --
are considered by virtually every legal expert who has reviewed the
cases to be in gross and extraordinary violation of regular due process
and U.S. legal and constitutional precedent. But, after all, they were
tried in Miami just months after Elian Gonzalez came home to Cuba with
his Dad.
These five young men - two of them U.S. citizens - have not only been
denied of many of their most basic legal rights, but they and their
families continue to be deprived of the minimum rights of prisoners in
the United States - - family visits, for example - regardless of the
fact that they have been condemned to a total of four life terms plus 75
years.
Of course, there are many more differences between Posada and the tens
of thousands of Latinos who try to enter the US without a visa. First of
all, Posada has been accused and prosecuted and was awaiting the
decision of a Court of Law for master-minding the 1976 bombing of a
civilian airliner, killing all 73 people on board. Posada is a fugitive
from justice. He "escaped" from a Venezuela prison in 1985 (with the
help of powerful "friends") and immediately joined the illegal and
clandestine activities of what later would become known as the
Iran-Contra scam.
Posada has admitted twice that he was responsible for a series of
bombings in 1997 in Havana, in which an Italian tourist was killed and
dozens of others were wounded. (These confessions were published in the
New York Times on July 12 and 13, 1998 and broadcast a few days later by
the Spanish language channel affiliated with CBS TV.) In 2000, Posada
was convicted by a Panamanian Court for "endangering public safety" by
having several dozens pounds of C-4 explosives in his possession, which
he intended to use at a public gathering at the University in order to
kill President Fidel Castro (along with what would have been hundreds of
others, mostly students, who attended that meeting).
Posada is known to have been involved in the torture and killings of
many Venezuelans and Central Americans. He has a long career of violence
and terror, as he himself attests to in his autobiography (Los Caminos
del Guerrero, published in 1994) and in a number of press interviews
given over the years. Lastly - but no less important -- Posada has had a
long association with the CIA since he was first recruited in the early
60s. This association is well documented in a number or recently
declassified US official documents that are now available to the public
at the Web site of The National Security Archive.
The documents clearly show that both Posada and Orlando Bosch (currently
a Miami resident who was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush in
1990) were the principal leaders and founding members of a terrorist
group known as CORU, which was responsible for a long list of murders in
many countries including the United States, according to U.S. government
documentation. One document indicates that the US government was
informed of the plan to destroy the Cuban civilian airplane three months
in advance. Other documents reflect that in 1976 U.S. authorities --
knowing who was involved in that heinous act -- tried to protect them
and give them sanctuary (as eventually has happened).
There are documents showing that CORU, and specifically Orlando Bosch,
was connected with the assassination, on September 21, 1976, of former
Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Orlando Letelier and his assistant
Ronnie Moffitt, a young woman and US citizen. (Mr. Bosch has not been
indicted, nor ever even questioned about this.)
At last week's Conference in Havana we listened to many witnesses,
journalists and academics who have been doing research for years on the
crimes committed in Central and South America by dictatorial regimes,
always with the full knowledge and support of Washington. In the 70s
these regimes established what amounted to a sort of international
state-sponsored terrorist campaign or program, known in those days as
Operation Condor. As a direct result, tens of thousand of human beings
-- maybe more - were kidnapped, tortured, raped, "disappeared" and/or
killed, with the full knowledge of US authorities.
Besides the hours of moving and deeply disturbing testimony,one of the
things that came out during the Conference was the fact that the links
between Operation Condor and the CORU have long been well established
and are clearly documented. The international reach of this terrorist
activity extended throughout many countries of South America as well as
into the rest of the hemisphere. Many innocent people have been killed
in Washington DC (the still unsolved Letelier-Moffitt case), as well as
in New York City, Miami and Puerto Rico.
We, the people of Latin America, are creating a movement that shall
fight until justice is done, the full truth prevails and all terrorists
are deprived of the impunity so many of them have so far enjoyed.
Bosch and other CORU members, living freely on US soil, must be brought
to justice to answer for the Letelier-Moffitt assassination and the
other crimes they have committed. Posada must be extradited to
Venezuela: his trial should be resumed and completed. It was still in
process when he "escaped" - interrupted by Ollie North and his cohorts.
It should be remembered that Posada was in jail in Venezuela while
awaiting completion of a trial for the murder of 73 innocent people in
the terrorist bombing of a civilian airplane.
The ball is in Bush's court. If he does not comply with established
international law, both his Administration and he personally will be in
clear violation of all of the international treaties, conventions and
resolutions -- some of them drafted and promoted by the US itself -
which constitute the legal framework of the war against terrorism.
As he indicates in the statement I quoted to introduce this article, Mr.
Bush seems to believe in the importance of credibility in language and
the honour of one's words. So what about his most famous phrase: "Those
who harbour a terrorist, those who protect a terrorist are as guilty as
the terrorist himself"?