Thursday, May 12, 2005
Jax
US President George W. Bush has said on more than one occasion during the war on terrorism that "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves." ABCNews reports that this statement will be put to the test by a case involving Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban who sneaked into the US recently seeking political asylum.
The New York Times reported Monday that the Cuban government accuses Mr. Posada of being involved with the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet in 1976. Posada has also admitted to "plotting attacks that damaged tourist spots in Havana and killed an Italian visitor there in 1997," and he is also wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges.
The privately run, George Washington University based National Security Archives details Posada's extensive career as a CIA- and FBI-trained operative. The Archives reports that Posada had been imprisoned in Venezuela for the '76 bombing, but escaped in '85, when he went to El Salvador "where he worked, using the alias 'Ramon Medina,' on the illegal contra resupply program being run by Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Reagan National Security Council." The Archives also reports that although Posada has been in the US for at least six weeks, the FBI has "has indicated it is not actively searching for him." Posada's lawyer continues to say his client denies all involvement with the bombing. The Miami Herald reports that the National Security Archives' publishing of the CIA documents makes Posada's request for asylum "much more difficult." But it also points out that at least one of the informants who place Posada at the meetings planning the '76 bombing, at another time said he wasn't involved. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Posada's appearance in the US could "could create tension between the politics of the global war on terrorism and the ghosts of the cold war on communism." It has also put the Bush administration in a difficult position. A grant of asylum could invite charges that the Bush administration is compromising its principle that no nation should harbor suspected terrorists. But to turn Mr. Posada away could provoke political wrath in the conservative Cuban-American communities of South Florida, deep sources of support and campaign money for President Bush and his brother Jeb, the state's governor. For his part, President Castro has already said he plans to make Posada's presence in the US a major political issue. The Associated Press reports that President Castro gave a four-hour TV appearance Wednesday going over the documents that proved Posada's connection to the CIA. He also highlighted Posada's connection to Oscar Bosch, a man labelled a terrorist in some US documents that also link him to the '76 bombing. Bosch was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and denies involvement in the bombing, although on several occasions he has said it was a "legitimate target in the war on Castro." An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle argues that the US "should deport Posada immediately," and that not doing so "undercuts worldwide respect and support for the war on terrorism, a worthy cause that shouldn't be misused by the likes of Posada." The New York Times also argues that Posada not be allowed to remain in the US, but says the US government needs to explore other options than sending him back to Cuba or Venezuela, such as sending him to a European country willing to try him, or to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. How to deal with Posada had already provoked much argument in the Miami area. The Miami Herald reports that the debate is fierce on both sides. (Link) Thirty years ago [ABCNews.com reports] a Cuban plane was blown out of the sky off Barbados. All 73 passengers and crew members aboard Cubana Airlines Flight 455 — including Cuba's youthful fencing team — died. The terrorist attack shook Cuba as deeply as 9/11 did the United States. The Cubans have never forgotten or forgiven those they hold responsible, including Posada.
But as ABCNews also points out, the case is complicated by Posada's ties to political figures in the US, including his "pre-9/11 ties to Washington" and his allies in Florida's "powerful Cuban-American" community. If Mr. Posada has indeed illegally entered the United States, the Bush administration has three choices: granting him asylum; jailing him for illegal entry; or granting Venezuela's request for extradition.
Perhaps even harder for the Bush administration to stomach, reports the Guardian, is that by handing Posada back to Venezuela to be tried for terrorism, it would be handing "a resounding victory" to two of the leaders in Latin and South American it despises the most: Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Fidel Castro. The official blindness [to Posada's presence in the US] can be blamed on upside-down political priorities. Washington is paralyzed when it comes to offending the Cuban population in Florida, even in a case as overboard as this one. Posada's career as an anti-Castro militant, dating back to the American-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, makes him an icon to some. But there can't be safe harbor for an alleged mass killer linked to the jet bombing, as well as to other violent acts and bomb plots.
