(1)
Granma (31st August, 2004)
Everything
would seem to indicate that terrorist Luis Posada Carriles has
taken refuge in Honduras, his traditional lair along with El Salvador.
However,
although the national authorities have confirmed that he is being
sought, there are no details on his presence and far less on his
detention, as was announced ion the Cuban Television Roundtable
program.
Meanwhile
the United States is keeping quiet on the pardon signed by President
Mireyas Moscoso, who released the notorious killer and three of
his accomplices serving a prison term for an attempt to assassinate
President Fidel Castro during an event at the University of Panama
in 2000.
It was
stated on the program that Ricardo Maduro, the Honduran president,
was forced to acknowledge that Posada had entered the country
and that he is a terrorist “who has the support of powerful
people with international influence.”
Statements
condemning the shameful pardon signed by the Panamanian president
have continued.
The Panamanian
people never imagined that one of their governors would bend to
U.S. directives to such a degree, affirmed Panamanian lawyer Julio
Berrios, repudiating the pardon allowing the release of the four
anti-Cuban terrorists.
Speaking
on the Roundtable program, Berrios, a professor of Law at the
University of Panama, referred to a statement left by Moscoso
on the answer-phone of a former ambassador to her country and
quoted on U.S. television, in which she says:
“Ambassador,
good morning, this is the president to inform you that the four
Cubans were pardoned last night and have already left the country.
Three are headed for Miami and the other to an unknown destination.
Good bye, and all the best.”
The president
has acknowledged that she made that call.
Other
Panamanian figures likewise condemned the pardon of the four terrorists
of Cuban origin. Former president Jorge Illueca described it as
a blow to Latin American integration. This act, he added, affects
the deepest sentiments of Pan-Americanism which, in addition to
the rupture of diplomatic relations with Cuba, has already prompted
the withdrawal of the Venezuelan ambassador and Hugo Chávez’
absence from the investiture of the incoming president.
Gassán
Salama, the former governor of the province of Colón, who
resigned in protest over the pardon, qualified it as a world disgrace,
an act that demonstrated Moscoso’s lack of interest in combating
terrorism.
On the
other hand, a statement signed by some 40 legislators from various
tendencies comprising the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN),
rejected Moscoso’s decision and calls on ”the peoples
of the civilized world to condemn this decision in favor of those
terrorists who are endangering stability and peace.”
In Bogotá,
more than 100 participants in the Voices of the World Congress
for Peace rejected the humiliating decision of the Panamanian
leader, which exposes a high degree of opportunism and hypocrisy
to gratify Washington’s anti-Cuba policy.
The Mexican
Communist Party affirms that by releasing the four terrorists,
Moscoso has become an accomplice of those who in 1976 placed the
bomb aboard the Cubana passenger plane that cost the lives of
73 people, and those who made an attempt on the life of President
Fidel Castro in particular at the Ibero-American Summit.
(2)
The
Miami Herald (4th September, 2004)
Honduran
authorities said Friday they continue to believe Cuban exile Luis
Posada Carriles is no longer in the country, but that, if he's captured,
they would consider Cuba's extradition request.
There, the
explosives expert would face a firing squad.
''We still
believe that he left the country, but we can't determine how he
did that,'' Armando Calidonio, Honduras' vice minister of security
told The Herald. "The investigation continues.''
Leónidas
Rosa Bautista, Honduras' minister of foreign relations, told reporters
on Thursday that an extradition request had been submitted by Cuba
and that, if Posada is apprehended, he would be "immediately
deported.' Cuba, meanwhile, has said that Posada would be condemned
to death.
Posada -
who is wanted by Cuba on numerous terrorism and assassination charges
- was among four exiles pardoned last month by Panama's former President
Mireya Moscoso. They had been imprisoned four years ago on convictions
tied to an assassination plot against Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Three of
the exiles, Gaspar Jiménez, Pedro Remón and Guillermo
Novo - all of whom are U.S. citizens - returned to their homes in
Miami. Posada, 76, who is not a U.S. citizen, is believed to have
fled to Honduras where he went into hiding. Authorities in that
country said they have information indicating Posada fled to the
Bahamas or another Caribbean country but could not be absolutely
certain.
Branded
by Castro as ''the worst terrorist in the hemisphere,'' Posada is
wanted in connection with the 1976 midair bombing of a Cuban jetliner
in which 73 people were killed. The former CIA operative also is
accused of orchestrating a dozen terror bombings of Havana tourist
spots in 1997, and numerous plots to assassinate Castro.
Posada and
the three Miami exiles have denied any role in the alleged assassination
plot in Panama during a heads-of-state summit in 2000, where Castro
made the accusations.
A Panamanian
court dropped initial charges of conspiracy to murder and possession
of explosives, but convicted them in April of endangering public
safety and sentenced them to up to eight years.
In the terror
bombings in Havana, Posada first admitted, then denied, responsibility.
Responding
to reports by Cuba that Posada could have gone to Costa Rica, authorities
there announced they would not provide refuge to Posada.
(3)
Panama Pardons Spur Cuban Outrage, CBS
News (27th August, 2004)
The Chilean
Supreme Court on Thursday stripped former military dictator Augusto
Pinochet of his immunity. That leaves the courts free to prosecute
him for the deaths or disappearances of opposition figures in the
1970s.
Just a few
hours earlier, Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso was pardoning
four Cuban exiles, one of whom collaborated with Pinochet’s
secret police.
Guillermo
Novo, along with three other Cuban exiles, were arrested in Panama
in November 2000 on information provided by Cuban intelligence.
Fidel Castro’s
personal security detail had swept the Panamanian capital in advance
of the Cuban president’s arrival for an Ibero-American Summit.
They provided Panamanian authorities with a surveillance video of
four known anti-Castro extremists believed to be plotting to assassinate
Castro. The plan, said Cuban security, was to plant explosives at
a scheduled meeting between Castro and university students.
Panamanian
courts, however, determined there was not enough evidence to sentence
the men for attempted murder and instead sentenced Novo and Pedro
Remón to seven years each for endangering public safety and
Luis Posada Carriles and Gaspar Jiménez to eight years for
endangering public safety and falsifying documents.
Cuba protested
the court ruling, charging the men had gotten off too easy. Posada
Carriles, the most notorious of the four, topped Cuba’s most
wanted list.
Peter Kornbluh,
a specialist on U.S.–Cuban relations, agrees with Havana. This
was not the first time Novo dabbled in violence, said Kornbluh.
In 1978, he recalls, Novo was tried and convicted for his role in
the assassination of former Chilean Foreign Minister, Orlando Letelier,
and his American secretary Ronnie Moffitt. The men were killed in
a car bombing in Washington D.C.
A U.S. Federal
appeals court overturned the conviction on a technicality in 1981.
Kornbluh,
author of "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity
and Accountability," considers Novo “one of the leading
Cuban exiles who collaborated with the Chilean secret police, DINA,
in the mid-1970s to conduct terrorist operations outside of Chile’s
borders.
"At
a time when civilized nations are fighting a war against terrorism,
Panama's release of recognized purveyors of violence such as Guillermo
Novo and Luis Posada is not only a travesty of justice, it is a
danger to future victims," Kornbluh stressed.
Not surprisingly,
Letelier’s son, Juan Pablo Letelier, today a deputy in the
Chilean Congress, also reacted sharply to Moscoso’s action.
Letelier called the pardons “an imprudent decision” with
“international repercussions” in Chile’s “La
Tercera”.
The Cuban
government broke relations with Panama just eight hours after the
president pardoned “the Hemisphere’s top terrorist”,
Posada Carriles, and the other three.
(4)
Saul Landau, Anti-Terrorism
Update (20th September, 2003)
In
the 1960s, Guillermo and his brother had linked their political
fortunes with an overtly fascist anti-Castro group called the Cuban
Nationalist Movement. According to FBI Agents Carter Cornick and
Scherrer, whose police work helped crack the Letelier Moffitt assassination
case and point the finger at the highest levels of the Pinochet
government, Novo pursued his violent anti-Castro activities throughout
the 1960s and early 1970s. Scherrer claimed that “he tried
to finance through drug dealing. But we could never make a charge
stick.” Guillermo’s reputation as a tough guy included
an incident where, to show his courage and machismo, drove his car
into a brick wall at high speed.
In 1975
Guillermo and Ignacio had already forged links with General Pinochet’s
secret police. Indeed, FBI Agents Scherrer and Carter Cornick, who
was the point man on the Letelier case, were convinced that the
Novo brothers had played key roles in the assassination of anti-Castro
exile Rolando Masferrer whose death directly benefited Jorge Mas
Canosa, the man who went on to lead the Cuban American National
Foundation, the most powerful anti-Castro pressure group in the
nation.
Masferrer,
a Senator in Batista’s Cuba, won his notoriety for leading
a small army known as "Masferrer's Tigers." Prior to Castro’s
assumption of power in January 1959, these thugs attacked violently
factions that opposed the Batista regime. In exile in Miami, he
bought and published a Spanish language newspaper named Libertad.
But he also continued his better-paying occupation: the extortion
of small and easily intimidated business people in south Florida.
Masferrer,
a master of anti-Castro slogans, supported violence against the
Cuban revolution. But his efforts had brought no results and the
more ambitious exiled Cubans began to think of his rhetoric and
his purported militant actions as a front for his “business”
activities. Masferrer stood as an obstacle to Mas Canosa’s
plans to forge an effective and unified counter revolution, which
would include meaningful violence and political pressure.
In the early
fall of 1975, Masferrer’s bodyguards discovered Ignacio Novo
stooping under Masferrer’s auto. According to Agent Scherrer,
“the heavies dragged Iggy into the office and stuck his head
in the toilet. Then they stripped him and threw him into the street.
I guess they figured they had scared him.”
Shortly
afterwards, on October 31, 1975, Masferrer started his car and died
as a bomb planted under the car exploded. The bomb went off under
his car – a bomb very similar to the one that killed Letelier.
“So I always figured the Novos had done that job and maybe
gotten Townley.” Scherrer referred to Michael Townley, the
Chilean DINA agent who later recruited the Novos into the Letelier
plot. “I thought Townley did them a favor (making the Masferrer
bomb). Then, about a year later, he asked them for a favor (helping
him assassinate Letelier).”
(5)
Albor Ruiz, New
York Daily News (30th September,
2004)
Let's see
if we can make sense out of this: On Tuesday, Washington denied
visas to a number of Cuban scholars - I repeat, scholars - who had
been invited to participate in an academic conference in Las Vegas.
Yet, in
what amounted to a suspension of the war on terror, a few weeks
ago, Pedro Remn, Guillermo Novo Sampol and Gaspar Jimeniz - three
Cuban-Americans with long and proven ties to terrorist activities
in this country and abroad - were given a celebrity welcome to the
U.S.
Terrorists
yes, scholars no? It doesn't make any sense.
On Sept.
28, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana informed the Cuban authorities
that they had turned down the requested visas of every single one
of 61 Cuban scholars who were supposed to take part in the Latin
American Studies Association (LASA) convention in Las Vegas Oct
7-10.
Such action
was based on Section 212, an executive order issued during the Reagan
administration that allows denial of visas on the grounds that it
is not in the interests of the U.S. to grant visas to persons who
are employees of the Cuban government and/or members of the Cuban
Communist Party.
"In
short," said Michael Erisman, a political science professor
at Indiana State University and a member of LASA, "it is a
blanket authorization to deny visas, since practically all Cubans,
and certainly all Cuban academics, are government employees, just
as those of us in the U.S. who work at public institutions are government
employees."
Yet Remn,
Novo and Jimeniz, who along with former CIA operative Luis Posada
Carriles had been in a Panamanian prison, accused of plotting to
assassinate Fidel Castro at a summit of Latin American leaders in
2000, had no problems with federal authorities.
The fact
that, according to the charges, they were planning to use 33 pounds
of explosives to assassinate Castro at the University of Panama
did not raise any red flags with immigration authorities. Those
authorities happily looked the other way when the three men returned
to the U.S. through the Opa-Locka airport in Florida.
Officials
in Washington did not seem to mind that the explosives the men intended
to use were enough to destroy an armored car, damage everything
within 220 yards and kill not only Castro but dozens of Panamanian
university students as well. Recently, the men had been sentenced
to seven to eight years in prison for endangering public safety.
But on Aug.
28, they were pardoned by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso,
who many believe was pressured to do so by Washington. And, outrageously
enough, the trio arrived in Florida to great fanfare just in time
to commemorate the third anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
on American soil. It seems that for all its rhetoric about democracy,
what really scares this administration the most is a free exchange
of ideas.
"We
expected some casualties, but never a blanket denial of visas,"
said Erisman. "This case is, at least to the best of my knowledge,
the most extreme application - and abuse - of the Section 212 provisions
in terms of the size of the group that has been denied visas."
Terrorists
yes, scholars no. Whatever happened to the war on terror? Call it
opportunism or call it hypocrisy - it doesn't make much difference.
The fact is that this is an election year and Florida must be won.
And candidate Bush seems willing to go very far to woo the ultraconservative
Cuban-American vote. Last time I looked, this was called hypocrisy.
