"Disgraceful and Wrong-headed"

Published 11th May : The Bahama Journal


We live in times that are truly interesting.Ours is that time in world history where the greatest empire in the history of the world is seemingly beset with one challenge after the other. It is distressed within and beset from abroad. And as it tries to steady itself in an already uncertain world it finds itself challenged by some of the standards it has set for so very many others.By way of illustration we need only reference what seems its own studied disregard for the rules it has laid down concerning terrorism.Today we react to news coming in from the United States of America. This new information concerns the legal fate of an old terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles.As the government put Al Capone out of business by convicting him of the nonviolent crime of tax evasion, U.S. officials had hoped to use immigration violations to neutralize a militant anti-Castro Cuban exile accused of terrorism.The effort appears to have failed at the first hurdle in El Paso, Texas, when U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone tossed out the indictment against the 79-year-old Luis Posada Carriles on technical grounds.In this regard, we need only reference that myriad of gyrations and maneuvers it has sought to employ in the sorry case of Luis Posada Carriles. In the latest installment of hypocrisy run amok, Posada Carriles finds himself described as a man who is free to go about his business notwithstanding the fact that he is a wanted man.This man is wanted by both Venezuela and Cuba for crimes he committed against scores of men, women and children, some of whom were shot down out of the sky over Barbados.Research that suggests that Posada Carriles bears direct responsibility for certain atrocities that taken together define him as a terrorist.Information reaching us informs that the National Security Archive has posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner.The Archive also posted another document that shows that the FBI's attaché in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.It is also of some interest to us that a Cuban American lawyer Jose Pertierra is currently monitoring this case from the United States of America.He is rightly of the view that "the international community is outraged by Washington's protection of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles."We agree with Mr. Pertierra.We could not agree with him more when he says "Washington must detain Posada, extradite or try him for the bombing of a Cubana airliner in 1976 killing 73 innocent people on board and the assassination of an Italian tourist after the bombing of a Havana hotel in 1997."We are also minded to agree with this attorney when he suggests that the battle to try Posada Carriles can be won because Washington's position is politically and legally unsustainable.It is true that Posada Carriles must be tried as an assassin and not as a liar.At this juncture it should also be pointed out that a broad based coalition of people from around the world has called on the United States of America to do the right thing.For them this right thing would be for the United States to use the same kind of zeal it used as it sought to bring the Libyan trained terrorists to trial for the crimes they committed when they blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland.In this regard it is most interesting to note that the Libyan government and lawyers for families of the 270 people killed when Pam Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland in 1988 have come to a tentative agreement on a $2.7 billion settlement, according to documents obtained by CNN.Under the agreement, Libya would pay the $2.7 billion into an escrow account that would be released in phased segments over 10 months to a year. The families would not have access to all of the money -- about $10 million per victim -- until after U.N. and U.S. sanctions are lifted and Libya is removed from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.Today nothing such seems in the offing in the instance of all those matters that implicate Luis Posada Carriles in a skein of allegations concerning acts that are clearly terrorist and most definitely murderous.He is apparently being allowed an opportunity to live happily ever after that time when there were credible allegations that he had committed crimes against humanity.He is living happily ever after in the United States of America.This is a disgraceful and wrong-headed denouement to a thoroughly disgraceful situation.

Bahamian Students urged to back Cuban 5

Published in The Tribune April 5, 2007

By Alexandrio Morley

STUDENTS of the Omega College were urged by Cuban Ambassador Felix Wilson to join the Bahamian solidarity network in support of the Cuban Five in Miami.
The students , primarily those taking Caribbean history classes at the college, were told that the Cuban Five are “national heroes” who fought against terrorism in the Caribbean.

Ambassador Wilson said that Cuba has been the fending off “invasion” attempts by the US government for many years. And according to him, the incarceration of the five Cubans is “hypocrisy”. This is particularly so because the US government is “supposedly” involved in a war against terrorism, he said.

The Cuban Five are five men who are imprisoned in the US, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being convicted in a Federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001. They are Gerardo Hernàndez, Ramòn Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and Renè González.

The men were accused by the US government of committing espionage and conspiracy against the United States, and other related charges. But the five and those who defend them point out that they were involved in monitoring the actions of Miami – based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attack on their country.

In October 2006, Irma Gonzàlez, the 22 year – old daughter of one of the imprisoned men, visited the Bahamas and spoke to students at the College of the Bahamas about the case. Ms. González was invited to the Bahamas by a local group called the Bahamian Friends of the Cuban Five. She urged COB students to join the “solidarity community” that is agitating for the release of the men.

Recently, the international campaign to free the five has been asking for an investigation into the US government´s denial of visitation rights to members of the imprisoned men´s families - especially in the case of Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pèrez.

“We do not have any animosity against the US”, Ambassador Wilson said. “It has always been the position that the different US administrations have tried to impose on our country their will, and that has been a problems for our people”.
Mr. Wilson said: “The Cuban Five could not have received a fair trial in Miami because the environment was poisoned by extreme right – wing groups who want to aid the US government in overthrowing Cuba”.
He pledged that Cuba would continue to do what it believes is necessary to defend its sovereignty.
The five men have been imprisoned since 1998, In Cuba they are considered patriots and heroes who volunteered to defend their country by gathering information about terrorism directed at Cuba from within Cuban exile communities.
However the US government believes the men are apart of an espionage network that threatened US national security by trying to infiltrate military installations.

END

US-Cuban relationship not as simple as it seems

Dear Sir,
The US policy on Cuba seems to be quite a hypocritical stance. Case in point, the US military presence on the island of Cuba with its Guantanamo Bay base was to have ended in the year 1999 or latest 2000.
But because of interest in its strategic position, in terms of keeping a formidable military presence in the region, it has remained. So, the US government can have its convenient secret land occupation deals with the communist regime, while it prohibits its democratic citizens to visit the country or even play a supportive role with their families on the island.
In addition, today the US has eased its policy with what was the Soviet Union, the number one and most powerful enemy in its history, who terrorized its citizens with threats of launching rockets to all major cities during the cold war days. I remember the days when people walked the streets looking up into the sky for incoming rockets.
The relationship between Cuba and the US is a very complex historical saga. One that includes the sinking of the Maine battleship in Havana, after entering the port on January 25, 1898. About three weeks later the ship was blown up with some 2,000 men aboard. Today, this still remains a mystery. But this gave cause for the US to enter the war against Spain and oust the Spanish from the region and all of Latin America as well as the Philippines.
The US then established a presence in Cuban with the Guantanamo Bay deal, which was to have lasted for ninety-nine years, ending in 1999. The same year as the Panama Canal was turned over. Nonetheless, the US established a good relationship with Cuba, which was the first foreign country for the US to market its products abroad. Coca-Cola, was a case in point, when it built its first plant in a foreign country in 1906. Consider it was not until 1940 when Coca-Cola built its first European plant, in the UK. Therefore the US-Cuban relationship was not only political, but as a lucrative market as well.
It is therefore, shameful and embarrassing in the least for the US, not only to have undertaken an embargo on the people of Cuba, but to have it continue and in place for 45 years, is abusive and bullyish behavior, that has resulted to some extent in genocide, because of the many who have
died unnecessarily for a lack of basic medicines and not to mention those attempting to land on American soil.
Americans tourists ran wild in Cuba from the early 1920s through 1959, making the island practically the only Caribbean nation they visited. Americans had the island at their complete disposal to do whatever they pleased. In 1952, a US sailor mounted a statue of Jose Marti and urinated while sitting atop of the island's most revered and respected patriot. Disrespecting its primary national hero. The Cuban people reacted with restraint while showing total indignation and disgust.
The US has been very politically affiliated with the Cuban community in the country. Ronald Reagan as president just before an election, held a rally at the Orange Bowl and in one sweep made ten thousand illegal Cubans American citizens. They all voted for the Republican party and Cubans became Republicans for life after that. So, the US-Cuban relationship is not so simple as it seems. But it sure is abusive.
Yours etc.,
Ernest Stair

Bahama Journal Editorial denounces USA for Posada's release

Please read this excerpt from The Bahama Journal's editorial on 11th June, 2007

U.S. Self- Deception Revealed
Most right-thinking people around the world are agreed that Luis Posada Carriles presence on U.S. soil has presented that country with a dilemma; namely that of reconciling its sympathy for politically influential Cuban exiles with its tough stance against terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
In this regard, please note that the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has asked the Bush administration to extradite Posada to face trial for the 1976 bombing of the Cuban plane off Barbados.
We note also that Venezuelan Interior Minister Jesse Chacon has called on Washington to honor a bilateral extradition treaty and deliver Posada. Chacon puts it this way, "This person is a terrorist, there is no other name for him ... the ball is in Mr. Bush's court."
And so it remains as the world watches and waits.
Closer to home we note a related dimension of this story. It concerns Felix Wilson who is the Cuban Ambassador to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
This fact is widely known in those circles – primarily diplomatic- where there is a need to know such a fact.
Truth is that Felix Wilson has also been tireless in his efforts to demonstrate to all who would hear and listen that his country has suffered much as a consequence of a U. S. embargo that has succeeded in distorting his country’s development.
But as we also know and appreciate, Cuba has played and continues to play a major role in providing development assistance to a number of countries. On at least one occasion that now comes to mind, this embattled country offered the hand of assistance to the New Orleans victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Sadly, that offer was spurned.
But as we revert to today’s commentary concerning Ambassador Felix Wilson, we would also wish to remind our audience that this man has been tireless in his efforts to educate the world concerning the issue of terrorism and what his country is doing about it.
We also note that Ambassador Wilson has made it his business to acquaint the Bahamian people with some of the issues that have arisen concerning the Cuban 5 who are locked up in the United States, accused of espionage. We may add that opinion around the world seems to be agreed that the charges were trumped up.
What is interesting and in a sense absolutely revealing of a rank duplicity on the part of the United States of America is its farcically biased treatment of the legal matter involving Luis Posada Carriles, a man who is regarded world wide as a real and totally dangerous terrorist.
Having decided that it would aid, abet and encourage Luis Posada Carriles in his deadly work as a terrorist fighting Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution; the United States of America now seems as if it does not know what to do with him.
We believe that this great nation should do the right thing; that being to have Mr. Posada Carriles extradited to Venezuela where he is wanted to face charges in the matter involving the deaths of some seventy three innocent men, women and children; all lost when a Cubana plane was shot down over Barbados in October 1976.
Today Luis Posada Carriles is living free somewhere in Miami, Florida, courtesy the government and people of the United States of America.
We are told that the US government on Tuesday made an appeal before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans asking for a revision of a decision made last May by Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas. On May 8, Cardone dismissed the case against the Cuban-born terrorist, who was only facing charges of immigration fraud.
We are led to believe that this is a hoax.
Jose Pertierra who represents Venezuela in its Posada's extradition petition is of the view that the U.S. government took so long to make the appeal because "the main interest is to delay the process as much as possible to try to hide the protection that Washington is giving the terrorist."
This attorney has also noted that, even if the prosecution wins the appeal and they eventually condemn Posada Carriles for the charges of immigration fraud, the criminal would remain free as the maximum penalty for that offense is 12 months and he was in prison in El Paso for more than a year.
And so we agree with him when he concludes that "This appeal is another effort to try to deceive public opinion with a justice farce. The United States government has enough legal resources and evidence to try Posada Carriles as a terrorist."
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are also so agreed.
Sadly, the United States of America remains self-deceived.