Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada

Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has made the "war on terror" the centerpiece of its domestic and foreign policy. Bush cries terror where there is none - as he did in Iraq and in the communications of ordinary Americans. Meanwhile, he protects the real terrorists in our midst.

Luis Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born terrorist who has accurately been called the Osama bin Laden of the Western hemisphere. He boasted of helping to detonate deadly bombs in Havana hotels 10 years ago. Declassified FBI and CIA documents at the National Security Archive reveal that Posada was the mastermind of a 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airplane that killed 73 people. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison where he was being tried for his role in the first in-air bombing of a commercial airliner. Posada then played a central role in the illegal Iran-Contra scandal.

Posada entered the United States in March 2005 using false papers and was charged in El Paso with lying to Immigration and Customs officials. FBI agent Thomas Rice swore in a June 2005 affidavit that "the FBI is unable to rule out the possibility that Posada Carriles poses a threat to the national security of the United States." Yet on April 19, 2007 Posada was released on bail despite being a flight risk.

This stranger-than-fiction story has a logical explanation. Posada has a long history of ties to the U.S. government. He became a CIA agent in 1961. The U.S. government claims his CIA service ended in 1976. But on April 30, Posada filed a motion in federal court declaring that he continued to work for the CIA for more than 25 years. That puts him on the CIA's payroll when he engineered the terrorist airline bombing. In his motion, Posada asserted the right to present evidence of his CIA work as a defense to the perjury charges. The specter of Posada revealing the dirty deeds committed by the CIA when George H.W. Bush was CIA director was intolerable to Washington.

The government was caught between a rock and a hard place. There had been pressure to try Posada for his terrorist crimes, as required by Security Council resolution 1373 and three international treaties. Resolution 1373, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, mandates that all countries deny safe haven to those who commit terrorist acts, and ensure that they are brought to justice. These provisions of resolution 1373 are mandatory, as they were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The treaties require the United States to extradite Posada to Venezuela for trial or try him in U.S. courts for offenses committed abroad. The Department of Justice elected instead to charge him with perjury for lying about how he entered the United States in 2005.

But the government could not take the risk that Posada might sing like a canary. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone dismissed all charges against Posada. In her ruling, Cardone wrote that "the Government engaged in fraud, deceit, and trickery" by using a "routine" immigration interview to investigate possible criminal charges against Posada. But questions about Posada's prior criminal conduct were relevant to the moral character determination at the immigration interview. Posada is not a "routine" guy and his lawyer was present throughout the interview to protect him against self-incrimination. Cardone found the government's tactics "grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice." She then disingenuously claimed, "This Court's concern is not politics; it is the preservation of justice."

It is shocking and outrageous that Luis Posada Carriles, whose crimes rival those of al Qaeda, is now walking free in Miami. And Cardone's decision is deeply political.

Rep. William Delahunt has called for a congressional hearing to examine the U.S. government's role in promoting impunity in the Posada case. Delahunt sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting an explanation as to why the Justice Department did not invoke the USA Patriot Act to declare Posada a terrorist and detain him, stating, "The release of Mr. Posada puts into question our commitment to fight terrorism."

That commitment is also belied by the way Washington has dealt with the Cuban Five. These men peacefully infiltrated criminal exile groups in Miami to prevent terrorism against Cuba. The Five turned over the results of their investigation to the FBI. But instead of working with Cuba to fight terrorism, the U.S. government arrested the five Cubans and tried and convicted them of conspiracy-related offenses. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta reversed their convictions, finding they could not receive a fair trial in Miami. In August 2006, a majority of the full circuit rejected the earlier ruling and sent the matter back to the panel where further appeals are pending. The U.S. media has been irresponsibly silent on the case of the Cuban Five and the irregularities of the trial.

The Los Angeles Times, however, showed singular insight on April 20 when it said the release of Posada "exposed Washington to legitimate charges of hypocrisy in the war on terror." The editorial criticized the U.S. for holding men at Guantánamo without due process while releasing Posada. "The U.S. government has done many odd things in 46 years of a largely failed Cuba policy," the Times said, "but letting a notorious terrorist walk stands among the most perverse yet."

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The Perfect Storm

Here, a new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment, and extensive publicity both before and during the trial, merged with the improper prosecutorial references.
- Eleventh Circuit US Court of Appeals, three-judge panel opinion reversing the convictions of the Cuban Five, August 9, 2005

Many of our leaders seem to view Florida's Cuban conservatives, including the assassins and terrorists among them, as People Who Vote.
- Alice Walker, introduction, The Sweet Abyss

Since September 11, 2001, George W. Bush has made "the war on terror" the centerpiece of his policy. He uses this mantra to justify his wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, his warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and his escalating threats against Iran.

But Bush defines "terrorist" selectively. When it comes to Cuba, the Bush administration harbors the terrorists and punishes the anti-terrorists. The 700,000 Cuban-Americans in Miami are "people who vote," as evidenced by their critical role in both the 2000 and 2004 US elections.

On June 8, 2001, five Cuban men known as the Cuban Five were convicted of criminal charges in US district court in Miami. Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González are serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively for crimes including conspiracy to commit espionage and conspiracy to commit murder.

In a 93-page decision, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals unanimously overturned their convictions on August 9, 2005, because the anti-Cuba atmosphere in Miami, extensive publicity, and misconduct by the prosecutor denied them the right to a fair trial.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appealed the panel's ruling. The case is now pending before the whole, or en banc, Court of Appeals. The court will decide whether the district court wrongly denied the defendants' motions to change venue and move the trial out of Miami because an impartial jury could not be selected there.

The three-judge panel said that its review of the evidence at trial was "more extensive than is typical for consideration of an appeal involving the denial of motion for change of venue ... because the trial evidence itself created safety concerns for the jury which implicate venue considerations."

For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against Cuba and anyone who advocates the normalization of relations between the US and Cuba.

Terrorist groups including Alpha 66, Omega 7, Comandos F4, Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID) and Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR), operate with impunity in the United States - with the knowledge and support of the FBI and CIA.

Ruben Dario Lopez-Castro, associated with a number of anti-Castro organizations, and Orlando Bosch, who planted a bomb on a Cubana airliner in 1976, killing all 73 persons aboard, "planned to ship weapons into Cuba for an assassination attempt on Castro," one witness testified at the trial.

The panel noted that "Bosch had a long history of terrorist acts against Cuba, and prosecutions and convictions for terrorist-related activities in the United States and in other countries."

Luis Posada Carriles, the other man responsible for downing the Cubana airliner, has never been criminally prosecuted in the United States.

Percy Francisco Alvarado Godoy and Juan Francisco Fernandez Gomez described in depositions attempts between 1993 and 1997 by affiliates of CANF to recruit them to engage in violent activities against several Cuban targets. They both said they were asked to place a bomb at the Caberet Tropicana, a popular Havana nightclub and tourist attraction.

The panel found:

Alpha-66 ran a paramilitary camp training participants for an invasion of Cuba, had been involved in terrorist attacks on Cuban hotels in 1992, 1994, and 1995, had attempted to smuggle hand grenades into Cuba in March 1993, and had issued threats against Cuban tourists and installations in November 1993. Alpha-66 members were intercepted on their way to assassinate Castro in 1997. Brigade 2506 ran a youth paramilitary camp. BTTR flew into Cuban air space from 1994 to 1996 to drop messages and leaflets promoting the overthrow of Castro's government. CID was suspected of involvement with an assassination attempt against Castro. Comandos F4 was involved in an assassination attempt against Castro. Commandos L claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack in 1992 at a hotel in Havana. CANF planned to bomb a nightclub in Cuba. The Ex Club planned to bomb tourist hotels and a memorial. PUND planned to ship weapons for an assassination attempt on Castro.
Several terrorist acts in Havana were documented in the panel's decision, including explosions at eight hotels and the Cuban airport. An Italian tourist was killed, people were injured and all locations sustained property damage. Posada has twice publicly admitted responsibility for these bombings.

The panel characterized Posada as "a Cuban exile with a long history of violent acts against Cuba."

In the face of this terrorism, the Cuban Five were gathering intelligence in Miami in order to prevent future terrorist acts against Cuba. Former high-ranking US military and security officials testified that Cuba posed no military threat to the United States. Although none of the five men had any classified material in their possession or engaged in any acts to injure the United States, and there was no evidence linking any of them to Cuba's shooting down of two small aircraft flown by Cuban exiles, the Cuban Five were nonetheless convicted of all charges.

A survey conducted before trial showed that 69 percent of all respondents and 74 percent of Hispanic respondents were prejudiced against persons charged with engaging in the activities alleged in the indictment.

Legal psychologist Dr. Kendra Brennan characterized the results of a poll of Miami Cuban-Americans as reflecting "an attitude of a state of war ... against Cuba" which had a "substantial impact on the rest of the Miami-Dade community." She found that 49.7 percent of the local Cuban population strongly favored direct US military action to overthrow the Castro regime.

Dr. Lisandro Pérez, Director of the Cuban Research Institute, concluded that "the possibility of selecting twelve citizens of Miami-Dade County who can be impartial in a case involving acknowledged agents of the Cuban government is virtually zero ... even if the jury were composed entirely of non-Cubans, as it was in this case."

One prospective juror stated that he "would feel a little bit intimidated and maybe a little fearful for my own safety if I didn't come back with a verdict that was in agreement with what the Cuban community [in Miami] feels, how they think the verdict should be."

A banker and senior vice president in charge of housing loans was "concern[ed] how ... public opinion might affect [his] ability to do his job" which could "affect his ability to generate loans."

David Buker stated he believed that "Castro is a communist dictator and I am opposed to communism so I would like to see him gone and a democracy established in Cuba." Buker became the foreperson of the jury.

During deliberations, "some of the jurors indicated that they felt pressured." They "expressed concern that they were filmed 'all the way to their cars and [that] their license plates had been filmed,'" according to the panel's opinion.

The change of venue motion occurred during the Elian Gonzalez matter. "It is uncontested," wrote the panel, "that the publicity concerning Elian Gonzalez continued during the trial, 'arousing and inflaming' passions within the Miami-Dade community." The panel noted "the various Cuban exile groups and their paramilitary camps that continue to operate within the Miami area." It concluded, "The perception that these groups could harm jurors that rendered a verdict unfavorable to their views was palpable."

The panel found: "Despite the district court's numerous efforts to ensure an impartial jury in this case, we find that empaneling such a jury in this community was an unreasonable probability because of pervasive community prejudice."

Noted criminal defense attorney and long-time National Lawyers Guild member Leonard Weinglass represents Antonio Guerrero. Weinglass told me, "In seeking a review of the panel decision, the government has asked the en banc court to convert the finding of a 'perfect storm' of prejudice (reached unanimously after a 16-month scrupulous review of the record on venue) into a 'sunny day' of placid tolerance."

The US government's 47-year economic blockade of Cuba was mirrored by the US media's blockade of press coverage of the trial. In spite of the avalanche of coverage in Miami, it was hardly mentioned in the national media.

"It is inexplicable that the longest trial in the United States at the time it occurred, hearing scores of witnesses, including three retired generals and a retired admiral, as well as the President's Advisor on Cuban Affairs (all called by the defense) and a leading military expert from Cuba, all the while considering the dramatic and explosive 40-year history of US-Cuba relations, did not qualify for any media attention outside of Miami," Weinglass said.

The Cuban Five were placed in solitary confinement for 17 months, in tiny cells where they could barely stand, until the start of their trial. Two have been denied visits from their wives for the last seven years in violation of US laws and international norms.

Hopefully, the Court of Appeals will agree with its three-judge panel that the poisonous atmosphere surrounding the trial of the Cuban Five in Miami warrants a new trial.

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Chavez Victory: Defeat for Bush Policy

The Bush administration is gritting its collective teeth at the outcome of Sunday’s recall election in Venezuela, which overwhelmingly affirmed President Hugo Chavez’s tenure. If President Jimmy Carter had not lent his enormous credibility to the election results, Bush and his minions would surely be crying foul in unison with the opposition.

Chavez was popularly elected by his countrymen and women in 1998 and 2000. Yet in spite of Bush’s claims to support democracy around the world, his administration has given succor those trying to overthrow Chavez’s government before, during and since the aborted coup in April 2002.

Officials at the Organization of American States affirmed that the Bush administration had sanctioned the coup. Bush’s then-Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Otto Reich, met with leaders of the coup for months before it was executed. Elliot Abrams, one of the neoconservative policymakers in Bush’s inner circle, approved the coup, according to the London Observer. And John Negroponte, now our ambassador to Iraq, was in on it, too.

Reich, Abrams and Negroponte comprised the troika that administered the “Reagan doctrine” in the 1980s, which supported vicious dictatorships in Central America, including those in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

As documented in the film, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Chavez was forcibly removed from the presidential palace on April 11, 2002 by forces acting on behalf of Venezuela’s propertied class. Pedro Carmona, head of Venezuela’s confederation of business and industry, declared himself president. Within hours, Carmona purported to repeal laws enacted under Chavez that the executives of foreign oil companies opposed.

Forty-eight hours later, after thousands of workers and peasants stormed the palace demanding Chavez’s return to power, the military did an about-face and brought him back. The filmmakers, fortuitously present at the scene, were caught inside the palace and filmed the class struggle that played out with Chavez’s ouster and reinstatement.

Former U.S. Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen told the Guardian that our navy helped with communications jamming support to the Venezuelan military during the would-be coup. An American plane was present on the island to which Chavez was whisked away. The Bush administration provided financial backing to key participants in the coup attempt, which resulted in the deaths of 19 people.

Chavez incurred the wrath of Team Bush by championing the interests of the working class over the oil-igarchy in Venezuela. The fifth largest oil supplier in the world, Venezuela is a key provider of U.S. petroleum. By using oil profits to help his people instead of the multinational corporations, Chavez created an alternative model to Bush-backed neoliberal globalization.

Hugo Chavez’s plan of Bolivarianism – named after Simon Bolivar, father of Venezuelan independence – focused on a redistribution of the massive wealth generated by his country’s rich oil profits. He passed a law that doubled royalty taxes paid by ExxonMobil and other oil companies on new finds.

Chavez enacted the Ley De Tierras, which provided for unused land to be given to the landless; he instituted free health care and public education to all; he backed a new Constitution that enshrines rights for women and indigenous peoples; and he lowered the inflation rate.

Unlike the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government, which shut down Al Jazeera for its broadcasts critical of the occupation, Chavez never shut down or censored private media controlled by tycoons trying to unseat him in the months leading up to Sunday’s election.

Nearly 95 percent of the electorate voted in the election, the largest percentage Jimmy Carter has ever seen. Carter and the Organization of American States have independently verified the validity of Sunday’s election results, and have even supported an audit, which Carter calls “infallible,” according to The New York Times. Nevertheless, the opposition refuses to sanction the results of the election or the audit.

Opposition exit polls, which Carter has dismissed as inaccurate and “deliberately distributed … in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line,” were funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.

NED, a U.S. government organization purporting to promote democracy, was set up in the early 1980s by Reagan to counter negative revelations about the CIA’s covert operations in the late 1970s. NED successfully manipulated the Nicaraguan elections in 1990 and worked with right-wing groups in the late 1990s to oust Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Just last February, the Bush administration engineered a coup d’etat in Haiti, as I described in my editorial, Coup d’Etat – This Time in Haiti. The U.S. Marines put democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on a plane out of Haiti after officials from the United States threatened him into signing a purported resignation letter. Aristide, like Chavez, fell out of favor with Bush by resisting neoliberalism.

Hugo Chavez is, according to The Wall Street Journal, “Washington’s biggest Latin American headache after the old standby, Cuba.” Indeed, Venezuela is Cuba’s top trading partner, selling it discounted oil, while Cuba has sent thousands of doctors, teachers and engineers to work in Venezuela.

Speaking of Cuba, NED donated a quarter-million dollars in the early 1990s to the Cuban-American National Fund, the terrorist anti-Castro group in Miami. CANF financed Luis Posada Carriles, notorious for his involvement in the blowing up of a Cuba airplane in 1976, which killed 73 people.

Chavez, now trying to reunify his country in the wake of a contentious election, says: “Violence can only be ended if actions are taken so that all human beings have access to the fundamental human rights, including education, housing, work and health.” In a déjà vu from a hot-button issue facing us in the United States, Chavez told journalist Greg Palast: “Our upper classes don’t even like paying taxes. That’s one reason they hate me. We said, ‘You must pay your taxes.’”

Critical of the Bush administration’s covert activity against him and Fidel Castro, Chavez maintains: “They are also manipulating the U.S. people because there is a dictatorship in the United States.”

One would hope our election results in November are as reliable as Venezuela’s. If Bush is elected, we can expect him to go after Chavez again, and Castro as well. This would likely destabilize Latin America in much the same way Bush has destabilized the Middle East with his war on Iraq.

Leaders of countries throughout Latin America congratulated Hugo Chavez on his victory Sunday. Yet the Bush government, although grudgingly accepting the results, did not hail the exercise of democracy in Venezuela.

Bush’s agenda was roundly defeated with Chavez’s triumph. Chavez has opposed U.S. policy in Latin America, including military aid to Colombia and efforts to spread free trade agreements throughout the region. Voters who supported him understood that a vote to recall Hugo Chavez would be a vote for U.S. imperialism.

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