Cuban Exiles Fundraise For Defense Of Terrorist, 1/01

Recently declassified Cuban document made public, 11/24/00

When the U.S. asked Central America for harsh treatment of its ex-agent, Posada Carriles, 11/00

The Posada Case And Terrorism Against Cuba, 11/22/00

Alertan Sobre Maniobras Con Documentos Posada Carriles En El Salvador, 11/22/00

The arrest of Luis Posada Carilles, 11/17/00

Posada, a terrorist extraordinaire, who masterminded all manner of criminal acts from the bombing of a Cubana airline in 1976 to the anti-tourism bombing campaign of 1998, was arrested in Panama after Fidel Castro revealed on November 17th that Posada was plotting to kill him.  Posada revealed some of his extensive ties to the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in an interview to the New York Times in 1998.  He then retracted this admission when he heard the complaints from his colleagues who were feeling the heat. It is widely reported that Jorge Mas Canosa, the deceased founder of the CANF, got him out of a Venezuelan jail where he had served 9 years of a 27 year sentence for the Cubana bombing. Here we track matters relating to the arrest of this arch-criminal.  He has had access to many state secrets involving the US, including his extensive cocaine trafficking as number two man after Felix Rodriguez at Ilopango Air Force Base in Hangar #2, which belonged in the 80's to the CIA. Rodriguez worked directly for Bush over a period of many years. So it will be interesting to see what happens to his case.

For background information on Posada, see Luis Posada Carilles. For background on the CANF, see The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF).

Cuba Petitions Panama For Extradition Of Luis Posada Carriles, 11/21/00

Fidel Castro, In Panama For Iberoamerican Summit, Denounces Plots, 11/17

The Spanish language news agency EFE reported on December 15 from Miami that Cuban exiles in that city participated in a radio marathon to raise funds for the legal defense of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and another 3 henchmen arrested with him in Panama.

Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Remon Posada, and Gaspar Jimenez were arrested in the Panamanian capital on November 17 after Cuban intelligence notified Panamanian police of a plot by the four men to assassinate President Fidel Castro Ruz during the X Ibero American Summit.

"We are going to free the four compatriots and will not allow that a crime of this nature be committed against them" swore Armando Perez Roura, director of Radio Mambi (WAQI-AM) in Miami.

According to Roura, "the accusation is the pure invention of a regime that uses all of its resources to make lying accusations against its enemies".

The goal of the radio marathon is to collect $200,000, organizer Santiago Alvarez told EFE. He added that the "success of the marathon has been complete: the calls are constant and the pledges are very encouraging".

Democracy Movement, an organization participating in the initiative, called on exiles to contribute in order to cover the legal costs of four Cuban-American citizens whose arrest "appears to be the product of a Castroite manipulation". Ramon Saul Sanchez, President of the anti-Cuba group says that "independently of the strategies for struggle, the defense of those who fight for the freedom of Cuba is an obligation of all exiles when they are found to be in legal difficulties resulting from their acts".

"If these Cubans are be extradited to Cuba, their lives would be greatly at risk, even though the tyrannical regime would promise not to execute them", added Ramon Raul Sanchez.

The anti-Cuba organization has asked the government of Panama to immediately free the four detainees who, according to the exile group, " have not committed any crime".

Rogelio Cruz, attorney for the detainees, charged Thursday before a news conference that he can prove that Fidel Castro framed the defendants in order to accomplish their extradition. According to Cruz, the Cuban government planted the 8 kilos of explosives found at the international airport on the 19 of November, two days after the arrest of his clients He said that the four were in Panama only to facilitate the defection of Eduardo Delgado, chief of Cuban security who was taking advantage of the Summit to escape from the island.

Posada Carriles is wanted in Venezuela where he escaped from prison before being tried for the mid flight bombing in 1976 of a Cubana airliner that killed all 73 persons on board. He has also admitted having plotted a series on bombings in Havana hotels which injured scores and killed an Italian tourist in 1997. Carriles has admitted to receiving funds from the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami to carry out his acts of terrorism against Cuba. The three other defendants have been implicated in previous acts of terrorism in the US against the United Nations building in New York City, the assassinations of a Cuban diplomat in New York and a Chilean diplomat in Washington, DC.

Radio Mambi and Ramon Raul Sanchez instigated defiance of the US Department of Justice and rioting during the kidnapping dispute of Elian Gonzalez in Miami. Most recently, Radio Mambi incited a mob attack on the Dade County Board of Elections to stop a vote recount of the presidential election.

Press review courtesy of the Carlos Baliño Institute Cubans Abroad in Support of the Homeland & Revolution Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, 1/01

IN August 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton warned Central American governments about Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, but they ignored him.

Posada's arrest during the recent Panama summit and the revelations about how he had been able to move with impunity around the region, including Miami, sparked an analysis of the reasons that the U.S. president's message was not heeded.

The fact is that officials from the CIA and the U.S. State Department were given the task of doing something about the presence of the controversial figure in the area and various newspapers around the region echoed the unusual message. For example, on September 30, El Nuevo Herald printed statements made by government envoys: "He is not protected by the United States, despite having worked for the CIA during the 1960s and for Oliver North's campaign to support the anti- Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua through aid from El Salvador between 1986 and 1988. Washington hopes that local officials have investigated Posada's anti-Castro attacks and conspiracies and will prosecute him if possible."

The newspaper article added: "Posada has lived almost openly in Central America for the last 13 years and has even worked for former Salvadoran and Guatemalan presidents, despite the fact that he is a fugitive sought for allegedly planting a bomb on a Cuban airliner that cost of 73 lives. He recently admitted that he had organized the planting of bombs that exploded in Havana during 1998."

Certainly the government was not showing all its cards. In those days Posada's revelations to The New York Times had sounded the alarm. Terrorism, one of U.S. propaganda's strong points and at the same time one of its weakest, had been used for shameful ends on CIA orders according to this well-known agent. The government needed to distance itself from this.

The message alluded to the "United States' strong opposition to acts of terrorism against Cuba... We would like [the Central American governments] to take legal action against the persons or groups that are carrying out similar actions from their territories," a U.S. government official told El Nuevo Herald in September.

Security officials in Honduras and El Salvador confirmed to journalist Glenn Garvin that CIA agents assigned as diplomats and officials in local U.S. embassies started transmitting energetic warnings about Posada in mid-August 1998. "It was obviously a strong message," one of them commented.

What has happened since then?

Posada, who is now 72, escaped from a Venezuelan jail in 1985 where he was serving a sentence for the Cuban airline bombing that killed 73 people. A former CIA agent, Posada confessed to The New York Times that Jorge Mas Canosa, at that time president of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), provided the financing and assistance to ensure that he had been able to walk freely out of the prison gates. He later went to El Salvador, although he had also lived in Guatemala and Honduras. He also worked as head of operations for the Venezuelan intelligence service prior to having been arrested for the bombing of the Cuban airliner in Barbados in 1976.

In July 1998, El Nuevo Herald referred to The New York Times interview where Posada acknowledged that he had hired Salvadoran Raúl Ernesto Cruz León, who was arrested in Havana in 1997 and admitted planting half a dozen bombs in the city's tourism centers. Other reports in the Florida daily have also linked him to attempts to hire Guatemalans to plant bombs in Cuba during 1997 and to join with other forces in attempts to assassinate Fidel in Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

TIMES: FBI DID NOT INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATION PLANS

However, 65-year-old engineer Antonio Jorge Alvarez (Tony), who directed the activities of WRB Enterprises in Guatemala and made contact with Posada Carriles and other Cuban born terrorists there, also told The New York Times that in those days the FBI appeared not to have investigated the background to complaints about the preparation of a plan to assassinate the Cuban leader during an Ibero-American Summit on the Venezuelan island of Margarita.

In Puerto Rico just before the summit, the U.S. Coast Guard detained a boat containing four men. The leader of the group, Angel Alfonso Alemán from Union City, New Jersey, declared that the group was on a mission to assassinate Fidel on Margarita island.

Subsequent investigations confirmed that the boat belonged to CANF leaders and that one of the weapons found aboard was registered to Dr. Alberto Hernández, the president of that interview that Francisco Hernández, Alberto's brother, and Manuel Foyo, among others, had sent him money for his expenses.

The New York Times quotes Posada Carriles as saying that Mas Canosa and the CANF supplied the funds to finance at least 11 explosions in Cuban hotels and tourist installations.

THE 'TIMES' USED THE CIA TO INVESTIGATE MAS CANOSA

The newspaper revealed that it had utilized CIA and FBI files as sources for the series of investigations and reports on Mas Canosa and Luis Posada Carriles, and that these revealed close links between the two.

It added that its sources also included testimony from around 100 persons, 13 hours of taped interviews and conversations with Posada, intelligence archives, sworn statements, Posada's autobiography and documents written in Posada's own handwriting. The New York Times reiterated its "support and confidence" in the reporters responsible for the articles, Miami correspondent Larry Rohter and freelance journalist Ann Louise Bardach.

Jorge Mas Santos, Mas Canosa's eldest son, called a press conference rejecting the allegations the day after the articles were published, and Posada subsequently denied he had talked with the newspaper.

An executive of The New York Times said 24 hours later that the paper would not retract the articles. Assistant editor Bill Keller told El Nuevo Herald that he believed there was no need to reply or to clarify anything, since the story spoke for itself. He confirmed that the paper was very happy with its reporters and said that they had done an excellent piece of work.

Meanwhile, Nancy Nielson from the paper's corporate relations department commented that the journalists had recorded three days of conversations with Posada in which he admits that CANF leaders supported the bombing of hotels and other acts.

So much evidence proved overwhelming for President Clinton. But something took place that allowed Posada Carriles to continue moving freely around Central America and even Miami without anybody bothering him. Observers are inclined to believe that the "invisible government," the name author David Wise given to the CIA, calmed Central American leaders. They believe that Clinton's recommendation was something of a hot potato for both the Central American government leaders and the CIA itself, since Posada Carriles knew too much about some people. That is another story, but one that merits a further article.

HAVANA (AIN).- An important document recently declassified by the Cuban government was made public during the final part of a televised roundtable on Thursday, November 23, which continued analyzing the case of infamous terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

The document is a synthesis of President Fidel Castro’s words to Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez on April 18, 1998, to be confidentially transmitted to U.S. President Bill Clinton.

It was known at that time that the Nobel laureate in literature was to have a personal meeting with Clinton, who admires his work and enjoys an ongoing friendship with the author.

Of the seven points of the document in question, only the first was made public. It consists of a warning of the persistence of terrorist plots against Cuba financed by the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and utilizing Central American mercenaries.

It refers to two terrorist incursions into Cuban tourist installations before and after the Pope’s visit. In the first case, the culprits escaped by air to Central America without achieving their aims and the explosives were seized.

In the second attempt, three Guatemalan mercenaries were detained, and the explosive charges and accessories confiscated. The mercenaries were to receive $1,500 USD for each device exploded.

The document confirms that in both cases the mercenaries were contracted and armed by agents in the CANF network who were already planning to sabotage Cuban or other airliners traveling to the island.

The method? To place a very small but powerful and easily-primed device with hard-to-detect components in a concealed place aboard an aircraft, timed to go off up to 99 hours later, on land or in the air, a really diabolical procedure.

It was noted how dangerous it would be if such measures became well known and were repeated, to the point of creating a veritable epidemic, as has occurred in the past with airplane hijackings.

Indeed, the document confirms that another extremist group of Cuban origin located in the United States was beginning to move in that direction and that U.S. police and intelligence agencies possessed reliable information on it, including those centrally responsible.

The declassified section of the document concluded by stressing that if the U.S. authorities really wanted to, this new form of terrorism could be aborted in time, but only if the United States fulfilled the elemental duty of combating it, as Cuba on its own could not do so. Moreover, there was a real danger of any country falling victim to such actions.

There is no doubt that Clinton gave the matter due attention and that this issue and the other points were discussed in a wide-ranging meeting on May 7, 1998, between García Márquez and U.S. senior officials, specialists and presidential advisers.

Two days later, the acting head of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana handed over a message to the Cuban authorities acknowledging the information from the Cuban government in relation to its well-founded concerns over plans of that nature being made by organizations located in his country.

In the message, the U.S. government confirmed that it was prepared to receive any information and to evaluate the possibility of its experts examining any physical evidence that the Cuban government might have in that regard.

After reiterating the serious nature of its offer, the U.S. government stated that it was prepared to enforce the law and to combat international terrorism.

On May 11, a State Department official ratified that position to the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, affirming among other things a willingness to jointly examine and follow up on any piece of evidence until matters were totally clarified.

On June 3, 1998, the U.S. government proposed sending the following note to the airline companies.*

"We have received unconfirmed information concerning a plot to place explosive devices onboard civil airlines operating between Cuba and Latin American countries.

"The persons involved in the plot plan to leave a small explosive device onboard an airliner with the intention of the device exploding while the plane is in flight.

"According to reports, the explosive device is very small and contains a fuse and a digital chronometer which can be programmed 99 hours in advance. The target, place and specific time frame have not been identified. We cannot discount the possibility that the threat could include international air cargo operations from the United States.

"The U.S. government is seeking additional information to clarify and verify or refute this threat."

Although the Cuban government understood the U.S. government’s concerns, it responded that sending such a note to the airlines was not the way to approach the problem, which could and should be solved by taking other measures, explained roundtable moderator Rogelio Polanco, also editor-in-chief of Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

Nobody could guarantee the indispensable discretion needed and such a procedure could, moreover, complicate the investigation and obstruct the adoption of more effective measures.

Making this information public, moreover, could create panic and considerably damage the Cuban economy, which is exactly what the terrorists wanted. So the Cuban government proposed a thorough analysis of the most advisable steps with a team of experts.

The U.S. side then alleged that 15 to 20 reports were circulated every year by the Federal Aviation Administration, that these were not public documents and that its own laws and regulations obliged it to inform the airline companies.

The United States then asked for the meeting of experts to be brought forward and to move ahead with the notification, after undertaking the investigations with the Cuban side.

On June 8, 1998, the U.S. government reported on the matter to the 16 Latin American countries operating flights to and from Cuba and six days later it sent a communication on the same subject to the heads of airlines flying to Cuba and the corresponding airport security chiefs.

On July 16, the French news agency AFP filed a report stating that the United States had issued a warning of possible attacks on aircraft flying to Cuba. The issue had become public.

Polanco explained that, in light of the gravity and veracity of the issue under discussion, the TV panel had asked the Cuban authorities for information that could clarify this stage of contacts between the United States and Cuba, with the goal of counteracting those terrorist plots.

That was the reason for divulging this information, which demonstrates that President Clinton was concerned and gave his attention to the problem, and explains why a delegation headed by various FBI chiefs traveled to Cuba, where they were given ample information by the national authorities.

However, Polanco pointed out, the delegation’s arrival in Havana was immediately met by protests from the U.S. ultra-right wing, led by Lincoln Díaz-Balart. The CANF and the ultra-right wing prevented Clinton’s instructions from having any effect.

The moderator also alluded to U.S. government warnings and suggestions sent to Central American countries, asking them to adopt measures in the face of potential acts of terrorism. The fact that these warnings went unheeded can be seen by the fact that Posada Carriles continued to move freely around El Salvador.

* The version of the note printed here is retranslated from Spanish.

En entrevista concedida ayer al canal 33 de la television de El Salvador y transmitida este miercoles aqui, el diputado por el Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), Shafik Handal, relato como agentes de la Policia Nacional Civil (PNC) recogieron los originales de los documentos el pasado domingo.   

"Se presento en la alcaldia de Tecapan un sargento de la division de fronteras de la PNC (Rodolfo Ernesto Campos), acompanado de un agente (Jose Amilcar Ayala), diciendo que llevaba orden de la Fiscalia de la Republica para retirar documentos originales de Franco Rodriguez", detallo.   

Luego de mostrar una copia del acta levantada en Tecapan como constancia de la entrega de los documentos, Handal preciso que los representantes de la Policia Civil extrajeron "la partida de nacimiento original, la ficha original de la cedula de identidad, y copia de un pasaporte que habia ahi".   Ellos explicaron -anadio- que los papeles eran necesarios para esclarecer el caso de Posada Carriles, detenido el viernes ultimo en Panama por planificar un atentado contra el presidente cubano, Fidel Castro, durante la X Cumbre Iberoamericana.   Me pregunto -prosiguio Handal-  que van a hacer, van a desaparecer la documentacion, lo van a proteger de esta manera?

   Para conseguir los documentos salvadorenos, Posada Carriles se acogio a una ley del ano 1992, en virtud de la cual se podia obtener una partida de nacimiento con solo presentar la fe de bautizo, segun alegaron autoridades del estado centroamericano, donde el terrorista opero impunemente durante varios anos.   Posada Carriles, quien entro a Panama el 5 de noviembre con un pasaporte a nombre del salvadoreno Franco Rodriguez, podria afrontar un proceso judicial en el pais istmeno o ser extraditado y juzgado en Cuba o Venezuela, donde tiene causas pendientes.aes/vg

4:30 UTC November 23, 2000