While the Bush administration holds dozens of suspected
Muslim terrorists on secret or flimsy evidence, one of the world’s most
notorious terrorists slipped into the United States via Mexico and traveled to
Florida without setting off any law enforcement alarms.
Though the terrorist’s presence has been an open secret
in Miami, neither President George W. Bush nor Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has
ordered a manhunt. The U.S. press corps has been largely silent as well.
The reason is that this terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles,
was a CIA-trained Cuban whose long personal war against Fidel Castro’s
government is viewed sympathetically by the two Bush brothers and their father.
When it comes to the Bush family, Posada is the epitome of the old saying that
“one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
The Bush administration – which has imprisoned Jose
Padilla and other alleged Muslim “enemy combatants” without trial – has taken a
far more lenient approach toward the 77-year-old Posada, who is still wanted in
Venezuela for the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976 that killed 73
people. Posada also has admitted involvement in a deadly hotel bombing campaign
in Cuba in 1997.
Political Pardons?
More recently, in April 2004, Posada and three other
Cuban-Americans were convicted in Panama of endangering public safety in a bomb
plot to assassinate Castro. The men were pardoned in August 2004 by outgoing
Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso amid rumors that Washington had sought
their freedom to boost George W. Bush’s standing with the Cuban-American
community in the election-battleground state of Florida.
Two months before Election 2004, three of Posada’s
co-conspirators – Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon and Gaspar Jimenez –
arrived in Miami to a hero’s welcome, flashing victory signs at their
supporters. While the terrorists celebrated, U.S. authorities watched the men –
also implicated in bombings in New York, New Jersey and Florida – alight on
U.S. soil. [Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2004]
Posada has now followed his compatriots back to the
United States, albeit surreptitiously from Mexico. Posada’s lawyer Eduardo Soto
has said his client will soon come out of hiding and seek asylum from the U.S.
government. Federal immigration officials say they might reject Posada’s asylum
request, but are unlikely to deport him to any country where he would face
prosecution for terrorism. [Miami Herald, April 14, 2005]
Venezuelan authorities say they have a standing request
with the United States for Posada’s extradition in connection with the Cubana
Airline bombing. But the Bush administration is not expected to honor that
request because Venezuela’s current government of Hugo Chavez has close ties to
Cuba.
Bush Embarrassment
A thorough investigation of Posada also could prove
embarrassing for the Bush family, since the Cubana Airline bombing was part of
a wave of right-wing terrorism that occurred in 1976 under the nose of then-CIA
Director George H.W. Bush.
If Posada ever told his full story, he might shed
unwelcome light on how much the senior George Bush knew about the terrorist
attacks in 1976 and the Iran-Contra operation a decade later, where Posada also
showed up.
One of Posada’s co-conspirators in the Panamanian bomb
plot, Guillermo Novo, was implicated, too, in the right-wing terrorism that
flared up during George H.W. Bush’s year in charge of the CIA.
Novo was convicted of conspiracy in the bombing deaths of
former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt,
who were killed on Sept. 21, 1976, as they drove down Massachusetts Avenue in
Washington, D.C.
That terror attack, which was organized by Chile’s secret
police with the aid of Novo and other anti-Castro Cubans, was the first case of
state-sponsored terrorism in the U.S. capital. The bombing was part of a
broader assassination campaign ordered by right-wing South American
dictatorships under the code name “Operation Condor.”
If the Letelier-Moffitt murders had been solved quickly,
there was a danger the revelations could have hurt Republican election chances
in 1976, when President Gerald Ford was in a tight race with Democrat Jimmy
Carter.
Linking the Chilean government to an audacious terror
attack in the heart of the U.S. capital would have revived critical press
coverage of the CIA’s role in the overthrow of Chile’s elected socialist
government in 1973, a coup that had put in power Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who, in
turn, launched “Operation Condor.”
At the time of the Letelier-Moffitt car bombing, Bush’s
CIA had evidence in its files that implicated Pinochet’s secret police in the
plot to kill Letelier, an outspoken critic of the military regime. But Bush’s
spy agency withheld the incriminating information from the FBI and misdirected
the investigation away from the guilty parties. [For details, see Robert
Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to
Iraq.]
Airline Bombing
Two weeks after the Letelier assassination, right-wing
terrorists struck again, planting a bomb onboard the Cubana airliner as it left
Barbados. Seventy-three people onboard, including the Cuban national fencing
team, died.
That investigation soon led to two of Posada’s employees
who had stepped off the plane in Barbados. Police suspected that Posada, who
worked as an intelligence officer for the Venezuelan government, and another
Cuban exile, Orlando Bosch, were the masterminds. A search of Posada’s Caracas
apartment discovered Cubana flight schedules and other incriminating evidence.
Both Posada and Bosch were charged in Venezuela, but the
men denied the accusations and the case became a political tug-of-war, since
the suspects also possessed knowledge of sensitive Venezuelan government
secrets. The case lingered for almost a decade.
Meanwhile, despite the CIA’s misdirection play on the
Letelier-Moffitt murders, the FBI managed to crack the case in 1978. Chilean
intelligence agent Michael Townley was arrested as were Novo and other Cuban
exiles who had assisted Townley in planting and detonating the bomb. Townley,
Novo and other defendants were convicted, but in 1981, Novo’s conviction was
overturned on a technicality.
After the Reagan-Bush administration took power in
Washington, the momentum for solving the Letelier-Moffitt conspiracy
dissipated. The Cold War trumped any concern about right-wing terrorism. Though
the Letelier-Moffitt evidence pointed to the highest levels of Chile’s military
dictatorship, including intelligence chief Manuel Contreras and Gen. Pinochet,
the Reagan-Bush administration backed away from demands that the architects of
the terrorist attack be brought to justice.
All around, life was looking up for anti-Castro
extremists. Novo landed a job as an “information officer” for the Miami-based
Cuban American National Foundation, which was founded by Cuban exile Jorge Mas
Canosa to press the anti-Castro cause in Washington. U.S. government grants
soon were flowing into Mas Canosa’s coffers.
Iran-Contra Link
Posada also gained his freedom during the Reagan-Bush
years. In 1985, Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison, reportedly with the
help of Cuban exiles. In his autobiography, Posada thanked Mas Canosa for
providing the $25,000 that was used to bribe prison guards who allowed Posada
to walk out of prison.
Another Cuban exile who aided Posada was former CIA
officer Felix Rodriguez, who was close to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush
and who was overseeing secret supply shipments to the Nicaraguan contra rebels.
After fleeing Venezuela, Posada joined Rodriguez in Central America and was
assigned the jobs of managing munitions and serving as paymaster for pilots in
the contra-supply operation.
After one of the contra-supply planes was shot down
inside Nicaragua in October 1986, Posada was responsible for alerting U.S.
officials to the crisis and then shutting down the operation’s safe houses in
El Salvador.
Even after the exposure of Posada’s role in the
contra-supply operation, the U.S. government made no effort to bring the
fugitive accused terrorist to justice.
In 1992, the FBI interviewed Posada about the Iran-Contra
scandal for 6 ½ hours at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras. Posada filled in some
blanks about the role of Bush’s vice presidential office in the secret contra
operation. According to a 31-page summary of the FBI interview, Posada said
Bush’s national security adviser, Donald Gregg, was in frequent contact with
Felix Rodriguez.
“Posada … recalls that Rodriguez was always calling
Gregg,” the FBI summary said. “Posada knows this because he’s the one who paid
Rodriguez’ phone bill.”
After the interview, the FBI agents let Posada walk out
of the embassy to freedom. [For details, see Parry’s Lost History: Contras,
Cocaine, the Press & Project Truth.]
Protecting Bosch
By the late 1980s, Orlando Bosch, Posada’s co-defendant
in the Cubana Airlines bombing, had snuck into Miami from Venezuela. But Bosch,
who had been implicated in about 30 violent attacks, was facing possible
deportation by federal officials who warned that the United States could not
credibly lecture other countries about cracking down on terrorists while
protecting a terrorist like Bosch.
But Bosch got lucky. Jeb Bush, then an aspiring Florida
politician, led a lobbying drive to prevent the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service from expelling Bosch. In 1990, the lobbying paid
dividends when President George H.W. Bush pardoned Bosch, allowing the
unapologetic terrorist to remain in the United States.
Meanwhile, in Guatemala, after surviving an assassination
attempt that disfigured his face, Posada returned to his anti-Castro plotting.
In 1994, Posada set out to kill Castro during a trip to
Cartagena, Colombia. Posada and five cohorts reached Cartagena, but the plan
flopped when security cordons prevented the would-be assassins from getting a
clean shot at Castro, according to a Miami Herald story. [Miami Herald, June 7,
1998]
The Herald also described Posada’s role in a lethal 1997
bombing campaign against popular hotels and restaurants inside Cuba. The story
cited documentary evidence that Posada arranged payments to conspirators from
accounts in the United States. “This afternoon you will receive via Western
Union four transfers of $800 each … from New Jersey,” said one fax signed by
SOLO, a Posada alias.
Posada landed back in jail in 2000 after Cuban
intelligence uncovered a plot to assassinate Castro by planting a bomb at a
meeting the Cuban leader planned with university students in Panama. Panamanian
authorities arrested Posada, Novo and other alleged co-conspirators in November
2000. In April 2004, they were sentenced to eight or nine years in prison for
endangering public safety. [CBSNews.com, Aug. 27, 2004]
Four months after the sentencing, lame-duck Panamanian
president Moscoso – who had friendly ties to George W. Bush’s administration –
pardoned the convicts, citing her fear that their extradition to Venezuela or
Cuba would mean their deaths. Despite press reports disclosing that Moscoso had
been in contact with U.S. officials about the pardons, the State Department
denied that it had pressured Moscoso to release the Cuban exiles.
Double Standards
The anti-Castro terrorists returned from Panama to the
United States amid Bush’s “War on Terror,” but the old Cold War rules – turning
a blind eye to anticommunist terrorism – still seemed to apply.
Rather than demonstrating that the United States will not
tolerate murderous attacks on civilians regardless of the cause, the Bush
administration and the major U.S. news media have largely ignored the
contradictions in the U.S. government’s benign neglect toward anti-Castro
terrorism compared to the aggressive tactics against Islamic terrorism.
While U.S. law has been stretched to justify the arrests
and indefinite incarcerations of Islamic extremists, often without evidence of
participation in any violent act, anti-Castro Cubans – even those with long
records of violence against civilians – are allowed refuge and financial
support within the politically influential Cuban-American community in South
Florida.
Instead of the throw-away-the-key attitude shown toward
Islamic terror suspects, the anti-Castro Cuban terrorists enjoy
get-out-of-jail-free cards.
As Washington Post writer Marcela Sanchez noted in a
September 2004 article about the Panamanian pardons, “there is something
terribly wrong when the United States, after Sept. 11, fails to condemn the
pardoning of terrorists and instead allows them to walk free on U.S. streets.”
To highlight the Bush administration’s inconsistency,
Sanchez cited a 2002 speech by Pentagon policy chief Douglas Feith declaring
that in the post-Sept. 11 world “moral clarity is a strategic asset” and that
the United States could no longer afford double standards toward the “evil” of
terrorism.
But Feith’s admonition appears to have fallen on deaf
ears in George W. Bush’s White House and in Jeb Bush’s governor’s mansion.
Neither scion of the Bush dynasty has any intention of turning Posada, the
aging “freedom fighter,” over to Fidel Castro’s Cuba or to Hugo Chavez’s
Venezuela.
Whatever proof there is against Posada for actual acts of
violence, it’s a safe bet that the evidence will be judged as inconclusive,
that Posada will be portrayed more as a victim than a villain. He’ll get every
benefit of the doubt.
The Bush family has made the larger judgment that when it
comes to protecting anti-Castro terrorists, double standards can be useful for
protecting unpleasant family secrets and for garnering votes in South Florida.
Jerry Meldon is an associate professor (chemical and
biological engineering) at Tufts University. Robert Parry broke many of the
Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new
book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq,
can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com.
