In the afternoon of April 8, 2011, the farce that had begun thirteen weeks ago in El Paso, Texas, came to an end when terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was acquitted of all the charges pressed against him during a migration trial.
To all those who have been following the sinister history behind this terrorist and his links with the successive US governments, the FBI, and the CIA in his dirty war against Cuba, this is an additional proof of the support and protection that the US authorities have traditionally granted to him.
Since the moment of his landing in Florida after traveling from Isla Mujeres in Mexico on board of the “Santrina” boat, as was timely denounced by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, Posada Carriles has been, as he always was, under the tutelage and protection of the US government.
His being tried for committing perjury during an immigration process and not for being a terrorist is an outrage against the people of Cuba and the families that were plunged into mourning by the actions committed by Posada.
The shameless verdict at El Paso is in full contradiction with the anti-terrorist policy that the US government is said to profess, which has even led to military interventions against other nations, taking a toll of thousands of human lives.
The US government is absolutely aware of Posada Carriles’ involvement in the blowing-up in mid-air of a Cubana de Aviación airliner off Barbados in 1976, the bombing spree against Cuban tourist facilities in 1997 and his plans to attempt against the life of our Commander in Chief in Panama in 2000, for which he was even convicted in that country.
The US government has all the evidence of the crimes committed by Posada, many of which were presented in court at El Paso.
We are still to see if the US government is capable of either filing a new claim against Posada Carriles on a charge of terrorism or accepting his extradition to Venezuela, as was requested more than five years ago by that country, taking into account its legal obligation derived from the international covenants it is party to and the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 of 2001, which was promoted by the US government itself.
As paradoxical as it may seem, while Posada Carriles is being acquitted, five Cuban anti-terrorists remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States for collecting information about the actions perpetrated by terrorists of Cuban origin who, like Posada Carriles, are walking free and with impunity down the streets of Miami.
Cuba reaffirms that the US government is the chief responsible for this outcome and challenges it to take on its obligations in the struggle against terrorism, without hypocrisy or double standards.
Havana, April 9, 2011
En español. Cf. “Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record” (The National Security Archive, 10 May 2005); and “The CIA File on Luis Posada Carilles” (The National Security Archive, 11 January 2005).
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