On the 8th of April 2011, a Court in El Paso, Texas acquitted the notorious terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, of 11 charges of perjury, fraud and obstruction. By freeing him of all charges, the US authorities proved yet again that they are extremely protective of Posada.
Who is Posada? Posada was the mastermind behind the explosion in mid-air of a Cuban airliner over Barbados in 1976. The explosion killed 73 persons including children. Posada was detained in Venezuela but with the help of the CIA escaped from prison. He was then involved in a ‘drugs for weapons’ operation from the Ilopango airbase in El Salvador. In 1997 he was the principal agent behind a series of bombing incidents, manipulated by the CIA, that targeted tourist facilities in Cuba. He was also actively involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the then Cuban President, Fidel Castro, during a summit in Panama in 2000. Consequently, he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment in Panama for terrorism. But he was pardoned and released in 2004 by the former President of Panama, Moscoso, obviously as a result of pressure from the Cuban-American mafia in the US and their protectors in Miami and Washington.
It is a damning indictment on the judicial and political system of the US that a man who has made a career of stark naked terrorism should be accorded so much protection by the authorities. It underscores the double standards and hypocrisy that inform the so-called US fight against terrorism. When it suits its narrow interests it is ever ready to work hand-in –glove with terrorists.
The US’s complicity with Posada is also a reflection of the country’s animosity and antagonism towards its tiny, little neighbour, Cuba. For more than 50 years, Cuba has been on the radar screen of the US. The latter has imposed severe economic sanctions upon Cuba since 1961. It has sabotaged its economy; subverted its political system. The US elite just cannot tolerate a neighbour— even if it is a militarily weak and vulnerable neighbour— that is determined to shape its own destiny and chart its own future.
The US elite can begin to change its negative attitude towards Cuba by acceding to the request of the present Venezuelan government made more than 5 years ago to extradite Posada to Venezuela to enable authorities in that country to mete out justice to him— on behalf of the 73 human beings killed in the airline explosion of 1976.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,
President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
Malaysia.
17 April 2011