[Changleen]

Oh, interesting one!:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/18/MNGIHCQRSP1.DTL

Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative who is wanted in Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, was seized by U.S. authorities in Miami on Tuesday.

The move could have major political implications for President Bush, who has promised to pursue terrorists but has been reluctant to offend his Cuban American constituency.

Posada, seeking asylum in the United States, was taken into custody by federal immigration officials, the Homeland Security Department said in a statement.

A strident anti-communist, Posada long has been regarded as a terrorist by Cuba, Venezuela and other nations. But he is a hero to many in Florida's politically powerful anti-Castro Cuban community, who tend to support Republicans.

"He is a fighter, a true believer who has fought for the freedom of his country," said Jose Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, responding to news of Posada's arrest.

Posada is accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cubana jetliner over Barbados that killed many members of Cuba's Pan American Games team on Oct. 6, 1976. Venezuelan authorities arrested Posada after tracing the bomb to two Venezuelans who had worked for Posada's private security agency in Venezuela.

In an interview published Tuesday in the Miami Herald, Posada denied any role in the bombing.

However, Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, an independent research institute in Washington, said recently declassified CIA and FBI documents quoted informants linking Posada to planning meetings for the 1976 bombing.

"Posada was involved in an unprecedented crime at the time for the Western Hemisphere," Kornbluh said by telephone from Havana. "President Bush should implement the principles of the war against terror that he espouses -- that no nation should harbor terrorists."

The problem for the Bush administration now is what to do with Posada.

Cuban authorities want him to be extradited to Venezuela or to go before an international tribunal, but the U.S. government generally does not return people to countries acting on Cuba's behalf. Neither is the Bush administration a fan of international tribunals -- nor of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has made increasingly anti-American statements since taking office in 1999. However, Venezuela does have an extradition treaty with the United States.

"Sending Posada to Castro or Chavez would be like sending him to the wolves. I hope that does not happen," said Hernandez of the politically influential Cuban American National Foundation.

To be eligible for political asylum, which he has sought, Posada would have to prove a well-founded fear of persecution in a country to which he could be deported. The Homeland Security Department has 48 hours to determine his status.

The 77-year-old former sugar chemist was charged in 1976 with the airline bombing along with his partner, Orlando Bosch, and spent nine years in a Venezuelan jail, although he was never convicted of that crime. In 1985, he escaped after paying a hefty bribe while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of his second acquittal in the bombing.

His whereabouts had been unknown until he surfaced in Miami in March after entering the United States through Mexico. He said he arrived in Miami by bus.

Rachel Farley, associate for Cuba and drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, a liberal think tank, said she was not surprised that authorities took six weeks to detain Posada even though he is on a U.S. immigration watch list.

"He puts the U.S. in an uncomfortable position -- not only because of pressure from Miami Cubans but his CIA connections."

Posada has had a long history of planning assassinations and planting bombs in Cuban government offices since the early 1960s, when he was trained in demolition and guerrilla warfare by the CIA. The declassified information said the CIA paid him $300 a month in the 1960s and that he worked for the CIA at least from 1965 until June 1976.

Over the years, FBI reports associated him with plans to blow up Soviet and Cuban freighters in Mexico, a plot to overthrow the Guatemalan government, and involvement in anti-Castro activities in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. In the 1980s, he worked with the CIA in El Salvador to ferry weapons to the U.S.-backed Contra army in its fight against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

In 1997, Posada allegedly orchestrated a dozen bombings in Cuba intended to deter the growing tourism trade. An Italian businessman was killed and 11 people wounded as a result. In a taped interview with the New York Times, he said: "It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop."

In Tuesday's published interview with the Miami paper, he didn't deny his involvement in the bombings. "Let's leave it to history," he said.

Last August, Posada and three others were pardoned by Panama's outgoing president, Mireya Moscoso, for their role in an alleged assassination plot against Fidel Castro during a conference in Panama City in 2000.

"We know that if they had remained here, they faced the possibility of being extradited to either Venezuela or Cuba, where I'm sure they would have been killed," Moscoso told reporters at the time.

In recent weeks, Castro has made numerous televised speeches calling Posada a terrorist and accusing the Bush administration of hypocrisy for taking no action while waging a global war against terrorism. His calls for Posada's arrest were echoed by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who marched past the U.S. mission in Havana on Tuesday.

The Cuban government will wait to see whether Bush "lives up to his rhetoric or if they help an old friend," Cuba's parliament speaker, Ricardo Alarcon, told the Associated Press after hearing of Posada's arrest.

Before he was taken into custody Tuesday, Posada said he was willing to abandon his asylum request and leave the United States for another country.

"If my petition for political asylum created any problem to the government of the United States, I am ready to reconsider my petition," he said. "My only objective is to fight for the freedom of my country."

His attorney, Eduardo Soto, said the asylum request was being refiled because of Posada's arrest. He also questioned the U.S. government's timing.

"It was the U.S. government's preconceived notion to detain him before we withdrew our application for asylum," Soto told the Associated Press. "You don't need to formally remove a person who wants to leave."

Meanwhile, Kornbluh says he hopes Bush does not follow in his father's footsteps. Former President George H.W. Bush granted Bosch, Posada's longtime partner, an administrative pardon in 1990 despite a ruling by the Justice Department that Bosch "has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence." Today, Bosch lives quietly in Miami.

Kornbluh says Posada is a test case for principles championed by the current President Bush -- that no nation should harbor terrorists. He says the president should extradite Posada to Venezuela and share with the Chavez government the "voluminous intelligence" the U.S. government has on the Cubana airline bombing.

"That would be a true statement of conviction that there is no statute of limitation on terrorism, that the war on terrorism is paramount and trumps all other foreign policy issues," Kornbluh said. "The whole world is watching."

You might wanna read his bio at the bottom of the article too. Interesting.

So which way will Bush go? Which way should he go?

 

[Zark]

He should go the same place Bush should go, an international tribunal.

 

[Changleen]

He should go the same place Bush should go, an international tribunal.

Good idea! (On both counts!)

 

[Damn True]

IMO, the best move in terms of the need to do the right thing and from a political perspective is to see to it that the guy gets prosecuted. Bush won't have to answer to the "cubano" community in another election and his sucessor can always say he would have done otherwise if questioned on it.
Besides, regardless of the motivation or cause this guy was fighting for, even if we agree with it in principle, his actions were by definition terrorism and should be punished accordingly.

 

[$tinkle]

send him to gitmo! (how come nobody else thought of this?)

this story has been at the top of the feed on NPR for the last few days, and the right wing stations...mmm...not so much. interesting to note.

 

[Changleen]

IMO, the best move in terms of the need to do the right thing and from a political perspective is to see to it that the guy gets prosecuted. Bush won't have to answer to the "cubano" community in another election and his sucessor can always say he would have done otherwise if questioned on it.
Besides, regardless of the motivation or cause this guy was fighting for, even if we agree with it in principle, his actions were by definition terrorism and should be punished accordingly.

Wow. I agree with DT. Can you tell me your definition of Terrorism though? I'd like to hear it!

 

[Changleen]

send him to gitmo! (how come nobody else thought of this?)

this story has been at the top of the feed on NPR for the last few days, and the right wing stations...mmm...not so much. interesting to note.

I'd imagine that's because it's not going to be great for Bush whatever he decides. I'm guessing he probably will go with extradition and prosecution because that'll play well the 'christian right' and 'wot' advocates, who are a large part of his base. There are still the mid-terms to get through after all.

 

[Damn True]

This sort of thing:
bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people
orchestrated a dozen bombings in Cuba intended to deter the growing tourism trade

Essentially attacks against unarmed non-combatants. Not including collateral damage resulting from an attack by a military unit against another opposing military unit or against a non-uniformed guerilla organization.





Here is an interesting tidbit that I missed in my first reading of the piece:
His whereabouts had been unknown until he surfaced in Miami in March after entering the United States through Mexico. He said he arrived in Miami by bus.

 

[Changleen]

Essentially attacks against unarmed non-combatants. Not including collateral damage resulting from an attack by a military unit against another opposing military unit or against a non-uniformed guerilla organization.

It'd be better if you stopped after your first full stop.
"Attacks against unarmed non-combatants."

The collateral damage clause gives far too much leeway IMO. See Falluja, Israel vs. Palestine. All bad situations which do nothing but make the fighting worse.

 

[fluff]

This sort of thing:
bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people
orchestrated a dozen bombings in Cuba intended to deter the growing tourism trade

Essentially attacks against unarmed non-combatants. Not including collateral damage resulting from an attack by a military unit against another opposing military unit or against a non-uniformed guerilla organization.

Where does bombing a TV station staffed by civilians fit in?

 

[Changleen]

EDIT: Deleted that story, got a far better one:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5017631,00.html

MIAMI (AP) - A Cuban militant whose presence in the United States opened the government to allegations it was sheltering a terrorist was charged Thursday with entering this country illegally - a move that could lead to his deportation.

Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in Venezuela in connection with the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.

The United States did not immediately say whether it actually plans to deport Posada, or where. But U.S. authorities have essentially ruled out sending him back to Venezuela, where the bombing plot was allegedly hatched, and could instead choose a third country that has no intention of prosecuting him.

``Everything is on the table,'' said Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto.

Posada, 77, will be held without bail at a federal lockup in El Paso, Texas, for a hearing before an immigration judge June 13, officials said. Soto said Posada will ask to be released on bail.

The case has put the U.S. in an awkward position because Cuba's Fidel Castro has branded Posada a terrorist and said the Bush administration would be guilty of a double standard in the war on terrorism if it gave Posada asylum.

Posada is a former CIA operative and bitter opponent of Castro but has denied taking part in the downing of a Cuban jetliner off the coast of Barbados that killed 73 people. Recently declassified FBI documents quote informants as saying Posada was deeply involved in the planning.

Posada has acknowledged entering the United States secretly through Mexico in mid-March. He was seized by U.S. immigration agents in Miami on Tuesday, shortly after surfacing to meet with reporters.

His lawyer said Posada would ``vigorously oppose'' deportation. Soto said Posada will claim that he never lost permanent U.S. legal residency, originally gained in October 1962 - during the Cuban missile crisis - and that he should be given political asylum in the United States because of his anti-Castro views, his history as a CIA operative and the risk of persecution from both Cuba and Venezuela.

``I believe he is legally in this country now,'' Soto told reporters.

The lawyer said that it could take months or even years before a final decision is made on Posada's fate. ``You could be looking at a two-year process,'' he said.

Soto left open the possibility that Posada would agree to depart for a third country if a friendly nation could be found.

The lawyer also said that Posada will ask that the immigration proceedings be moved from Texas to Miami, where Posada has a wife and a 29-year-old son.

Posada was acquitted after two trials in Venezuela, then escaped from a prison there in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal. Venezuela has requested his extradition.

But U.S. officials have said they will not send anyone to a country that it believes is doing Cuba's bidding. Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are close allies.

Castro has repeatedly renounced Cuba's right to try Posada and has instead argued that he should be turned over to Venezuela or an international tribunal.

Posada has also been linked to a series of 1997 bombings in Cuba that killed an Italian tourist.

So, the administration has opted for the 'third way' - Bury it in legal proceeedings until everyone gets bored and forgets about it. The classic sidestep. Lame.