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(from the website of Radio Progreso, a non-right-wingnut Cuban-American operated radio station): Posada Carriles is “Screwed from the point of view of immigration”
An exclusive interview with José Pertierra, an expert on migratory issues
Radio Progreso Alternativa/Progreso Weekly Havana Bureau
Early in the afternoon of Tuesday May 17, Luis Posada Carriles was arrested by the Department of Homeland Security. At the time of his arrest, Posada had been on U.S. soil for 8 weeks. In Miami TV programs and news media, friends and collaborators had declared that he was alive and well in the city, and biding his time painting and reading. In spite of these claims, high officials of the Bush administration commented on the subject, denying or ignoring the presence of the terrorist on U.S. soil. But Posada was arrested in Miami after a press conference, while over a million Cubans marched in front of the U.S. Interest section in Havana that same morning demanding his arrest and extradition.
This a version of the telephone interview broadcast by Francisco Aruca on his program “Ayer en Miami.”
Progreso Weekly (PW): What alternatives does the U.S. government have after arresting Luis Posada Carriles?
José Pertierra (JP): The United States has done what it should have done a long time ago, arrest Posada Carriles, because a terrorist has no right to be at home painting and watching the news whenever he feels like it. If he hadn’t been Cuban, Posada would have been in jail a long time ago. Now the Department of Homeland Security must process Posada’s request for asylum, and also the request of extradition by the government of Venezuela. They are two parallel processes, independent one from the other. The U.S. government is going to win the asylum process. They can’t grant that man asylum; Posada’s case for asylum was buried from the beginning, because someone who has committed crimes as serious as blowing up a plane or bombing Havana hotels and killing an Italian tourist named Fabio di Celmo, has no right to asylum. A terrorist can’t claim that right, neither can he claim the Law of Cuban Adjustment, nor avoid being deported. From the point of view of immigration, he’s screwed.
PW: And in relation to extradition?
JP: The Venezuelan government has requested extradition. Now a federal judge has to study if the request is in accordance to the extradition treaty signed between the two countries in 1922. He has to decide if he has committed any of the crimes contemplated in the treaty. The murder of 73 innocent people in a civilian airplane is included in the treaty. Then the federal judge is going to decide that he is subject to extradition; but the judge doesn’t order the extradition, he puts the hot potato in the hands of the Secretary of State, in this case Condoleezza Rice, and she will be the one to make one of three choices: 1) She extradites him; 2) decides not to; and 3) she extradites him, but imposes certain conditions on Venezuela, like a commitment not to sentence him to death, or whatever.
The last variant would be for Posada to ask refuge under the Torture Convention before an immigration judge. But he has a problem there, for there is evidence that Posada himself is a torturer, that under former president Carlos Andrés Pérez, and when he was an officer of the Disip (Venezuelan intelligence service), he tortured prisoners. There is testimony on the matter. The Torture Convention does not protect torturers, rather demands from the state that is harboring the torturer to deport him to the country where he tortured. But if a judge decided in his favor, Posada wouldn’t necessarily remain in the U.S. The Secretary of State can still ignore the decision by the immigration judge and extradite him. In sum, the hot potato, in any case, is in the hands of Condoleezza Rice. She’ll have to hold the hot potato, and I believe that if she follows the law, she will have to extradite Posada to Venezuela to be tried there. It’s the only legal and reasonable alternative.
(snip/...) http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Corresponsalia&otherweek=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   Luis Posada Carriles
and the Cuban American National Foundation:
Coca Contra lives on
Luis Posada Carriles is a career narcoterrorist who spent time in a Venezuelan jail for the 1973 bombing a Cubana airliner, killing all 73 on board. He escaped after 8 years in 1985 thanks to a bribe from Jorge Mas Canosa, the now deceased head of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)<1>. He has been tied to the importation of large quantities of cocaine into the US in support of the Contras in Nicaragua in the 80's ("Coca Contra") and to a series of bombings in Cuba just recently. Posada was interviewed by reporters from the New York Times and told them of his ties to the CANF, a tax exempt right wing group created under Reagan and a beneficiary of substantial federal funds for running Radio and TV Marti, which beam their propaganda to Cuba. The Times ran two articles, on July 12 and 13, 1999. They have caused a sensation and led to Posada's retraction of his interview. The Times has him on tape and stand by their story. In addition, elements of his interview had already appeared in autobiographical writings done with a publicist.
Posada has been tied to large scale cocaine trafficking in support of the Contras in Peter Dale Scott's book, Cocaine Politics. Posada was second in charge of a major Contra resupply operation at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador. He was recruited there by his old friend Felix Rodriguez, a long-time CIA operative who was the CIA liaison with the Bolivian forces that captured and executed Che Guevera. Rodriguez was in charge of the Contra resupply operation and its cocaine trafficking component at Ilopango, a nerve center for the Contra resupply operation, and Posada became his second in command.
(snip/...) http://www.afrocubaweb.com/posada.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Luis Posada Carriles is a former CIA operative who later used Ronald Reagan's good graces to import huge quantities of cocaine into the United States, the proceeds of which funded the Nicaraguan contras. Carriles was convicted in 1978 of blowing up an airliner, killing all 78 people on board. In 1985, he escaped from his Venezuelan jail with the support of another friend of Reagan, Jorge Mas Canosa.
Another defendant in that airline bombing was Orlando Bosch, now fully ensconced by the Bush brothers as a citizen of the United States, living in comfort and freedom in Miami. Bosch was convicted in 1968 for shooting a howitzer at a Polish vessel docked in Florida. More of his terrorism activities can be found here. Bosch was eventually pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
Gaspar "Gasparito" Jimenez killed a Cuban consular officer in 1977. He has been linked to the April 30, 1976 near fatal bombing that blew off both legs of journalist Emilio Milian.
Guillermo Novo fired a bazooka at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 1964, trying to kill Che Guevara. Luckily, he missed. He was later convicted of using a car bomb to kill Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffet in Washington, DC.
Pedro Remon is linked to the murder of a pro-Castro activist, Eulalio Jose Negrin in 1979 and diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in 1980. In 1986, he was convicted of using a bomb to try to kill a Cuban ambassador.
Of the four men amnestied by Panama, Jimenez, Novo and Remon have already made it to Miami where they live under the protection of Jeb Bush.
(snip/...) http://soj.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/28/193534/642 |
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