Suddenly on the beautiful day of October 6th, 1976, a Cubana airliner vanished from the skyline after a midair explosion: the airliner was carrying 73 people within Barbados airspace when it was blown out of the sky killing instantly all passengers on board.
A few days later, it was revealed that a double agent of the United States CIA and Venezuela’s Intelligence and Prevention Authority (DISIP) was the mastermind in planning and executing the bombing, ostensibly as an ongoing battle to bring President Fidel Castro’s government down. With such a grievous implication, the Venezuelans wasted no time in arresting, and speedily conducting a trial that resulted in the incarceration of Luis Posada Carriles for nine years. However, during the tenure of the jail term, Luis Posada escaped from prison and found his way to the United States.
Sadly, it is believed that the United States’ secret agents planned his escape and illegal entry to the United States for decades. All the while, the United States government failed to deem it necessary to arrest Posada for the terrorist act of bombing a Cuban airline. On the contrary, the United States was the chief protagonist in pushing for the arrest and trial of the Lockerbie bombing over Scotland that killed hundreds of American citizens.
The United States went as far as forcing the United Nations to impose international economic and airspace restriction on Libya since early 1980 and the indictment of Libya’s President Mummar Gadaffi as a terrorist sponsor. It is interesting to note that while this was going on, Luis Posada Carriles was in the bosom of the United States and very proud of his action against the Cuban government, as defined by his mentor, rather than being defined as a terrorist act, similar to the Libyan connection.
Unprecedentedly in the late 1990s, the Libyan government acknowledged its complicity in the Lockerbie bombing and offered to pay as much as two million dollars’ compensation to the families, while the two suspected bombers were jailed for life in prison in the Netherlands. The economic and international flight sanctions against Libya were only recently lifted in part as a result of the Libyan government and the international community resolution of the bombing incidents, and the declaration of a free nuclear Libya.
It has taken the United States almost a decade plus to finally order the arrest of Luis Posada Carriles, as a result of the international pressure, particularly from the President of Cuba, Fidel Castro’s daily remarks and demonstration for Posada’s arrest. Even after President George Bush declared in late 2001 that any nation harboring terrorists is considered a terrorist state, yet the US continued to harbor Posada until the May 18th, 2005 arrest.
How could the United States attack other countries, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, for the mere reason of harboring terrorists, while placing massive international sanctions against countries, such as Cuba, Syria, Iran, etc., yet they (the US) are still harboring some terrorists from Cuba? Should terrorism be a fact of definition according to the United States’ understanding, or should it be according to the world’s understanding?
How could the United States harbor a man who after planting a bomb on the Cuban plane had the nerve to call his friend to inform him that “a bus carrying 73 dogs drove off a cliff and they all died”, signifying that a plane carrying 73 people took off and later exploded and all 73 people died. This is the most atrocious act committed without remorse to human life.
Luis Posada Carriles and his cohorts are Cuban targeted terrorists and they must be stopped before they commit more heinous crimes. According to the Cuban newspaper “Granma International”, Posada Carriles has been one of the most consistent purveyors of terrorist violence in the world. Posada is not only focused on Cuba’s destruction, but also intent on destabilizing emerging democracies in Latin America, such as Bolivia and Venezuela.
It is morally and politically wrong for the United States to tread lightly with a terrorist of Posada’s credentials and yet continue to fight the war on terror. The world expects the United States to conduct a proper judicial trial of Luis Posada Carriles to the maximum extent of the law for killing 73 people: any trial short of that will be tantamount to mockery of world standard. Any attempt by the US government to only charge him with illegal entry to the United States will be a betrayal to the offensive the Bush administration mounted soon after September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. The world is waiting to confirm, as President Fidel Castro said, that Posada and his henchmen were created and nursed by the US CIA operatives, given their close ties to the Cuban-American National Foundations up to this day.
If the government of the United States is not bold enough to fairly prosecute Posada on the grievous crime of terrorism, they should rather extradite him to Venezuela where he is already facing jail term. A view which is supported by President Fidel Castro that “the US should arrest him for murder and send him to Venezuela, from where he escaped, and where he must answer for the murder of Letelier and for having sacrificed 73 people’s lives.”
By: Dr. Kevin Alcena, The Bahama Journal
