| WHITE BOOK 2007 >>CHAPTER 3 | ||
CHAPTER 3. THE SUPPORT AND/OR IMPUNITY EXTENDED BY SUCCESSIVE U.S. ADMINISTRATIONS TO PERPETRATORS OF TERRORIST ACTS AGAINST CUBA. From the very beginning of the Revolution, acts of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba have been a part of the cruel policy, coldly devised in Washington and Miami to put an end to the Cuban Revolution. These have caused a lot of human and material losses and irreparable psychological and affective damage to thousands of Cuban families. The kind of terrorism used against Cuba has been very varied, and includes: sabotage or destruction of economic and civilian targets within the country; attacks against coast facilities, merchant ships and fishing boats, attacks against Cuban facilities, means and personnel abroad, including diplomatic missions, airline offices and airliners, attempts to assassinate its main leaders, introduction of germs and pests against agriculture and livestock, and the introduction of disease strains against people, among others. As a result of at least 681 terrorist actions and aggressions against the Cuban people, which have been proved and documented, 3,478 women, men and children have lost their lives, while 2,099 other Cubans have been rendered physically disabled for the rest of their lives. It behooves to underscore that these actions have continued throughout the years: 68 took place in the 1990s and 39 others in the last five years. Our citizens have not been the only victims of terrorist actions against Cuba. One hundred and ninety terrorist attacks have been perpetrated against people or assets from third countries based in U.S, territory. Moreover, dozens of actions were organized and executed against assets of foreign companies that maintained economic relations with Cuba, or against representative offices of countries that had links with our country. Terrorist activities increased significantly and formed part of the systematic policy of hostility and aggression against the Cuban Revolution beginning in 1961, as a consequence of the “Covert Action Program Against the Castro Regime”, approved on March 17, 1960 by the then President D. Eisenhower and was continued by President J. F. Kennedy. That plan, known as “Operation Mongoose”, authorized the establishment of a secret intelligence and action organization to operate in Cuba, assigning the necessary funds for this to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). On January 18, 1962, the “Cuba Project” was adopted, which contained 32 covert war tasks that were to be executed by the department and agencies participating in “Operation Mongoose”. Besides the hundreds of actions conceived and carried out directly by the Special Services of the U.S. government, a wide range of other terrorist actions -some of them completed and others neutralized in their preparatory stage- were carried out by organizations based in the United States, which gathered together terrorists of Cuban origin - many of them trained by the CIA and units of the U.S. Army – who, although not acting officially at the service of the U.S. government, were protected by American special services and given shelter in U.S. territory or military bases of that country in the territory of other countries. The United States government and the terrorist organizations based in the United States and some Latin American countries had at their disposal a whole batch of killers and torturers of the Batista tyranny that had fled to America in January 1959 seeking impunity for their crimes against the Cuban people. Among them the most notorious were Jesús Blanco Hernández, Conrado Carratalá Ugalde, Sotero Delgado Méndez, Martín Díaz Tamayo, Mariano Faget Díaz, Armentino Feria Pérez, Irenaldo García Báez, Pilar García García, Rafael Gutiérrez Martínez, Julio Estelio Laurent Rodríguez, Agustín Lavastida Álvarez, Lutgardo Martín Pérez Molina, Rolando Masferrer Rojas, José Eleuterio Pedraza Cabrera, Orlando Eleno Piedra Negueruela, José María Salas Cańizares, Ángel Sánchez Mosquera, Merob Sosa García, Manuel Antonio Ugalde Carrillo and Esteban Ventura Novo. In most of the cases, the emerging Revolutionary government of Cuba requested their provisional arrest with the aim of extraditing them, but the U.S. authorities paid no heed. In 1960 numerous terrorist acts were carried out against facilities greatly attended by the public, such as cinemas, theaters, schools and stores. The most murderous and bloodiest action perpetrated that year was the blowing up, on March 4, of the French ship “La Coubre”, in the Havana harbor, at the moment when the ammunitions bought in Belgium for the Rebel Army were being unloaded. This criminal attack caused 101 deaths, among them several Frenchmen, more than 200 wounded and many people missing. Among the attacks to economic objectives carried out in 1960, one of the most important occurred on February 18. That day a plane bombed the España sugar mill and was destroyed in mid air by one of its own bombs. The plane was piloted by an American, Robert Ellis Frost, accompanied by Onelio Santana Roque, former member of the repressive forces of the Batista dictatorship. The flight plan showed that the aircraft had taken off from the Miami, Florida airport. Other documents found next to the American’s corpse revealed that he had participated in three other air raids against Cuba and that he was going to be paid 1,500 USD for that day’s bombing. On December 30, 1960, a bomb factory was seized and 17 terrorists were arrested. They had been engaged in putting plastic explosives in stores, following orders from the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Among the perpetrators are two renowned Cuban-born representatives of the terrorist-annexationist mob in Miami, benefited by the fraudulent euphemism of the western press with the epithet of “peaceful anti-Castro political opponents”. One of them was no more no less than the “journalist” and “publicist” Carlos Alberto Montaner – ringleader of the anti-Cuban mob in Madrid –, who was not convicted then because he was still a minor and eventually, left the country after asking for asylum in a Latin American embassy. The other terrorist, who was to become a “celebrity” of Washington’s anti-Cuban campaign, was the United States’ “Ambassador” for “Human Rights", Armando Valladares, a fake writer, who pretended to be disabled, and was exposed to public opinion as a fraud when he stood up from his wheel chair and walked almost 400 meters to take the plane that would take him out of this country In 1961 terrorist attacks were intensified. These included the burning of sugarcane fields during the sugar harvests, the sabotage to factories and attacks against farms. These actions resulted in the killing of 281 citizens, most of them civilian peasants, women and children, as well as militiamen and young volunteers who were participating in the Literacy Campaign that had begun that same year. In April of that same year, the Bay of Pigs military invasion took place, carried out by an army of approximately 1,500 mercenaries, organized, trained, equipped, funded and transported by the United States government. The thwarted plan included the future landing of American troops, who watched from their ships the defeat of the mercenaries. Many of the mercenaries that participated in that invasion and in other terrorist actions of the dirty war against Cuba are still active in the ranks of the terrorist organizations that continue to operate against our country. Many others joined the CIA as paid agents to carry out covert actions in Latin America and other parts of the world in missions of political assassination, traffic in arms and narcotics, sabotages and dirty wars as the one carried out against the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. Another important part of them was instructed to disguise themselves as “peaceful political exiles” against the Cuban Revolution, many of them joining the so-called Cuban-American National Foundation. This group, publicly “redeemed” from terrorist violence, never renounced those methods and has continued organizing and financing terrorist actions, like those carried out by Central American mercenaries against Cuban tourist facilities in the 1990s. Another form of terrorism used against Cuba was banditry, thus dubbed by the Cuban people, because of the terrible crimes and murders committed by the 299 bands that acted throughout Cuba from 1959 to 1965. Those bands murdered more than 500 people, mainly innocent farmers and field hands. These bands were mainly based in the Escambray Mountains and were armed, maintained and directed by the United States government, as confirmed by official U.S. documents now declassified. In October 1961, CIA General Inspector, Lyman Kirkpatrick, presented a secret report referring to a covert action known as “Operation Silence”, in which, following orders of the U.S. government, the CIA carried out 12 operations to supply weapons, ammunitions and explosives to the armed bands that were operating in our country. In that same document, referring to the enormous center established in Florida by the CIA to carry out covert actions against Cuba, Kirkpatrick admitted that from January 1960, when it only had 40 persons, the Bureau expanded to 588 by April 16, 1961, becoming one of the biggest bureaus in undercover services. The hijacking of aircraft was another kind of action conceived by the CIA in its program to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. It constituted a new terrorist modality unprecedented up to that moment. The 51 airplanes hijacked between 1959 and 2001, almost without exception, were taken to the United States and most of them were never returned. Pilots, security guards and passengers were murdered or wounded by the hijackers. Several aircraft were destroyed or seriously damaged in the foiled attempts. In the early 70's, organizations like Alpha 66 and Coordinator of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), based in Florida and New Jersey, were responsible for a great part of the terrorist actions against the Cuban people that occurred in 1970s and 80s and against the interest of other countries that maintained trade and economic relations with Cuba. By those years, anti-Cuban terrorism incorporated paramilitary actions against Cuban merchant and fishing vessels. On October 4, 1973, Cuban fishing boats Cayo Largo 17 and Cayo Largo 34 were attacked by two gunboats manned by terrorists, murdering fisherman Roberto Torna Mirabal and leaving the rest of the crew adrift on rubber boats without any food or water. On October 6, 1976, the most monstrous and brutal terrorist act committed during that period occurred: the blowup in mid flight of an airliner of Cubana de Aviación with 73 people on board, of them 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese youths (6 of them chosen to study medicine in Cuba) and 5 citizens of the PDR of Korea. They all perished. This attack against the Cuban civilian airplane was carried out by two mercenaries of Venezuelan nationality, hired by two of the most notorious terrorists of Cuban origin: Orlando Bosch Ávila – perpetrator of 321 terrorist actions and who, despite the opposing opinion of the Department of Justice, received a special authorization by president Bush (Sr.) to live in the United States and lives in Miami since 1990 –, and Luis Posada Carriles – shamefully pardoned by the ex-president of Panama, Mireya Moscoso – on whose long terrorist record we will expand further on. These two Cuban-born terrorists had been recruited by the CIA since 1960 and specialized in sophisticated sabotage techniques with all kinds of means. Both were then members of CORU, founded in June 1976 by Orlando Bosch himself, by merging several terrorist organizations. CORU considerably increased the terrorist actions not only against Cuba but also against 24 other countries of Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. The American people also experienced with horror in their own home the terror that their rulers had unleashed against a small neighboring country since 1959. At the same time these terrorist acts continued to be carried out in Cuban territory, some of these activities were aimed at facilities based in the United States belonging to countries that maintained relations and trade with our country, against Cuban diplomatic officials in the Cuban Mission to the United Nations, against private institutions of that country, against Cuban emigrants that did not agree with the terrorist policy of the anti-Cuban mob and even against senior officials of foreign governments. One of these events was the murder of Orlando Letelier, Foreign Minister of former President Salvador Allende’s Chilean government, perpetrated in Washington by terrorists of Cuban origin at the service of the repressive bodies of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. The Washington authorities arrested some terrorists and tried to disband certain groups that acted independently on their own. To avoid the authorities’ actions, many groups used as an artifice their public dissolution, a change of name, the temporary interruption of their actions, and they even changed their operation bases to other states of the Union. The terrorist bands which respected the public behavior regulations imposed by the U.S. authorities and maintained their terrorist actions exclusively against Cuban territory have been tolerated. Among other terrorist actions carried out against Cuba in the territory of the United States are the following:
During the final period of the Bush (Sr.) administration, the most reactionary and aggressive sectors of the Cuban émigrés in the United States, particularly in Florida, once again encouraged terrorism in their war against Cuba. This brought about numerous terrorist actions – with renewed virulence and new modalities – during the two terms of President William Clinton’s administration, organized and funded by the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF). At the service, following orders and with the money of the CANF, several terrorists were recruited in countries of Central America, who in 1997 exploded seven bombs in hotels and tourist facilities of the country with the aim of ruining the Cuban hotel industry, which was already envisaged as one of the main economic areas of the country, causing the death of a young Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo. Terrorist actions against Cuba have not stopped during the George W. Bush administration. Suffices to point out that between August 6, 2002 and April 10, 2003, 11 other terrorist acts occurred, most of them hijacking of airplanes and boats toward the United States. Knives, sharp objects and even firearms were used in those actions to threaten and subdue the crew and passengers. The terrorists tried in Cuba have been severely punished, something which, with very few exceptions, has not happened in the United States with persons of Cuban origin that have been tried there. The Posada Carriles case: Chronicle of an announced impunity In November 2000, the most dangerous terrorist of the western hemisphere, Luis Posada Carriles, was arrested in Panama while planning an assassination attempt against president Fidel Castro, on the occasion of his visit there to participate in the 10th Ibero-American Summit. Posada and his accomplices planned to place a powerful charge of C-4 explosive in the main hall of the University of Panama, which would explode when the Cuban president met there with hundreds of Panamanian students and teachers. On August 26, 2004, without his criminal proceedings being over and despite having been convicted by a Panamanian court, Posada Carriles Posada Carriles was set free along with his accomplices – the also Cuban-born terrorists Pedro Remón Rodríguez, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Gaspar Eugenio Jiménez Escobedo – through the efforts of the current president of the United States and by a pardon signed by the then president of Panama, Mireya Moscoso. According to reports by the daily “La Estrella de Panamá”, the then Secretary of State of the United States, Colin Powell, and Otto Reich, then in charge of western hemisphere affairs in the National Security Council of George W. Bush’s government, asked President Mireya Moscoso to free the terrorists, during visits they made to Panama. The person in charge of coordinating with the Panamanian government the freedom of those subjects was former U.S. ambassador to Panama, Simón Ferro, who has long-standing links with the Cuban-American National Foundation. This was corroborated by the telephone call made by ex-President Moscoso to Ferro, immediately after granting her pardon to the four accused terrorists in Panama. After the pardon, and after having moved with false documents through Honduras and other Central American countries, Posada Carriles entered U.S. territory secretly, between March 18 and 20, 2005, in the “Santrina”, a boat driven by the notorious terrorist Santiago Álvarez, currently in prison for the illegal possession of an arsenal of war weapons and explosives, and very serious violations of U.S. security laws. Under the growing international pressure generated by Cuba’s denunciation, and after two months of conspiratorial silence about the terrorist’s presence in U.S. territory, the immigration authorities of the United States arrested Posada Carriles on May 17, 2005. Since then, and although he is a dangerous terrorist wanted internationally, he has only been indicted for illegal entry into the United States, without President Bush's government seriously considering the possibility of complying with the legal obligation of trying him for the murders committed or extraditing him to a country, with all legal capacity to do it. In September 2005, in response to a request from Venezuela for extradition to face charges for crimes committed there, a US immigration judge's expeditious decision determined that Posada Carriles would not be deported either to Venezuela or Cuba, arguing "risk of torture" in both cases - an expression of US political manipulation against both those countries. This finding naturally ignored the fact that neither of the nations mentioned practices torture and that, on the contrary, it was Posada Carriles himself who was a notorious torturer when an official in the service of the DISIP in the Venezuela of the early 1970s. Washington's unacceptable handling of the matter, designed to grant impunity for Posada Carriles' responsibilities and complicity in terrorist acts, and erect a wall of silence around the case, even went so far as to arrange for the release of this known criminal, resorting to a series of judicial subterfuges. On March 30, 2006, the American immigration and customs enforcement authority (ICE) was obliged to acknowledge that his release would represent a threat to US national security and to the community, given his long history of criminal activity and violence in which innocent civilians died; he had also participated in acts of violence that showed contempt for public safety and a readiness to engage in activities that represented a risk to the national security of the United States. However, on January 12, 2007, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Texas indicted Posada Carriles with 7 charges, none of which bore a direct relation to his terrorist activities. These charges against a terrorist refer to nothing more than fraud committed in the naturalization process and the provision of false information at official interviews with the immigration service. This decision by the US federal authorities has caused profound indignation among the Cuban people, and in particular amounts to a macabre insult in response to the demands for justice by the relatives of the victims of Posada Carriles' acts of terrorism. Among his many crimes, Posada Carriles organized and directed the blowing up in flight of a Cubana de Aviación aircraft, killing 73 people. He has organized and coordinated countless acts of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba and other countries in the region. And he was the brains behind a series of attacks on tourist installation in Cuba during 1997. Trained by the CIA, he always maintained close ties with the US intelligence services and was financed by agents of Washington. He was also employed by the Cuban American National Foundation during more than 40 years, to plan the assassination of the Cuban head of state. On January 19, two of Posada Carriles' accomplices - the known terrorists Santiago Álvarez and Osvaldo Mitad, imprisoned in Florida for conspiring to possess an arsenal of weapons of war - handed over to US federal police dozens of machine guns, dynamite, a grenade-launcher, rifles, C-4 explosive, detonators and ammunition which, according to their own statements, were to be used against Cuba. The impunity granted to the terrorist Posada Carriles and others of his sort appears to be their reward from the US authorities for their long years of service to the empire, not only in attacks on Cuba but also the carrying out of other dirty-war operations in Central America and elsewhere in Latin America. President Bush has been more concerned not to anger Miami's extreme right-wing faction, and keep Posada Carriles' secrets, than in seeing that justice is done and preventing impunity. In the words of the renowned Cuban American lawyer José Pertierra, legal representative of the Venezuelan government in the extradition of Posada Carriles, "everything has gone according to a predictable script, in order to put a sheen of legality on an action whose intent is anything but legal". - An obvious case of illegality and double standards The impunity Washington has granted to the terrorist Luís Posada Carriles is not just immoral and politically questionable; it is also - and above all - illegal. International law is clear as regards America's duty to try or extradite Posada Carriles. Among the relevant instruments are Security Council resolutions that are binding on all nations without distinction, and embody the duty to try or extradite, in cases such as this. Acting pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council passed Resolution 1373 (2001), whose provisions include the following: A requirement that all states "prosecute anyone who participates in funding, planning, preparing for or carrying out acts of terrorism or who plays a supporting role in such acts", (...). Exhortation to all states to ensure, in compliance with international law, that claims of political motivation are not admitted as reasons for denying requests for extradition of suspected terrorists. Three years later, also under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council passed Resolution 1566 (2204), which includes: A requirement on "all states, in compliance with international law, to cooperate fully in the fight against terrorism, especially with countries in whose territory or against whose citizens terrorist acts have been committed, with a view to locating, refusing refuge and submitting to justice (based on the principal of prosecution or extradition) whoever supports or facilitates the funding, planning, preparation for or committing of acts of terrorism or provision of refuge or participates or attempts to participate in such acts". Similarly, Art.7 of the Montreal Convention on unlawful acts against the safety of civil aviation requires that "The contracting state in whose territory the suspect is located shall either extradite the suspect or submit the case to its competent authorities for trial, without exception and regardless of whether a crime has been committed in its territory". Not mentioned here are other instruments that also enshrine the internationally recognized principle of "extradite or try", including several resolutions passed by the General Assembly over the years, in the context of "measures to eliminate international terrorism". Other US legislation worthy of mention includes the provisions of the "Patriot Act" authorizing the detention of suspects awaiting deportation where these represent a potential threat to national security or have been involved in terrorist activities. Releasing Posada Carriles would break both American and international law, since the US has a duty to try him or extradite him to Venezuela, the country that has sought his extradition and in which he faces charges. Despite the clear requirements of US and international law as regards the duty of the United States in the present case, Washington lacks the political will needed to meet these obligations. In the case of Posada Carriles, there is no need for a lengthy investigation to discover that he is the western hemisphere's most dangerous and violent terrorist. He has acknowledged this himself, in his book “Los caminos del Guerrero” and in several interviews, in which he has publicly advocated violence as the means of destroying the economic, social and political system freely chosen by the Cubans. He has admitted his participation in various acts of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba, including the blowing up of the Barbados plane. In these circumstances, the international community should be constantly on its guard to ensure that in the case of Posada Carriles there is no repetition of what happened with Orlando Bosch Ávila and other self-confessed terrorists of Cuban origin, responsible for the grief of dozens of Cuban families. These terrorists live free in America and can be seen walking the streets of Miami. In a similar case, on July 19, 1990, George Bush Sr. granted a presidential pardon to Orlando Bosch, even against the advice of the FBI and an earlier decision by the Justice Department, which knew his history of terrorism. It would be very serious - both for the anti-terrorism measures being taken at the UN and for the credibility of America's self-proclaimed "war on terrorism" - if Washington decides to give refuge to Posada Carriles or deploys underhand legal arguments to enable him to stay in the United States. The double standards and hypocrisy of the government which calls itself leader of the "antiterrorist campaign" are obvious. On August 26, 2003, the US president announced that "anyone protecting a terrorist, supporting a terrorist or feeding a terrorist would be considered as guilty as the terrorist". Evidently, this principle does not apply when the lives taken by terrorism are Cuban. President Fidel Castro has condemned the acts of judicial irresponsibility which the US president would commit, given that the latter, by virtue of his office, has a duty to act in such cases and to keep the American people informed. Cuba has indicated on several occasions its willingness to cooperate in the application of justice by sending all the information it holds regarding this terrorist. Cuba calls on the international community to demand of the US administration that it comply with its duty to prosecute this terrorist, in this case by means of extraditing him to Venezuela, a country in which he has been a fugitive from justice since 1985. To reward Posada Carriles with impunity, while subjecting five young Cuban antiterrorist activists to long and unjust prison sentences, is an immoral and extremely irresponsible act. It is also an affront to the victims of terrorism and their relatives, all over the world. - Summary of the terrorist career of the Cuban-born criminal Luís Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles Main aliases used for his activities: Ramón Medina, Ignacio Medina, Juan Ramón Medina, Ramón Medina Rodríguez, José Ramón Medina, Rivas López, Juan José Rivas, Juan José Rivas López, Julio César Dumas, Franco Rodríguez Mena. Left Cuba on February 25, 1961, having entered the Argentinean embassy in the previous year. Joined the US Army and received military training. Recruited as a CIA agent in 1963, to give training courses on seaborne missions. Relocated in 1964 near Tampa, to head the Junta Revolucionaria Cubana (JURE) camp for training terrorists of Cuban origin. Trained by CIA specialists in explosives and demolition. In the same year, headed up a CIA infiltration squad which carried out various missions against Cuba. During the 1960s, established links with terrorist organizations including Alpha 66, Comandos L and Movimiento 30 de Noviembre. Towards the end of that decade, moved to Venezuela and in 1967 joined DISIP, Venezuela's intelligence and security agency, as Head of Operations, fulfilling tasks as the link with the CIA. Later set up a detective agency (the Agencia de Detectives, Investigaciones Comerciales e Industriales), which was closed down when it was discovered he had participated in the 1976 sabotage of the Cubana de Aviación plane in Barbados causing the death of 73 people, in connection with which he was accused and imprisoned. He remained in various Venezuelan prisons from 1976 until August 18, 1985, when he escaped with the aid of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and the complicity of corrupt officials. He then moved to El Salvador, where he worked for around two years at the Llopango military base as adviser to the Nicaraguan Contras. In February 1990, he was seriously injured in Guatemala, where he was working as a security adviser for Teléfonos de Guatemala (GUATEL). As a result of the attack, he received financial support from CANF director Alberto Hernández, including part of his hospital bills. Once recovered, he was relocated to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where he was accommodated at a hotel by his friend, the Cuban-born businessman Rafael Hernández Nodarse. During the 1990s, he kept in frequent touch with Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, known as “Gasparito”, and with other terrorists, involving himself in the organization of various attacks on President Fidel Castro. He helped Miami organizations to buy arms in Central America for terrorism against Cuba. During this period, he paid frequent visits to Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador and other Central American countries. He had close ties with people in those countries' military and business communities, who gave him support. He also traveled to Miami, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Aruba. In January 1994, he participated in the organization of a CANF funded attempt on the life of the Cuban president in Honduras, where President Castro was visiting on the occasion of the assumption of office by President Carlos Roberto Reina. In June, with similar intentions, he visited Colombia with Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo. In June 1995, he traveled to Costa Rica to carry out a dynamite attack on a Cuban vessel. In December, together with Ramón Orozco Crespo, he organized a similar mission against another Cuban target. In 1995, operating with Honduran military personnel, he placed 41 bombs in Honduras, as reported in 1997 by Dr. Ramón Custodio, leader of the Honduran Human Rights Commission. In 1997, with the aid of the CANF leadership, he organized the terrorist structure in Central America designed to operate against Cuba, recruiting mercenaries in the region. He publicly acknowledged these activities in mid-1998. In the same year and with the involvement of CANF executive Arnaldo Monzón Plasencia, he participated in the preparatory stage of a plan to assassinate President Fidel Castro during the Seventh Latin American Summit, in Isla Margarita, Venezuela. Fellow conspirators included the counterrevolutionaries Nelly Rojas, Pedro Morales and Francisco Pimentel, who apparently provided support. He was the prime mover in several terrorist attacks in Cuba using bombs. The first, in April 1997, involved the services of mercenaries he recruited, including Chávez Abarca and Otto René Rodríguez Llerena. Fourteen bombs were readied, of which 8 exploded, 4 were disarmed and 2 were seized as they were being taken into the airport. The attacks caused one death, several cases of injury and considerable damage to property. Also bombed were the offices of the Cuban firms Havanatur in the Bahamas and Cubanacan in Mexico. He participated directly in organizing an attempt on the life of President Castro, which involved other terrorists based in Miami, during the latter's visit to the Dominican Republic in August 1998. In the same year, he planned the bombing of a Cubana de Aviación plane en route from Havana to Central America. During 1999 and 2000, Posada Carriles continued with preparations for various similar terrorist missions, designed to damage Cuba's economy and its assets and interests abroad, involving purchases of explosives and other military supplies. As regards the attack prepared for the Tenth Latin American Summit, this was guided directly by Francisco "Pepe" Hernández and Alberto Hernández, at meetings with Posada Carriles in Central America. The various meetings to organize this attack involved, among others, the terrorists Gaspar Jiménez and Antonio Iglesias, who delivered CANF money for the purchase of arms and explosives. Between August and October of the previous year, Posada Carriles paid several visits to Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama as part of the preparations. In Costa Rica, he received financial support and facilities for getting the purchased weapons secretly into Panama overland. In Panama, he conducted the researches needed for carrying out the plan. During the Tenth Latin American Summit in November 2000 in the Republic of Panama, he was arrested by the Panamanian authorities together with Gaspar Eugenio Jiménez Escobedo, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Pedro Remón Rodríguez, for involvement in a planned attempt on the life of the president of the Republic of Cuba.
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