Jamaica Protests US Release of Terrorist
CUBA, April 26, 2007.- The Jamaica Cuba Friendship Association recalled what US President George Bush said a few years back that anyone who harbors a terrorist is himself a terrorist. It would seem that the release of self-confessed criminal Luis Posada Carriles is one of those exceptions to the rule.
The Association wished to make a statement in the strongest possible terms condemning the attempt by the government of the United States to continue protecting notorious and self-confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and spare him from justice.
The statement said that Posada must face justice for his appalling crimes against the peoples of the Caribbean, Latin America and other countries.
Posada Carriles masterminded the 1976 mid-air blast of a Cubana airliner off the coasts of Barbados that killed all 73 people on board. That plane was heading for Jamaica.
Posada was convicted in Panama for conspiring to plant a bomb in the auditorium at the University of Panama , which would have been packed with Panamanian students listening to a speech Cuban President Fidel Castro was to deliver during the Iberoamerican Summit of Heads of State and Government in 2000.
The United states has refused to charge Posada with terrorism. Instead they have watered down his crimes by charging him with illegal entry and immigration fraud.
Human rights attorney Jose Pertierra, retained by the Venezuelan Government for their extradition request, said that the Venezuelan petition filed almost two years ago has been disregarded.
Pertierra recalled that Posada was a CIA agent for many years and that he was involved in the dirty wars in central America.
Meanwhile, the United States continues to hold as prisoners five Cubans who were collecting information on terrorist plots against Cuba that they would later submit to US authorities. They were charged with spying and sentenced to long and cruel terms. Their treatment is exactly opposite to the treatment given to a genuine terrorist, thus exposing the hypocrisy of the US's so-called "war on terror."
The Jamaica Cuba Friendship Association believes that the United States should either try Posada for terrorism or extradite him.
(Cubaminrex- RHC)