US criticized for freeing wanted terrorist

An exiled Cuban terrorist wanted by Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner was released from jail on Apr. 19 and allowed to return to his Miami home to await trial on charges of violating immigration law. The Bush administration's inability to keep former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles locked up sparked broad condemnation throughout Latin America. It also provoked accusations that the White House maintains a double standard on terrorism, punishing those who strike at the United States while giving shelter to a man who has admitted to deadly violence abroad. An international fugitive for the last 22 years, Posada was arrested in May 2005, two months after slipping into the United States, and sent to an immigration lockup in El Paso, TX. The 79-year-old Posada is seen in Latin America as a ruthless assassin so bent on destroying Fidel Castro's Cuba that he is willing to take innocent lives. Many of the 73 people killed aboard the Cubana de Aviacion plane were teenagers returning from an athletics competition in Caracas, Venezuela. In 1997, an Italian tourist bled to death in a Havana hotel bombing for which Posada took credit. Posada, a Bay of Pigs veteran and a suspect in numerous plots to kill Castro, also played a role in the Iran-Contra affair during his CIA service for the Reagan administration in the 1980s. "Posada's release shows the Bush administration's position against terrorism for the cynical sham it is. It takes us back to one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter," said Wayne Smith, a retired US diplomat and Cuban affairs analyst. The Cuban and Venezuelan governments immediately denounced Posada's release. Cuba said Posada's release was an attempt "to buy the terrorist's silence about his crimes for the CIA." "Cuba emphatically condemns this decision and holds the US government entirely responsible for Posada Carriles being free in Miami," said Dagoberto Rodriguez, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina called Posada "the Bin Laden of the Americas" and blamed his release on inaction by Washington. In the Cuban city of Bayamo, some 100,000 people gathered to demonstrate against his release. In Havana, thousands of Communist Youth Union members gathered outside the US Interests Section to denounce Posada's release as a sinister plot to protect a cherished member of the CIA. "It's an insult for all Cubans and a tragedy for the families of his victims," said Ereslandi Rodriguez, a 22-year-old student clutching a sign that read "The Dog is Loose" and featured a cartoon of Posada with bloodstained fangs and a canine body. Protester Silviano Merced cited a 2003 speech in which President Bush said anyone who harbors or supports terrorists is as guilty as the terrorists themselves. "For that reason, Mr. Bush," Merced cried, "you are as much of a terrorist as Posada Carriles and his accomplices." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Castro, condemned the release as evidence that the Bush administration condones violence against political adversaries. "We demand they extradite that terrorist and assassin to Venezuela instead of continuing to protect him," Chavez said at a political rally in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. Posada operated out of Venezuela during much of his CIA service and is a naturalized citizen of that country. A Venezuelan court tried him in the early 1980s in connection with the plane bombing, acquitting him on a technicality. He bribed his way out of a Caracas jail in 1985 while awaiting retrial, reportedly with money provided by a CIA colleague. Venezuela plans to ask the UN to investigate why the US has failed to prosecute or extradite Carriles. Venezuela also intends to join with other countries in appealing to the Organization of American States and challenging the US government's actions in international courts. Venezuela, along with other countries, plans to bring the case before a UN Security Council committee monitoring counterterrorism efforts, and would argue the US has violated Resolution 1373, which was approved after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The resolution says UN member states should "ensure that anyone who has participated in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts... is brought to justice." A federal grand jury in Texas indicted Posada in January on charges of violating immigration laws, citing inaccurate information in his application for naturalization. He was transferred to a New Mexico jail pending a May 11 trial, but US District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso ruled two weeks ago that the immigration charges were insufficient to deny Posada bail. With funds donated by fellow anti-Castro exiles in Miami, Posada posted $250,000 bail and his wife, son and daughter put up a $100,000 bond to secure his release. The government's failure to act to keep the militant jailed caused speculation that President Bush fears Posada might claim he was following US government orders in carrying out violent acts during his decades of CIA service. "The allegation will be that the administration didn't want to identify him as the terrorist he is for fear of him airing his dirty laundry, responding that 'I was your terrorist,'" said Peter Kornbluh, head of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, where he researches past covert CIA operations. Posada's Miami attorney, Eduardo Soto, hinted in an interview last year that his client was privy to dark chapters in US intelligence history but had kept silent out of loyalty to his adopted country. In Havana, Camilo Rojo, the son of a Cubana de Aviacion official who died aboard the bombed plane, said that Posada's release showed "a lack of respect for all the victims of terrorism, not only in Cuba but throughout the world…. We ask: 'How is it possible for the United States to be in a global war against terrorism and to free a terrorist? Do the American people know this?'"