More evidence emerges on CIA terrorism

Even as protests were taking place around the world demanding the U.S. government fulfill its extradition treaty with Venezuela and return anti-Cuba terrorist Luis Posada Carriles there for trial, a research institute in Washington was releasing CIA documents with more chilling details about his murderous career.

New York, June 13.

Posada Carriles has been wanted in Venezuela since 1985, when he escaped from prison there with the help of the CIA. He was being held at the time for having plotted the 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.

Depending on his audience, Posada Carriles either denies or coyly affirms the bombing. He is presently being held by federal authorities in El Paso, Texas, for having entered the U.S. illegally in March. His lawyer says Posada Carriles had nothing to do with the bombing of the Cuban plane and is seeking political asylum in the U.S.

Detroit, June 13.

However, recently declassified CIA documents made public by the National Security Archives, a project of George Washington University, tell a different story. According to an AP dispatch by Curt Anderson, published June 9 in the Orlando Sun-Sentinel, this long-time CIA employee had actually said that he and others “were going to hit a Cuban airplane.”

Philadelphia, June 13.

The remarks came “following a $1,100-a-plate fund-raising dinner in Caracas for Orlando Bosch, a leader of Cuban exiles opposed to the communist government of President Fidel Castro. The CIA document says that during the dinner, Bosch made the comment that his organization was ‘looking good’ after the Sept. 21, 1976, assassination in Washington of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and that 'we are going to try something else.'”

The CIA cable continued: ”A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane’ and that ‘Orlando has the details.’ ” Of course, the U.S. government never notified Cuba of the plot.

Early this May, the Venezuelan National Assembly passed a resolution calling on the U.S. to fulfill its extradition treaty and send Carriles back to Venezuela. Now the masses are getting involved with this issue, and a delegation headed by Assembly first vice president Ricardo Gutierrez is visiting Washington with the intention of turning over petitions with 50,000 Venezuelan signatures to U.S. authorities.

One of the CIA documents says Bosch was in Venezuela under the protection of former president Carlos Andres Perez. Posada Carriles himself had worked for Venezuelan intelligence.

The newly formed Venezuelan Committee for the Extradition of Luis Posada Carriles is calling on the present progressive government of Hugo Chavez to declassify police documents from that period. The head of the committee is Carlos Marrero, who was tortured in the 1970s under the instructions of Posada.

Meanwhile, the court in El Paso on June 13 postponed Posada Carriles's hearing on political asylum to Aug. 29. His lawyer filed an appeal for a change of venue to Miami—center of the CIA-affiliated Cuban right-wing.

Outside the El Paso court, and in 10 other U.S. cities, protesters attacked the hypocrisy of the Bush administration on the “terrorism” issue and demanded Posada Carriles's extradition to Venezuela, which is ready to put him on trial again. The U.S. demonstrations were called by the ANSWER Coalition and endorsed by a large number of other organizations, including the International Action Center and Workers World Party.

Protests have also taken place throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as in the Philippines. Over a million people marched past the U.S. Interests Section in Havana on May 1 demanding justice for the victims of the CIA and its henchmen, like Posada Carriles.