Free the Cuban Five anti-terrorists!
How long will the Bush administration continue to harbor terrorist Luis Posada Carriles?
We are writing to urge you to join the campaign to demand the extradition and prosecution of anti-Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. We are asking you to send a letter today in support of the demand that Posada be extradited to Venezuela, or prosecuted in the United States for the bombing in a civilian Cuban airliner in mid-flight, and other terrorist acts. Right now Posada is being treated as a guest of honor by the Bush administration, which is planning new aggressions against the people of Cuba.
Take a moment to send a letter today by clicking this link. People all over the country and the world are mobilizing. It will only take a minute, but your action can help make a difference.
If you can make an urgently needed donation to help this campaign, please do so now.
Background
Should a man who is responsible for killing 73 people in a plane bombing, be honored with a dinner and an art gallery exhibit of his paintings?
That is precisely what has happened in the city that knows best how to protect and honor terrorists—Miami. The terrorist is Luis Posada Carriles, and the Miami dinner held in his “honor” on May 2nd, is just the beginning.
| Take Action Now! Write to Congress We urge you to send a letter to your representatives in Congress, to demand that the U.S. government act immediately to extradite or prosecute Posada, and allow the Cuban Five to return home to Cuba. |
Misappropriating the words of Cuban independence fighter Antonio Maceo, Posada then said, “‘liberty is not something we must beg for. It is conquered with the sharp edge of the machete.' We ask God to sharpen our machetes because difficult times are arriving.”
Posada and the CIA
These are not idle words.
For over 40 years as a CIA operative, he has used explosives to carry out brutal attacks on unsuspecting victims, in the name of bringing “democracy” to Cuba. An Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, was killed when one of the bombs that Posada made himself, exploded in a Havana hotel in 1997.
Although he bragged about Di Celmo’s murder in 1998 to The New York Times, he has never been charged. A New Jersey grand jury investigation on Posada's terrorist bombing in Cuba is still underway, but it is three years, and there is still no indictment.
Posada is not alone in his terrorist objectives. There is a network of Miami terrorists with whom he continues to work.
As late as 2000, Posada planned, along with three other Miami terrorists Pedro Remón Rodríguez, Guillermo Novo Sampol and Guillermo Jiménez Escobedo, to bomb an auditorium in Panama City, in order to assassinate Fidel Castro. That attempt would have killed hundreds of people. Fortunately that terrorist attack was thwarted, but now those four terrorists are living in Miami, after they were pardoned by the outgoing Panamanian pro-Bush president, Mireya Moscoso.
Remember George Bush's own words
It is an absolute outrage for Posada Carriles to be free in the streets, free to organize more terrorist attacks against the people of Cuba, or anyone else he deems an enemy.
George W. Bush’s own words, “If you harbor a terrorist...you are as guilty as a terrorist” brings into focus the question: Why has Bush not acted against Posada?
The Bush administration has guided Posada out of jail through a series of deliberate steps since he entered the United States in 2005.
When Posada sneaked illegally into Miami’s harbor in late March 2005, it took two months for Homeland Security to detain him, despite worldwide cries for his arrest and prosecution. Now he has been released, allowing him to openly organize new terrorist attacks.
George W. Bush and his father -- shielding anti-Cuban terrorists
After three years, the Bush government still refuses to honor Venezuela’s request to extradite Posada for the 1976 Cuban airliner bombing in Caracas. Bush’s father was CIA director at the time.
George W. is following in his father’s footsteps. Orlando Bosch—Posada’s accomplice in the plane bombing—was about to be deported from the United States in 1990 when president George H.W. Bush overrode the deportation order. Thus, the two architects of the Cubana plane bombing both live free in Miami.
Even if the U.S. government refuses to extradite with some nefarious pretext that it can’t trust Venezuela to respect Posada’s human rights, Washington is bound by international law to prosecute him in the United States, according to the Montreal 1971 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, “without exception whatsoever and whether or not the offense was committed in its territory…”
Cuban Five imprisoned, while Posada walks free
But even more outrageous is the continued U.S. imprisonment of the five Cuban men who were stopping the Miami terrorists’ plots.
The “Cuban Five” are Cuban nationals who came into Miami in the early1990s, to infiltrate, keep a vigilant eye on the Miami terrorists, and stop their attacks. The Cuban Five were doing what the U.S. government has refused to do, act against the Miami extremists. More than 3,400 Cubans have died by terrorist attacks of the Miami ultra-right.
Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, whose mission was to save lives, are serving 15 years to double life, falsely convicted on federal conspiracy charges. Hernández and Fernando González had the specific mission of keeping an eye on Bosch.
The Cuban Five won the right to a new trial in 2005 when a federal court ruled that they were improperly tried in Miami, due to 'pervasive prejudice' towards defendants related to Cuba. Then the Bush administration appealed the decision. The five remain in prison.
The story doesn’t end there. Alexander Acosta—the U.S. Attorney in Miami who represented the government in arguing against a new trial for the Cuban Five—is the same prosecutor who requested a sentence reduction for the two terrorists who illegally sneaked Posada into the United States in March 2005.
Despite illegally possessing massive weapons caches and refusing to testify before an El Paso grand jury about Posada’s illegal entry, Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat won a reduction in their already-short prison sentences, thanks to Miami prosecutors.
Only pressure from the people of the United States on the U.S. government will bring Posada to justice.
Take action -- Send a letter today!
1) We urge you to send a letter to your representatives in Congress, to demand that the U.S. government act immediately to extradite or prosecute Posada, and allow the Cuban Five to return home to Cuba
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