Freeing Posada means making the world less safe
Dear brothers: In October of this year, it will be 30 years since the sabotage of a Cuban airliner in Barbados, a plane that carried my father and 72 other innocent human beings, whose families are represented here today. In October, the murderers behind this crime will also celebrate 30 years of impunity, impunity which, for the victims who carry infinite pain in their hearts, is a daily and cynical slap in the face. Today, we witness the clearest expression of the US government’s double standards: on the one hand, this government vehemently condemns terrorism, wages wars under the banner of the struggle against terrorism and, on the other, it imprisons five Cuban anti-terrorist activists and protects this continent’s most active terrorist: Luis Posada Carriles. And Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen, is • A fugitive from Venezuelan justice • A confessed murderer • An active terrorist On 27 April 2005, US President George W. Bush said that “if someone protects a terrorist, if someone supports a terrorist, if someone feeds a terrorist, then that person is just as guilty as the terrorists”. Documents declassified by US intelligence services in May of last year were what revealed to the world that, in 1976, the government of the United States had prior knowledge that Bosch and Posada were plotting a monstrous terrorist act: the midair bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner. These documents tell us that, in 1976, US government authorities knew that Orlando Bosch was working with the murderer of Orlando Letelier, ex Foreign Minister for the government of Salvador Allende…and that, in Caracas, shortly after the assassination, in September 1976, Bosch publicly boasted of the crime, calling it a job well done. They throw a party, have a toast, celebrate in public and announce that, with this successful mission under their belts, they will go on to carry out other missions. In the documents, we read that “Posada was overheard to say that ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane…Orlando has the details…”. It is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, which puts this paragraph in quotation marks. Posada had said this for anyone who was interested: “we are going to hit a Cuban airplane, Orlando has the details”. This takes place in September 1976, after the assassination of Letelier in Washington and a few days before the bombing of the airplane in Barbados. The way Posada’s case was handled confirms Bush’s and the Bush family’s complicity with and commitment towards this individual. Posada, the Bin Laden of the Americas, was, just like Bin Laden, an agent paid and trained to kill by the CIA. The ridiculous proceedings of attorneys in El Paso, who didn’t even ask about Posada’s terrorist record or make any effort to determine how he had entered the United States, revealed that the state they represented before the court was not interested in justice or in making the truth known. Only ignorance or complicity can explain anyone buying the disgraceful lie that Posada could be subject to torture, spread by those who are, in fact, cruel torturers, unscrupulous murderers and shameless criminals. We should ask the Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorians, the victims and relatives of those who were murdered by the DIGEPOL or DISIP, where Posada was a high official, or about the groups trained and armed by Posada during the CIA’s dirty war against the Sandinista government, or about the death squads in El Salvador that received instruction from Posada, or the hundreds of Panamanians who could have been victims of an atrocious terrorist action at the auditorium of their university. For us, to demand justice is to demand the extradition of Posada! The government of the United States is duty-bound to respond to the extradition request made by the Venezuelan government, by virtue of the Treaty signed by both countries in 1922. For us, to demand justice is to denounce the violation of international treaties and conventions signed by the United States, and the United States signed the Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, which obliges it to take action against terrorists implicated in criminal actions against civilian airliners. The United States signed and IS ONE OF THE MAIN SUPPORTERS of UN Resolution 1373 of 2001, which condemns terrorism. This, dear friends, is a fight for justice, not only for us, the relatives of the victims, nor for Cubans exclusively; it transcends ideological affinities and political sympathies and appeals to the intelligence and feelings of all honest and decent people of good faith around the world. Everyone knows where the Bin Laden of the Americas is being harbored and who is harboring him. To free Posada means to make the world less safe. On behalf of my friends, the victims’ relatives, of those who cannot endure more pain, we appeal to the sensitivity of the generous and noble people of the United States to prevent this vile criminal from being freed, we appeal to the members of the press, especially to those of you who are here today…any one of you, any one of your colleagues or relatives, could have been in that plane or could have been in any of the hotels and restaurants in Havana bombed by Posada. Any one of you, of your loved ones, could have been “in the wrong place at the wrong time” (in the murderer’s cynical words), as was the young, innocent Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, who was killed in one of these bombings. I do not want to conclude my speech, today, without sharing with you a phrase my father taught me, which I teach all of the children with whom I share life, in spite of the fact that, 30 years ago, monstrously and forever, death was forced into my heart: “Let life prevail!”. Today, we are dressed in black, an expression of our mourning and of the pain we feel over the loved ones we’ve lost, more than 3,400 in the course of 47 years of revolution. Young Cubans carry the photographs of only 138 of these martyrs and heroes of our homeland, there, next to the flags that will be raised shortly, after we observe a moment of silence. White stars over a black background, like the light of a people who mourn the deaths of their sons and daughters and live on in pain. For 24 hours, as an expression of the infinite pain, children, young people, workers, elderly people, mothers will hold the photos of all loved ones who are not with us today and who light the path we have been walking for over 47 years. “Loved dead ones… When glory Enraptures us in this small world The spirit grows, The sky opens, the world swells And, among the worlds, dawn breaks. Despot, look here, how your blind Anxious longing conspires against you: Look upon your efforts and your impotence, and then Upon this corpse you vanquished look, He who died singing a Hymn, He who dies mutilated in your arms Who rises in the arms of Glory! Let not your vengeful hand waver; Let not the moaning and the weeping stop you; Kill, despot, kill! For those who die by your impious fury, The sky opens, the world swells! I ask those present that, after I conclude my speech, they turn to face the US Interests Section, so that the representatives of the empire can read in our faces, not only mourning, but also the determination to fight in defense of our homeland and our revolution. When a spirited and life-loving people weeps, injustice trembles! |
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