It was not the Venezuela of Rómulo Gallegos and Andrés Eloy Blanco but that of the scoundrel, traitor and venomous Rómulo Betancourt. A man who was jealous of the Cuban Revolution and who, as an ally of the imperialists, cooperated so much with their attacks against our homeland. At the time Venezuela was an oil property of the United States and, after Miami, represented the epicenter for counterrevolutionary actions against Cuba. History recalls how Venezuela played a significant role in the imperialist attack on Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs), the economic blockade and countless other crimes against our people. It was the beginning of the dark ages in Venezuela that came to an end when Hugo Chávez was sworn in on the “dying constitution” held in the trembling hands of former President Rafael Caldera.

Forty years had passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and more than a century since the Yankee plundering of Venezuela’s oil, natural resources and sweat.

Many Venezuelans died amidst the ignorance and misery imposed by US and European gunboats!

Fortunately the other Venezuela exists, the Venezuela of Bolívar and Miranda, of Sucre and of a legion of brilliant leaders and thinkers who were able to conceive that great Latin American homeland of which we feel a part of and for which we have resisted aggressions and blockades for more than half a century.

“…so that Cuba’s independence will prevent the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, allowing that nation to fall, ever more powerfully, upon our American lands. Everything I have done, everything I will do, is toward this end,” wrote the apostle of our independence Jose Marti the day before he died in combat.

Included among us today is Hugo Chávez who is visiting a part of that great Latin American and Caribbean homeland envisioned by Simón Bolívar. Hugo Chávez understands better than anybody the José Martí principal that “…what Bolívar left undone, is still undone today. Bolívar has things yet to do in America.”

I spoke with him at length yesterday and today. I told him about the great passion with which I dedicate the energy I have left to the dreams of a better and more just world.

It is not difficult to share dreams with the Bolivarian leader when the empire is already showing unequivocal signs of a terminal illness.

Saving humanity from an irreversible disaster is something that today may be compromised by the stupidity of any of those mediocre presidents who in the most recent decades have led that empire or by one of those increasingly powerful leaders of the industrial military complex that rules the destiny of that country.

Friendly nations that have become increasingly important in the world economy —given their economic and technological advances and their condition as permanent members of the Security Council, such as the Popular Republic of China and the Russian Federation, along with the peoples of the so-called Third World in Asia, Africa and Latin America— could achieve this goal. The peoples of the developed and rich nations, increasingly sucked dry by their own financial oligarchies, are also starting to play a role in this battle for human survival.

Meanwhile, the Bolivarian people of Venezuela are organizing themselves and uniting to challenge and defeat the sickening oligarchy at the service of the empire that once again is attempting to take over the government of this country.

Venezuela, given its extraordinary educational, cultural and social developments, and its vast energy and natural resources, is called on to become a revolutionary model for the world.

Chávez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody. The most humble and forgotten sectors of his country are profoundly grateful to him that for the first time in history there is a response to their dreams of social justice.

Hugo —I told him—, I clearly see that in a very short time the Bolivarian Revolution will create jobs, not only for the Venezuelan people, but also for their Colombian brothers, a hardworking people, who fought along with you for the independence of America, and of whom 40 percent live in poverty; a significant portion of them in extreme poverty.

I had the honor to speak with our distinguished visitor, the symbol of this other Venezuela, about these and many other topics.

Fidel Castro Ruz

October 18, 2011

10:15 p.m.

Bridgetown, Barbados

At the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados, Professor Cecilia Karch-Braithwaite also heard the loud droning of a passenger plane overhead. She told me, “It was unusual, because the aircraft was flying too low and was on a path that planes never take when they approach the airport.” She remembers seeing smoke coming from the side of the plane as it banked to the right and dove nose first into the waters of Paradise Beach. The university is located on a hill five miles from the beach.

I met Guiller and Karch-Braithwaite in Barbardos during last week’s ceremonies to commemorate the 35^th anniversary of the murder of the 73 people aboard the Cuban passenger plane that crashed only a few minutes after takeoff from Seawell International Airport in Barbados. Their memories of that day are still vivid.

THE VICTIMS

The aircraft was a DC-8, flown by Cubana de Aviación. It had received its regular maintenance only 10 days earlier and carried 73 persons the day it crashed. The average age on board was a mere 30 years of age, because 24 members of the Cuban  fencing team were returning to Cuba after having swept the gold medals at the Pan American games in Caracas, Venezuela. They boarded the plane wearing their medals. In total, there were 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and 5 Koreans. http://www.granma.cu/barbados/galeria.html

THE BOMBS

At 1:23 p.m., local time, Seawell International Airport reported that the pilot, Wilfredo Pérez, called to report an emergency on board, “Seawell! Seawell! CU-455 Seawell…! We have an explosion on board….. We have a fire on board.” A forensic investigation made by Dr. Julio Lara Alonso established that two bombs exploded aboard CU-455, causing it to crash into the sea. The first bomb—under a passenger seat—ignited a fire near the front of the plane, and the second bomb, which exploded about eight minutes later in the rear bathroom of the plane, brought the plane down in seconds.

“I KILLED MORE THAN THE JACKAL”

Two Venezuelan nationals, Hernán Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, had left the bombs on the plane, before disembarking in Barbados. Lugo later told police officials that Ricardo boasted that the 73 people he killed on the plane were “more than the Jackal,” alluding to the famous terrorist Carlos the Jackal. “Now I’m the one who has the record, because I’m the one who blew up that thing,” he told Lugo.

Ricardo confessed to Barbadian and Trinidad officials who were investigating the crime that he and Lugo bombed the plane and that they worked for the CIA and Luis Posada Carriles. He even drew a diagram for them of the detonator he used to ignite the C-4 explosives he placed in the aircraft. He admitted to receiving $25,000 for downing the plane.

Lugo and Ricardo were extradited to Venezuela by Trinidad and Tobago. There they were convicted for their role in downing the plane and sentenced to 20 years. After serving their time, they were released. Lugo still lives in Caracas, driving a taxi to earn his living. The Miami Herald reported that Ricardo is now an undercover operative in Florida for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

THE MASTERMIND

In 1985 Luis Posada Carriles was indicted and prosecuted as the mastermind of the murder of the 73 persons aboard that plane. But before the Venezuelan court could pronounce a verdict, he escaped from prison.  Within a few weeks, he landed a job with the CIA in an operation that later became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. The United States has never bothered to explain how it was possible for an international fugitive charged with 73 counts of first-degree murder to so quickly land a $120,000-a-year job with the CIA, arming Nicaraguan Contras.

THE HORROR

When he saw the plane crash into the water, Dalton Guiller immediately swung his small ski boat around and in two minutes arrived on the scene. “I was with two other chaps, and we went to see whether there were any survivors. Unfortunately, there were none,” he said. Surrounded by a strong of smell of fuel, Guiller surveyed the horror. “I saw suitcases, seats, and personal effects.  I saw bodies: only one or two of them intact. The others were not full bodies.” He added, “They were suspended at the level of the sea. Perhaps the seat belts cut them off, I could not tell. It was just striking that two or three of the bodies were perpendicular under the sea. Trousers, but no top. Top, but no bottom.”

The forensic report performed by the Barbadian coroner describes the condition of the body of little Sabrina, a nine-year old Guyanese girl who was traveling with her family to Cuba: “Body of a girl around 9 years of age…. Brain missing, only facial bones, scalp, and hair remaining. Lungs and heart destroyed. Liver and intestines shattered. Buttocks missing on right lower limb. Compound fracture of tibia and fibula …“

THE HATRED

The impetus for the horror that invaded paradise that day in Barbados was hatred. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, terrorists have murdered 2,478 Cubans and incapacitated 2,099 others.

Declassified U.S. intelligence cables reveal that Luis Posada Carriles had spoken of plans to “hit” a Cuban airliner only days before Ricardo and Lugo blew up CU-455. The CIA informed Washington, but no one uttered a word of warning to the Cuban or Venezuelan governments.

What happened in Barbados three and a half decades ago is not an isolated incident. The threat persists.  From his lair in Miami, one of the masterminds of the attack on the Cuban airliner, Luis Posada Carriles, continues to call for violence against the Cuban people. His friends continue their efforts to violently lash out at the people of Cuba in an effort to terrorize them into supporting the forceful overthrow of the Cuban government.

OUR MAN IN LATIN AMERICA

Posada Carriles readily admits his relationship with the CIA. His lawyer told a federal court judge that everything his client did in Latin America he did in the “name of Washington.”

What, then, is it that Mr. Posada did in Latin America “in the name of Washington”? Besides the mass murder of the people aboard that passenger plane, Posada tortured Venezuelans in the 1970s, assisted in the murder of Nicaraguans in the 1980s, and trained Guatemalan and Salvadoran death squads in the 1980s and 1990s.  He also planned a series of bombings at prominent Cuban hotels and restaurants in 1997, resulting in the murder of Italian businessman Fabio DiCelmo and the wounding of several others. He also conspired to assassinate the president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, several times, including in 2000 at the University of Panamá, where he planned to use 100 pounds of C-4 explosives to blow up a university auditorium full of students along with the Cuban president.

The cruelty of a 50-year war of terror against Cuba is abhorrent. The training that the United States has given Cuban-American terrorists is immoral. Providing them with weapons is a scandal: continuing to protect them an outrage.

THE DOUBLE STANDARD

In contrast to the United States, Venezuela does not assassinate those it alleges are terrorists. It relies on the rule of law to pursue them, but for the rule of law to be effective, the other parties to those laws, including the United States, must observe their legal obligations. When Posada Carriles illegally arrived in the United States in 1985, Venezuela immediately filed an extradition request, based on an extradition treaty that dates back to 1922 and on an international convention designed to combat terrorism: the Montreal Convention on Civil Aviation. Rather than extraditing Posada Carriles to Venezuela, the U.S. government instead tried him for minor immigration violations in El Paso, and a jury acquitted him of those in April of this year. He now lives freely in Miami.

United Nations Resolution 1373 forbids the harboring of terrorists by member nations. This resolution was introduced by the United States to combat terrorism after the tragedy of 9-11. Does it not also oblige the United States to extradite the terrorists it harbors?

THE CUBAN FIVE

Thirteen years ago, the United States government arrested, convicted and subsequently sentenced Five Cubans in Miami to long prison terms, but they were not terrorists.

The Five had gone to Miami to gather evidence against Cuban-American terrorists. In 1998, Cuba turned the evidence over to the FBI in the hope that the terrorists would be arrested and prosecuted. Yet the U.S. government didn’t arrest or charge the terrorists. Instead it arrested, charged, and imprisoned those who had gathered the evidence. The Cuban Five have been in jail now for 13 cruel years.

Gerardo Hernández is serving two life terms plus 15 years. The Court of Appeals ratified his sentence. Even if he dies in prison twice and resurrects each time, he would still not have completed his sentence.

Ramón Labañino was sentenced to a life term plus 18 years—subsequently the Court of Appeals ruled the sentence to be in violation of the law for being too harsh, vacated it and remanded his case to the same judge who had sentenced him. Judge Joan Lenard in Miami re-sentenced him and reduced the sentence to “only” 30 years.

Antonio Guerrero was sentenced to a life term plus 10 years. The Court of Appeals vacated his sentence, and Judge Lenard reduced it to “only” 21 years and ten months.

Fernando Gonzalez was sentenced to 19 years. The Court of Appeals vacated it, and Judge Lenard reduced it to “only” 17 years and 9 months.

René González was sentenced to 15 years. The Court of Appeals ratified his sentence, and he was released from jail on October 7. However, his release comes with conditions. He is not allowed to return to Cuba, as he wishes, to rejoin his wife and children but must instead remain in the United States for three more years—an additional punishment as cruel as it is irresponsible. The terrorists that the United States protects are free and would relish exacting their revenge on the man who monitored their activities on behalf of Cuba.

INDIFFERENCE VS. INDIGNATION

Getting the United States to extradite Luis Posada Carriles is not easy, and convincing President Barack Obama to free the Cuban Five will also be difficult. Neither case appears on the radar of American public opinion. The United States counts on the indifference of people. It knows that indifference is the unsung ally of injustice.

But as people learn about the history of terrorism against Cuba they grow indignant and demand justice.  Indifference crumbles when confronted with indignation.

THE MEMORY OF THOSE KILLED

The 73 persons assassinated in cold blood 35 years ago in Barbados are not forgotten. As I stood on Paradise Beach in front of the monument to their memory, I listened to the national anthems of Cuba and Barbados and scanned the sea before me, where the plane lies at the bottom of Deep Water Bay., remembering that the remains of 58 persons were never recovered.

Standing next to me at the monument was the son of Wilfredo Pérez, the brave pilot who steered the aircraft away from the sandy beach to avoid killing dozens of Barbadians on shore. Wilfredo (he is named after his father) could have easily allowed hatred to consume him, but instead he became a psychologist.  His life’s work is to help broken people to mend.

Killed aboard that plane was also Nancy Uranga, a pregnant 22-year-old fencer from Cuba. It is well known that 73 persons were killed that day over Barbados, but few know that Nancy was pregnant and that the terrorists killed her unborn child as well.

The terrorists also killed Carlos Cremata that day. Carlos was 41 years old. He was a member of the crew and also an actor. His friends and family recall that Carlos always greeted them with, “Viva la vida” (Long live life). One of his sons, Carlos Alberto Cremata, founded one of the world’s most renowned children’s theater companies—La Colmenita (The Little Beehive)—whose mission is “sembrar el amor” (to sow love). La Colmenita is now on tour in the United States.

There is a history of injustice in the waters of Paradise Beach in Barbados. The cold-blooded murder of the 73 people aboard that passenger plane was a crime against them, their families, and their countries. It was also a crime against Barbados and its people.

THE BAJAN-AMERICAN

The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder Jr., is a Bajan-American. He was raised in a Bajan household in New York. His father, Eric Sr., was born in Barbados and married the daughter of Barbadian immigrants.

When he visited Barbados in 2008, the soon-to-be nominated Attorney General said, “I feel that I grew up partly in Barbados and partly in New York.”

History has now given him an opportunity to solve a mass murder that occurred in his parents’ home country 35 years ago. Mr. Holder can present to a United States District Court Venezuela’s request for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles. He can also recommend that President Obama exercise his constitutional power of executive clemency to free the Cuban Five.

THE CHARACTER OF THE UNITED STATES AS A NATION

The extradition of Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela and the liberation of the Cuban Five are the responsibility of the United States and its people. More than merely legal issues, they are a moral imperative. At stake are not simply the facts of two particular criminal cases but bedrock principles of social justice and the character of the United States as a nation.

Will Eric Holder and President Barack Obama be up to the task? Will the people of the United States demand justice?

José Pertierra is an attorney. He represents the government of Venezuela in the extradition case of Luis Posada Carriles.

In Breaking News

(Barbados Nation) Wilfredo Pérez Jr has mixed feelings about his trip to Barbados – on one hand he feels genuine sympathy and acceptance but on the other, the pain of reliving the worst day of his life.

If the name sounds familiar to those who have first-hand knowledge of the events of October 6, 1976, then that is no coincidence.

Pérez shares his name with the pilot of that fateful plane trip now known as the Cubana air disaster. He is in fact the son of that pilot, and he is here to take part in a week of activities in commemoration of that tragedy.

“When I was informed I would be coming I thought it would be a difficult trip as it would mean having to relive those sad feelings of that time,” he told the DAILY NATION after a special service yesterday at St Mary’s Anglican Church, The City, a few hours after arriving in Barbados.

Eleven minutes after take-off from the then Seawell Airport [now the Grantley Adams International Airport] at an altitude of 18 000 feet, two bombs exploded on board that fateful flight.

The plane went into a rapid descent, while the pilots unsuccessfully tried to return the plane to the airport. The captain, Wilfredo Pérez Sr, realizing this was impossible, turned the craft away from the beach and towards the Atlantic Ocean, saving the lives of many tourists. The crash occurred about eight kilometres short of the airport.

All 73 passengers and five crew members aboard the plane died: 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five North Koreans.

Among the dead were all 24 members of the 1975 national Cuban fencing team that had just won all gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship Games, as well as several officials of the Cuban Government.

Five of the 11 Guyanese passengers were travelling to Cuba to study medicine while the five Koreans included government officials and a cameraman.

Speaking with the help of Cuban consul Orestes Hernandez, who translated much of the conversation, Pérez Jr told of his feelings at the time of the tragedy and how it changed his life.

“I was 17 when it happened. Those were very terrible days which means when I think about that I have to think about those terrible days but now I am a psychologist helping others through similar ordeals,” he said.

Pérez, now 51 years old, said he juggles helping others with treating himself as sometimes he still struggles with his feelings from that time. However, he said his job was like self-therapy as dealing with other people’s problems helped him deal with his own.

As for his trip to Barbados so far, Pérez said he was impressed with the church service, especially when Reverend Dr Marcus Lashley expressed his sympathy, and by the respect shown to the memories of those who died.

After a cruel and undeserved 13-year prison sentence, the United States government – that gave birth to monsters such as Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch who, as CIA agents had a hand in the exploding of a Cuban airliner full of passengers in mid-flight – forces René to remain in that nation, where he shall be at the mercy of unpunished murderers for three long years, under a regime described as supervised “freedom”.  Still unfairly and vengefully imprisoned for long terms of confinement, are another three Cuban heroes, and another one sentenced to two life terms.  That is how the empire responds to the growing world clamour for the freedom of these men.

If that were not the case, then the empire would cease to be an empire; and Obama would cease to be a fool.

Of course the Cuban heroes shall not be there forever. On the foundations of the unequalled example of dignity and steadfastness, solidarity in the world and in the very heart of the American people shall grow, and it shall put an end to the stupid and unsustainable injustice.

The uncouth decision was made when the UN General Assembly was in the midst of developing a profound debate on the necessity of re-founding that institution. Never have we heard such solid and energetic criticisms.

The Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez opened it up with his first message to the General Assembly published on the evening of September 21st.  Chávez’ second letter, transmitted in an energetic and vibrant tone by Chancellor Nicolás Maduro, was lapidary. In that message, he also denounced the criminal imperialist blockade against our Homeland and the scandalous and cruel vengeance against the 5 Cuban anti-terrorist Heroes.

Such circumstances have forced me to write a third Reflection. I shall transmit the essential ideas of that forceful message, using the very words of the author:

“[…] We do not look for the peace of the cemetery, as said Kant ironically, but a peace based on the most zealous respect for international law. Unfortunately, the UN, through all its history, instead of adding and multiplying efforts in favor of peace among nations, ends up supporting, sometimes through its actions and other times by omission, the most ruthless injustices.”

“From 1945 on, wars have done nothing but inexorably increase and multiply themselves.”

“I want to call on the governments of the world to reflect: since September 11th, 2001, a new and unprecedented imperialist war began, a permanent war, in perpetuity.

“We have to look directly at the terrifying reality of the world we live in. […] Why is the United States the only country that scatters the planet with military bases? What is it afraid of to allocate such a staggering budget for increasing its military power? Why has it unleashed so many wars, violating the sovereignty of other nations which have the same rights on their own fates? How can international law be enforced against its insensible aspiration to militarily hegemonizing the world in order to ensure energy sources to sustain their predatory and consumer model? Why does the UN do nothing to stop Washington? […] the empire has awarded itself the role of judge of the world, without being granted this responsibility […] therefore, imperialist war threatens us all.

“Washington knows that a multi-polar world is already an irreversible reality. Its strategy consists of stopping, at any price, the sustained rise of a group of emerging countries […] the goal is to reconfigure the world so it is based on Yankee military hegemony.”

“What is behind this new Armageddon?: the absolute power of the military-financial leadership which is destroying the world in order to accumulate ever more profits; the military-financial leadership which is subordinated, de facto, to an increasingly larger group of States. Keep in mind that war is capital’s modus operandi: the war that ruins the majority and makes richer, up to the unthinkable, a few people.

“Right now, there is a very serious threat to global peace: a new cycle of colonial wars, which started in Libya, with the sinister objective of refreshing the capitalist global system, within a structural crisis today, but without any limit to its consumerist and destructive voracity.”

“Humanity is on the brink of an unimaginable catastrophe: the world is marching inexorably toward the most devastating ecocide; global warming and its frightening consequences are announcing it, but their perspective on the ecosystem, which resembles the ideology of the conquistadors Cortés and Pizarro , as the influential French thinker Edgar Morin rightly pointed out […] The energy and food crises are sharpening, but capitalism continues to trespass all the limits with impunity.

“…the great U.S. scientist Linus Pauling, awarded the Nobel Prize on two occasions, continues enlightening our path: “I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs — there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism. I believe in the power of the human spirit”. Let us mobilize all the power of the human spirit: it is time now. It is imperative that we unleash a great political counter-offensive in order to prevent the powers of darkness from finding justifications for going to war, from unleashing a widespread global war through which they attempt to save the western capital.”

“The warmongers, and especially the military-financial leadership that sponsors and leads them, must be defeated.

“Let’s build the balance of the universe foreseen by the Liberator, Simón Bolívar – the balance that, according to his words, cannot be found within war; the balance that is born out of peace.”

“…Venezuela, alongside the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), was actively advocating for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the Libyan conflict. That is also what the African Union did. However, in the end, the logic of war decreed by the UN Security Council and put into practice by NATO, the armed wing of the Yankee empire, was imposed. […]  the “Libyan Case” was brought before the Security Council on the basis of an intense propaganda by the western mass media, who lied about the alleged bombing of innocent civilians by the Libyan Air Force, not to mention the grotesque media setting of the Green Square of Tripoli. This premeditated bunch of lies was used to justify irresponsible and hasty decisions by the Security Council, which paved the way for NATO’s military regime change policy in Libya.”

“… What has the no-fly zone established by Security Council resolution 1973 become? How could NATO perform more than 20,000 missions against the Libyan people if there was a no-fly zone? After the Libyan Air Force was completely annihilated, the continued “humanitarian” bombing shows that the West, through NATO, intends to impose their interests in North Africa, turning Libya into a colonial protectorate.”

“What is the real reason for this military intervention?: Recolonizing Libya in order to capture its wealth. Everything else is related to this goal.

“…the Residence of the Venezuelan Ambassador in Tripoli was invaded and looted, and the UN kept it to itself, remaining ignominiously silent.”

“…Why is the Libyan seat in the UN granted to the “national transitional council,” while the admission of Palestine is blocked by ignoring, not only its lawful aspiration, but also the existing will of the majority of the General Assembly? Venezuela hereby ratifies its unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people and its total support for the Palestinian national cause, which naturally includes the immediate admission of Palestine as a full member state within the United Nations.

“And the same imperialist pattern is being repeated regarding Syria.”

“It is intolerable that the powerful of this world intend to claim for themselves the right to order legitimate and sovereign governments rulers to step down. This was the case in Libya, and they want to do the same in Syria. Such are the existing asymmetries in the international setting and such are the abuses against the weakest nations.”

“If we direct our eyes to the Horn of Africa we will witness a heartbreaking example of the UN’s historical failure: most serious news agencies report that 20-29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the last three months.”

“What is needed to face this situation is $400 million, not to solve the problem, but just to address the emergency that Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia are going through. According to all sources, the next two months will be crucial to prevent more than 12 million people from dying, and the worst situation is that of Somalia.

“This reality could not be more atrocious, especially if, at the same time, we ask ourselves how much is being spent to destroy Libya. This is the answer of U.S. congressman Dennis Kucinich, who said: “This new War will cost us $500 million during its first week alone. Obviously, we do not have financial resources for that and we will end up cutting off other important domestic programs’ funding.” According to Kucinich himself, with the amount spent during the first three weeks in Northern Africa to massacre the Libyan people, much could have been done to help the entire region of the Horn of Africa, saving tens of thousands of lives.”

“…it is frankly regrettable that in the opening address of the 66th General Assembly of the UN, an immediate appeal to solve humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa was not made, while instead we were assured that “the time has come to act” on Syria.”

“We are also crying out for the end to the shameful and criminal blockade of our sister Republic of Cuba: a blockade that, for more than fifty years, is being exercised by the empire with cruelty and brutality, against the heroic peoples of José Martí.

“As of 2010, 19 UN General Assembly votes confirm the universal will demanding that the United States stop the economic and trade blockade against Cuba. Since all sensible international arguments have been exhausted, we have no choice but to believe that such cruel actions against the Cuban Revolution result from imperial arrogance in view of the dignity and courage shown by the unsubmissive Cuban people in their sovereign decision to determine their own fate and fight for their happiness.

“From Venezuela, we believe it is time to demand of the U.S. not only an immediate and unconditional end to the criminal blockade imposed against the Cuban people, but also the release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held hostage in the prisons of the American Empire for the sole reason of seeking to prevent the illegal actions of terrorist groups against Cuba, under the shelter of the U.S. government.”

“For us, it is obvious that the UN is not improving, nor will it improve from the inside. If the Secretary General, along with the President of the International Criminal Court, take part in an act of war, as in the case of Libya, nothing can be expected from the current structure of this organization and there is no longer time for reform.”

“It is unbearable that there is a Security Council that turns its back, whenever it wants to, on the clamor of the majority of nations by deliberately failing to acknowledge the will of the General Assembly. If the Security Council is some sort of club with privileged members, what can the General Assembly do? Where is its room for maneuver, when Security Council members violate international law?

“Paraphrasing Bolívar when he spoke of nascent Yankee imperialism in 1818, we have had enough of the weak following the law while the strong commit abuses. It cannot be us, the peoples of the South, who respect international law while the North violates it, destroying and plundering us.

“If we do not make a commitment, once and for all, to rebuilding the United Nations, this organization will lose its remaining credibility. Its crisis of legitimacy will be accelerated until it finally implodes. In fact, that is what happened to its immediate predecessor: the League of Nations.”

“The future of a multi-polar world in peace lies with us.  In the articulation of the majority peoples on the planet to defend ourselves from the new colonialism and to attain balance in the universe that neutralizes imperialism and arrogance.

“This broad, generous, respectful call with no exclusions is addressed to all the peoples of the world, but especially to the emerging powers of The South that must take on with courage the role they are being called upon to play in the immediate future.

“From Latin America and the Caribbean, powerful and dynamic regional alliances have arisen, seeking to configure a democratic regional space, respectful of special characteristics and wishing to accentuate solidarity and complementariness, fostering what unites us and politically resolving whatever divides us.  And this new regionalism admits diversity and respects the rhythms of all. […] the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) moves forward as an experiment of the vanguard of progressive and anti-imperialist governments, seeking formulas to break with the governing international order and strengthening the capacity of the peoples to collectively face the factual powers. But this does not impede our members from making a decisive and enthusiastic thrust for the strengthening of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a political bloc confederating the 12 sovereign states of South America with the aim of grouping them in what The Liberator Simón Bolívar called “a Nation of Republics”. And further along down the road, we the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are getting ready to take that historic step and found a great regional entity that will group us all together, with no exclusions, where we may jointly design the policies that must guarantee our well-being, our independence, our sovereignty, on the basis of equality, solidarity and complementariness. Caracas, capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is now swelling with pride to host the Summit of the Heads of State and Government next December 2nd and 3rd, an event that shall definitively found our Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).”

With these profound ideas, thus concludes the second message of the Bolivarian President Hugo Chávez to the UN General Assembly.

According to the AFP dispatch dated today in Washington:  US President Barack Obama declared this Wednesday that while he is president he shall be willing to change the policy with Cuba, as long as significant political and social changes are produced.

What a nice man! How smart he is! So much virtue has not allowed him to understand yet that 50 years of blockade and the crimes against our Homeland have not been able to bring our people to their knees.  Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

The unyielding resistance of the Cuban patriots is symbolized by our 5 Heroes. They shall never back down! They shall never surrender! As Martí proclaimed, and I have mentioned on other occasions: “Before continuous efforts to free and prosperous country, will join the South Sea to the North Sea and a snake will hatch from an eagle’s egg.”

It is obvious that the judge from the South Florida District has put the spotlight on “Obama’s supervised shame”.

Fidel Castro Ruz

September 28, 2011

7:37 p.m.

Richard Klugh

Interview with Richard Klugh by telephone to his office 23^rd August 2011

Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban Five submitted his request for a habeas corpus relief in March based on new evidence.  He received the US reply on 25th April this year opposing his request. He has now submitted a reply with additional information.

Radio Havana Cuba spoke to Richard Klugh, a member of the defence team for the Five by telephone to his office in Miami 23^rd August 2011 for an up-date on Gerardo’s legal situation:

Bernie Dwyer (BD): What is happening now with Gerardo’s habeas corpus petition?

Richard Klugh (RK): Where we stand right now is that the legal team for Gerardo has filed a comprehensive reply as well as additional memoranda and affidavits in response to the (US) government’s opposition to Gerardo’s petition for Habeas Corpus relief.

The response was filed just last week and we believe we have responded to all the arguments made by the government and we filed further an  affidavit from Gerardo and an additional affidavit from his former attorney Paul McKenna which supports the fundamental allegations that we have made in the habeas corpus application. We really feel that we have made many strides towards proving everything we have said and proving Gerardo’s innocence in this matter.

As for Antonio, last week he also filed his reply to the government’s response in which he is also focusing, as did Gerardo, on the use of paid Radio Marti and TV Marti employees to publish articles prejudicial to the Five at trial here in Miami. And that is what his document is focused on with affidavits, as we did in Gerardo’s case, indicating how the evidence has gradually come out as to exactly the extent to which the United States tried to prejudice the Five during their trial by publishing articles that were intended to stir up anger and hostility towards Cuba and Cuban agents.

Both of these documents present compelling reasons for relief for all of the Five, particularly for Gerardo and the fact that his own attorney has supported the allegations that we have made is a tremendously important development in the case.

BD: Does the application for habeas corpus apply to Fernando, Rene’s and Ramon?

RK: The documents that have been filed for Gerardo and Antonio also apply to Rene. Ramon and Fernando have not yet had the opportunity to request habeas corpus relief. They will be filing their motions within a week or two and we will be raising some of the exact same grounds in support of their claim.

We feel that we have reached a point now where the evidence is overwhelming and establishes the actually hostile and intentionally hostile environment in which the trial was held and that the government’s failure to admit what they had done to poison the atmosphere against the Five is a fundamental violation of their rights. We also believe that the grounds that we allege, specifically in regard to Gerardo establishes his innocence and we believe that it establishes the unfairness of the convictions of all of the Five.

This has reached a point where there is a compelling level of evidence that cannot be ignored, it simply cannot be ignored. It’s very unusual when the attorney himself will come forward with an affidavit that sustains the very claims made as to his being hampered in his ability to fully and adequately defend Gerardo.  But that has now happened in the case of Gerardo and we are very pleased and very grateful that the attorney has come forward and bravely set forth the very facts that we believe will show that the convictions were unjust.

BD: What are the issues in Gerardo’s Habeas Corpus that don’t apply to the other four?

RK: One of the principal factors in the case was the law that we were operating under. The (US) government has never tried to prosecute someone as they prosecuted Gerardo, not just for the conspiracy to commit espionage, which was a unique charge, where they had conceded that he had not even attempted to commit espionage or never planned to attempt to commit espionage, that nevertheless, that somehow they could sustain a conspiracy.

But apart from the charge which we believe was fundamentally defective, with regard to the claim of attributing to a conspiracy to commit murder is just an incredible charge. One of the problems with that accusation is that the government had never tried to prosecute somebody under that theory before. When the judge tried to restrict their ability to prosecute on a bad theory, the prosecutors admitted in an emergency filing in the court of appeals, that it would be impossible for them to prove Gerardo guilty under the law as found by the judge.

What happened then was a very unusual thing.  Even though the judge had agreed to correctly instruct that the jury was limited to one theory under the law, the court of appeals held that the judge didn’t successfully instruct the jury of that limitation, that the jury was left to pursue other theories and so even though the defense attorney didn’t realize it, Gerardo was being convicted on theories that he didn’t even know were before the jury.

So the procedures created a situation where the lawyer really felt that he had not defended the case because he thought that the theory on which the case was sustainable was not even before the jury.

So that’s the origin of the realization that we had on our part that the lawyer was unable effectively to defend because he didn’t even have the opportunity to know even what the jury was considering as a theory. And it is truly a unique theory the government tries to rely on to attribute to Gerardo something for which he had no responsibility whatsoever.

But beyond that so much additional evidence has come forward with regard to Gerardo’s actual innocence and had a lawyer known how the court of appeals would limit his ability to defend the case, then clearly he would have presented more evidence of Gerardo’s innocence. He (Paul McKenna) readily acknowledges these mistakes, readily acknowledges that had he understood the law completely he would have been able to fully present and take on a more affirmative responsibility to prove Gerardo’s innocence and which is what he was left with the responsibility of doing even if he didn’t know it.

And that’s largely where we are right now. He admits that had he understood where the case was going, this novel prosecution, this unheard of prosecution, he would have been able to easily establish Gerardo’s actual innocence and how strongly he feels about the steps he could have taken to do that including Gerardo’s own testimony. And so his willingness to admit how he was foreclosed from presenting fundamental evidence is really a striking testament to his honesty and integrity in coming forward but what you can seen that too is the lawyer’s and all our absolute belief that Gerardo is being punished for something that he is absolutely innocent of and we all await the day, and may it come very soon, when Gerardo is completely exonerated of the false charge.

BD: Is the US government still refusing to release documentary evidence to Gerardo to build his case?

RK: The US government is still resisting the presentation of documentary evidence that shows so much more clearly than we ever could have with the types of evidence that we had exactly what was going on with these airplanes and what was going on with some of the transmissions back and forth that show that he neither intended to do any harm to the United States nor did he intend to do any harm to anybody else. And the government’s documents, including satellite evidence for example, would have shown the way towards a proper defense for Gerardo but the government never produced it.

BD: So the next step in the Habeas Corpus petition is up to the court?

RK: We are waiting the setting of a hearing at which we can further establish all of these facts, further establish Gerardo’s actual innocence-show the evidence that should have been presented at the trial, show the evidence that would have been presented had the attorney not been placed in the position of being unable to defend Gerardo because of a misunderstandings as to the law and what the burdens of proof were. We readily await the opportunity for a hearing in which we can do that.

BD: When is the response due from the US court?

RK: There is no particular time frame. It’s up to the district court to set a stay hearing and we hope that it happens soon.

We want production of evidence and we want a hearing. That’s what we have asked for and we wait an opportunity to go forward with that.

This interview was broadcast by Radio Havana Cuba on Saturday 27^th August 2011

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla

The Cuban Foreign Ministry accused the United States of political manipulation regarding such a sensitive issue as the antiterrorist fight.

In a declaration issued here on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry rejected the “U.S. spurious list of sponsors of international terrorism” published in Washington, and pointed out that its “only aim is to discredit our country and continue justifying the cruel and condemned blockade policy.”

The list, made by the U.S. Department of State, has included Cuba for the thirtieth time.

The declaration says, “Cuba demands that the U.S. government punish the real terrorists who reside on U.S. territory today, release the Five Heroes and end the policy of blockade and hostility against our country.”

The Cuban Foreign Ministry mentioned ongoing actions by the United States, which has historically promoted terrorism, extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, assassinations, secret prisons and occupation wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other condemned acts.

The United States “has neither morale nor right to judge Cuba, which has an impeccable record in the fight against terrorism and has been, in addition, a systematic victim of that scourge,” said the declaration. “At the same time, as irrefutable evidence of its double standard, the U.S. government unjustly holds our five antiterrorist fighters -Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez- in prison, for preserving the lives of Cuban and U.S. citizens and from other countries,” stressed the statement.

By Prensa Latina

The Cuba-Venezuela Movement of Mutual Solidarity confirmed a march to be staged on Saturday, June 12, to support the five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters unfairly held in US prisons since 1998.

Coordinator of the group Laila Tajeldine told Prensa Latina that women, youngsters and workers will take part in the march to demand the immediate release of Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez, internationally known as The Cuban Five.

She recalled that they face harsh sentences for defending their homeland from terrorist acts organized in Florida, the US, which have resulted in more than 3,000 people killed and more than 2,000 maimed.

Tajaldine also said that participants will demand the US to extradite to Venezuela confessed murderer Luis Posada Carriles to be tried for the blowing up of a Cuban civilian plane in mid flight in 1976 and other crimes against humanity committed in the South American country.

In April, a court in El Paso, Texas, found him not guilty of the 11 charges filed against him for perjury and immigration fraud, in a trial considered as another attempt to delay his extradition to Caracas.

The organizer of the march denounced the double standard applied by Washington by sheltering terrorist criminals like Posada Carriles and at the same time holding The Cuban Five in jails.

According to Tajeldine, the march will also serve as a forum to reject US sanctions announced last week against the Venezuelan state-run oil company Pdvsa because of its relations with the Iranian energy sector.

The demonstrators are expected to march from El Venezolano Square to the National Assembly headquarters, where they will present a document containing the objective of the event, and then head for Jose Marti Square, the main venue for the gathering.

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann

The Cuban American extreme right in Miami is happy these days because they have had a few victories in the city. Of course, these are so decadent that in fact they are pyrrhic victories. The segment of Cuban society living here cannot tell a victory from a defeat. This is no news, just more of the same. As I have said before, these people have no sense of ridicule.

A few days ago, there was a vote in one of the cities of Miami-Dade County to elect its mayor. With majority support from Cuban voters, James Cason was elected.  This is the guy, ill-remembered by Cubans in the Island, the man who was appointed Chief of the US Interests Section in Havana with the main objective of orchestrating confrontations with the Revolutionary Government.

It is a well-known fact that Mr. Cason, rather than a career diplomat, was a professional provocateur. His appointment had, among other purposes, the aim of provoking the Cuban Government to expel him from the country and therefore create conditions for a confrontation between both governments which would lead to a severing of the existing fragile relations.  That was the mission that today’s mayor of Coral Gables had;  and it was precisely by those provocative actions in Havana that the gentleman won the support of the Cuban American right wingers.

Cason is like the proverbial elephant in the glass menagerie and, consequently, can bring nothing good to Coral Gables. After his failure in Havana, he was sent to Paraguay and managed to earn the hatred of the Paraguayans. He had to end up in Washington in the arms of Frank Calzon, a savvy Cuban American, who has lived selling the snake oil of human rights, travelling around the world, and grabbing hundreds of thousands US dollars from the American Government. The anti-diplomatic ambassador moved to South Florida and now represents the right wing voters in one of its cities. The Cuban millionaires who live there are joyful. Let’s see what happens when this backfires.

Also, a few days ago in triumphant march by road – he has been forbidden to travel by plane – entered the hero of Miami’s Calle Ocho, Luis Posada Carriles. He got a champion’s welcome: press conference in a law firm in the morning, a red carpet reception in a private club, dinner there, and half a page of photos in El Nuevo Herald. He thanked the American justice system that acquitted him and the Miami extreme right which provided the money to pay the lawyers.

The Posada Carriles case is peculiar. The people who support him say that he is innocent of the crimes he is accused of committing; that he had nothing to do with the in-flight explosion of the Cubana de Aviación aircraft; that he had nothing to do with the bombs placed in Cuba at the end of the 90′s; that he did not torture anyone when he was a commissar of the political police in Venezuela; that he did not lie when he said he had crossed the Mexican border to enter the US.

In conclusion, for these people, Posada is a sort of saint

Translation: Machetera / Tlaxcala

New evidence of the upside down world that governs the United States is found in the Wikileaks documents which reveal information about the treatment of prisoners at the concentration camp in Guantánamo – maintained by Washington on territory it is illegally occupying against the will of the Cuban government and people.

The files say that 60% of the more than 700 prisoners were imprisoned by mistake.  Here are five cases that reflect the humanity of the USAmerican authorities at the prison opened by Bush and that Obama promised to close.

• Mohamed Sadiq.  An 89 year old prisoner with senile dementia, prostate cancer and osteoarthritis.  Captured because of “suspicious documents” found on his son.  Repatriated to Afghanistan.
• Haji Faiz Mohammed.  Arrested at the age of 70, in a mosque where he had spent the night after going out in search of some medicine.  His file says that “there is no reason” for having transferred him to Guantánamo.
• Jamal al-Harith was in Guantánamo solely because he’d been arrested in a Taliban prison and it was thought that he knew something about their interrogation techniques.
• Naqib Ullah.  Captured at the age of 14, he spent a year at Guantánamo.
• Omar Khadr.  Captured at the age of 15, he has spent nine years at Guantánamo for being the son of a supposed Al Qaeda leader in Canada. Video of his interrogation:

It’s worth remembering that the country that has behaved in this arbitrary manner in the name of a war on terrorism is the same that refuses to try people such as Luis Posada Carriles, the man behind numerous terrorist actions against Cuba, as a terrorist, and who has ended up being feted in Miami.

Lawrence Wilkerson

Several  nights ago (6 April), I watched “Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up” at the West End Cinema in Washington. Six months ago, Saul Landau, the filmmaker, had given me an earlier rough-cut version on DVD that I had watched, but I was not prepared for the final version with all of the added footage gained by Saul’s recent sojourn in Cuba itself and the slap-in-the-face showing on the large screen.

But the added footage from the island and the bigger screen were not all that made the final version more electrifying.  It was, all in all, the pro-Cuba aspect of the film that stunned me.

And it was clear that this pro-Cuba aspect was not conjured by the filmmaker but by history.  Perhaps, I told myself, I knew much of this history, intellectually, academically.  But I had never seen it so graphically put before me, in such a tight, cinematic package that seemed to leap off the screen almost in synch with the beating of my pulse.

The backdrop of the film was the U.S.-Cuba relationship from the 1959 revolution to the present.  That relationship was portrayed quite accurately, leaving no doubt why Theodore Roosevelt referred to the island as “that infernal little Cuban Republic” even though TR pre-dated the revolution by a generation-plus.  That is chiefly because the one-sided nature of U.S. policy has been the same from 1823 to the present.  TR’s remark demonstrated well before the Cuban revolution, well before the dictator Fulgencio Batista, well before the U.S. mob took over Havana, well before Fidel Castro shouted “¡Bastante!”  from the Sierra Maestra, well before Jesse Helms displayed his latent racism toward Cubans, just how badly the U.S. had treated its island neighbor since the beginning of our republic.  So badly, in fact, that the portrayal of it, however evanescently, by a master filmmaker made one want to weep for his country and its policies.  I doubt there was a single person in the audience that night who felt any differently, except perhaps the several Cubans who were present who, indeed, probably wept for el coloso del norte as well but for different reasons.

And then there was the main point, the point embodied in the film’s title.

Clearly shown and vividly documented was the fact that the United States sponsors terrorism.  In Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch alone, there are overtones of Osama bin Laden and Aman al-Zawahiri, the nefarious leadership of al-Qa’ida.  In the film, Carriles and Bosch as much as tell us this in their own words.  Moreover, they seem to rejoice in it, as they live today undisturbed and unmolested in Miami; indeed, as heroes among the ignorant Batista-like refuse whose mother’s milk sustains them.  Neither man has even the redeeming feature of religious asceticism that some would argue gives bin Laden and Zawahiri a grudging respect; instead these two terrorists seem precisely what the film depicts, criminal thugs.

Whether it is bringing down a Cuban airliner with more than 70 people on board—including the young people on the Cuban fencing team—or murdering a young Italian man in a Havana hotel, these terrorists appear to take joy in what they have done, declaring in so many words and facial expressions that such deaths are the collateral damage of war.

War? Yes, a war waged from the territory of the United States—the state of Florida primarily—and against another sovereign country. A war that continues to this day with the United States doing almost nothing to stop it and, as the film depicts in subtle ways, from time to time even aiding and abetting the terrorists who are waging it.

Once, of course, the dictates and fears of the Cold War afforded a patina of credibility to this war waged from our own shores and against the laws of our own land.  As a U.S. soldier for 31 years, I participated in that twilight struggle most of my professional life, so I understood its demands however imperfectly they were sometimes met.  But the Cold War ended almost 20 years ago.  Not the case, however, with the undeclared war against Cuba.

Perhaps the best cinematic summary of this reality was rendered in the film by none other than the current chairman of the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who declared for all to see and hear that she would welcome the assassination of Fidel Castro.  No matter how cynical one may have become, that is an astonishing scene.   A U.S. Congresswoman asking for the murder of another country’s leader—a most egregious, unbelievable demonstration of this undeclared war with Cuba.

Most vividly and disconcertingly, however, the film goes on to portray this continuing illegal war through the case of the Cuban Five.  These are the five Cuban intelligence agents who, in the 1990s, were dispatched to Florida to help the government in Havana defend itself better in this undeclared war.

We know a little of their story. After infiltrating the Cuban-American terrorists ranks in Florida, they accumulated information about planned terrorist activities against Cuba.  Alarmed at what they learned, they informed their government in Havana.  That government, itself now alarmed, confided in the FBI, hoping that that law enforcement organization would act on the evidence thus accumulated and break up the terrorists ranks in Florida.  Instead, the FBI—no doubt at the prompting of the White House—used the information to identify the five Cuban agents, then arrested them.  Afterward they were tried in a Miami Court—like trying an Israeli spy apprehended in Iran in a Tehran court.  Surprise, surprise, the Cuban Five were not only convicted, twelve years later they are still rotting in U.S. federal prison with the “worst” of them having been awarded two life sentences-plus.

At the very worst, these five Cubans were “foreign agents operating on U.S. soil”, an offense warranting 18 months in jail under U.S. law.  As the film makes quite clear, however, usual U.S. practice—for Russians like Anna Chapman, e.g.—is  deportation.  Instead, these men still languish in jail.  Perhaps had they been sexy, provocative women…?

When the film ended and the short, crisp vignettes came on, interspersed among the film’s credits, the main points were hammered home adroitly by some of the film’s principal characters.

As these characters summed up from the screen, I don’t believe there was any doubt in anyone’s mind in that audience—Cuban or American—who the “real terrorist” in the U.S.-Cuba relationship actually is.

The question that had to be buzzing around in everyone’s mind, however, as they walked out of the theater—again, Cuban and American—was what to do about it?

Just like the failure to close the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, the extension of the draconian provisions of “the national security cover-up” methodology in courtroom after courtroom across America, the civil liberties-usurping parts of the Patriot Act,  the military tribunals for the likes of Khaled sheik-Mohammad, and on and on in the litany of dangerous and illegal acts by the U.S. Government in the name of perfect security and corrupt, special interest politics, the affair of the Cuban Five, and all it represents about the U.S.-Cuba relationship,  stains the very fabric of our democratic republic.

Recently, a long-serving veteran of the CIA wrote a heavily-redacted yet still  extremely eloquent and convincing memoir of his days in that agency, days that included the most intense period of our so-called Global War on Terror during the George W. Bush administrations.  Here is one of his final conclusions in that memoir:

“I saw that a few of our leaders, in their insularity and sanctimonious certainty, corrupted the laws and started to corrode our social compact.  We can take actions, however, to diminish such men, and that reaffirm our society’s commitment to our principles, our institutions, and the rule of law.”

That is the answer to our question and Saul Landau has taken a powerful action.

Poster in Havana for the release of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles

(The Havana Note)