On or Off Cuba Ping. In freedom44's absesnce from the board until May 15, I am pinging the Cuba ping list.
Posted on 05/09/2005 9:07:29 PM PDT by velyrorenry
WASHINGTON - A Cuban exile long regarded as a violent opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro has applied for asylum in the United States, a government official said Monday.
Luis Posada Carriles, a suspect in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, reportedly slipped into South Florida several weeks ago but the Bush administration says it cannot confirm his whereabouts. Posada, a former senior officer of the Venezuelan intelligence service, denies involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people, including 24 members of Cuba's national fencing team.
To be eligible for political asylum, Posada must prove that he has a well-founded fear of persecution in his native country, said a Department of Homeland Security official said.
Castro has called Posada "the most famous and cruel terrorist of the Western Hemisphere," and he has repeatedly demanded Posada's extradition to Venezuela, where authorities want him for the 1976 bombing.
The official, asking not to be identified, said consideration of asylum requests includes national security and law enforcement criteria. A person who seeks asylum need not be in the presence of a U.S. government official when applying.
Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said Monday in Havana that Posada "learned to kill" during a Cold War-era stint with the CIA in the 1960's.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday that no extradition request from Venezuela for Posada had been received.
"In terms of where he presently is, I think it's fair to say we don't know," Casey said. Posada's Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, confirmed at a news conference last month that the Cuban had arrived clandestinely into the United States.
Casey declined to discuss Posada's past, saying only that the United States "has no interest in allowing anyone with a criminal background to enter the United States."
Venezuela's vice president criticized the United States on Monday. "The protection that the U.S. government is giving to a terrorist like Posada Carriles is the denial of all (President) Bush's speeches against terrorism," Jose Vicente Rangel said.
"Terrorism has to be fought globally, or we will fall into the ambiguity that the United States has shown, not just in the Posada case, but in the terrorist aggression of a terrorist government like the (U.S.) government when it invades countries," he added.
"Terrorism has to be fought globally, or we will fall into the ambiguity that the United States has shown, not just in the Posada case, but in the terrorist aggression of a terrorist government like the (U.S.) government when it invades countries," he added.
Let's just kill Castro, set up representative government in Cuba, and let the chips fall where they may.
that's what he should've done, kill Castro, not 73 innocent people (if he did it).
I worked not too long ago in a job that could well have seen me filling out his I-589 (Application for Asylum). I say let the truth come out, and let his application be judged on the merits. There's not enough information here to come to a determination. It would be awfully interesting to be the immigration judge in this case, though... that person will need our prayers, because his words will be pored through with complete and unrelenting examination.
The small fry I don't care about. The Cuban government has to go as a symbol of our commitment to ending tyranny. Damn the politics and get rid of Castro. It's 2005, not 1965, and he has no sponsor who will can him from the US Armed Forces.
There are no bigger terrorist supporters around than Castro and Chavez.
Castro ands Chavez ought to be lined up against a wall and shot.
Their time is coming fast.
Make that Alarcon and Rangel
This is the only thing that I will be willing to do in favor Castro. Haven't we learned that the enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend. Killing innocent people is clearly a barbaric and despicable act. Carriles is no different from the Oklahoma City bomber and Qaddhafi in that respect. In fact he could be more evil than Castro from all we know.
things get complicated when we start living black and white and issuing blanket edicts.
interesting.
the cold war was more complicated than the WOT in my view
Maybe castro trained the guy by mistake. Lord knows he's trained enough hijackers already.
What else occured in 1976? Well :
JUNE 7, 1976 : (DICTATOR FIDEL CASTRO DENIES CUBA HAS ENGAGED IN TERRORISM, BUT ADDS THAT CUBA DOES NOT RENOUNCE TERRORISM) "If the Cuban state were to carry out terrorist acts and respond with terrorism to the terrorists, we believe we would be efficient terrorists. [applause] Let no one think anything else. If we decide to carry out terrorism, it is a sure thing we would be efficient. But the mere fact that the Cuban revolution has never implemented terrorism does not mean that we renounce it. We would like to issue this warning." ----------- Fidel Castro, "1976 Speech Fidel Castro Addresses MININT Anniversary Ceremony" Speech by Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro at main event marking 15th anniversary of the founding of the Ministry of the Interior held at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana on 6 June--Live] Havana Domestic Radio/Television Services in Spanish June 7, 1976. Taken from Castro Speech Database / Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) University of Texas at Austin http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html
Seems to me that if Castro doesn't have much room to talk or complain. He's the father of hijackings after all. If he thinks that hijacking in the name of his revolution is OK, he shouldn't be shocked if the same happens to him. Maybe Fidel should have tried to win the guy over and use him like he used his regime's buddy Carlos the Jackal, etc:
1976-1982* The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that there were 300 Palestinians training in Cuban camps.
* Cuba supported the so-called "Steadfastness Front" against the U.S. backed Camp David accord.
* Illich Rámirez Sánchez, known as "Carlos, the Jackal", responsible for numerous terrorist acts in Europe, trained in Cuba. He attended the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana and later trained in urban guerrilla tactics, automatic weapons, explosives and sabotage in Cuba.
* Abu Iyad, a close aid to Yasser Arafat, stated in 1978 that hundreds of Palestinian had been sent to Cuban terrorist camps.
* Additional military and political support provided to the Palestinian cause; Arafat attended the Sixth Non-Aligned Conference in Havana (1979).
* During Havana visit, Arafat signed agreement for military cooperation and arms supply.
* Significant hard currency loans (tens of million) were facilitated by Arafat-PLO to the Cuban government under very soft terms; Cuba granted diplomatic and political support to Arafat during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
* The Aden (South Yemen) regime supported the Ethiopian radical officers commanded by Mengistu Haile Mariam, sending Yemeni military units in support of the latter against Somali aggression, and asking the Cubans to do the same. Cuba joined in, first with a group of officers headed by General Arnaldo Ochoa, a move that was followed later on by the deployment of large Cuban forces against the Somali invasion. Also as part of the alliance with the Aden regime, Cuba granted some small-scale support to the Dhofaris in their armed struggle against the monarchy in Oman.
* The Cuban trained Congolese National Liberation Front invaded Shala, Zaire.
* As part of Cuba's alliance with Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime in Ethiopia, the Cuban leadership decided to engage in active political and military support of the Liberation Movement of Southern Sudan headed by John Garang against the Arab-Muslim regime in Khartoum.
* Cuba developed closer ties with and sent military advisors to Iraq.
* Cuba's America Department (DA) operated a weapons pipeline to the Farabundo Martí National Front (FMLN) a terrorist group attempting to gain power in El Salvador.
* Cuba cooperated with Libya in the political founding of the World MATHABA in Tripoli, to provide political support and coordinate revolutionary violence throughout the world. Cuba supported Libya's stand on Chad and the FRENTE POLISARIO.
* Cuban trained terrorists members of the Guatemalan EGP kidnapped a businessman in Guatemala. Several were arrested in Mexico when attempting to collect ransom.
* Despite its close links with Baghdad, Cuba recognized and praised the Iranian Revolution. Once Iraq attacked Iran, Castro withdrew his military advisors from Baghdad and adopted a position of official impartiality, though more sympathetic to Baghdad, due to his past relations.--------- "CASTRO AND THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, A CHRONOLOGY," by Eugene Pons with a foreword by Jaime Suchlicki, Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies, Occasional Paper Series, September 2001*
On or Off Cuba Ping. In freedom44's absesnce from the board until May 15, I am pinging the Cuba ping list.
Why is the MSM using the term terrorist for those against the left regime while using the term insurgents for those against the right regime? Why not use the term insurgent?
This suspected terrorist entered the US from Mexico illegally, by the way.
.I would do nothing in favor of Castro, having been to Cuba. He's the most murderous #$%#$ in the world. No one is more evil. Tonight on ABC's Nightline, the slimey little presidente of the Cuban National Assembly was snarl-smiling about the terrible position this put Bush the anti-terrorist in. Disgusting! Even leftie Koppel was turned off.
A friend of mine was at the US Consular office in Havana, in charge of trying to free political prisoners, a job he had held with the State Dept in every Latin American country for 30 years. He's been inside every jail. Nothing matches the Cuban jails for sheer brutality. We concede nothing to them.
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