Who Killed Che?

How the CIA Got Away With Murder
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“Ratner and Smith cut through the lies and distortions to provide a riveting and thoroughly documented history of the murder of Che Guevara. In an era when ‘targeted assassinations’ and ‘capture and kill operations’ have become routine, and are routinely glorified by the mainstream U.S. press, their examination of the U.S. role in Che Guevara’s death could not be more timely.” —  

Amy Goodman,DemocracyNow!

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In compelling detail two leading U.S. civil rights attorneys recount the extraordinary life and deliberate killing of the world’s most storied revolutionary: Ernesto Ché Guevara. Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith survey the extraordinary trajectory of Ché’s career, from an early politicization recounted in the Motorcycle Diaries, through meetings with his compañero Fidel Castro in Mexico, his vital role in the Cuban revolution, and his expeditions abroad to Africa and Latin America. But their focus is on Ché’s final days in Bolivia where, after months of struggle to spread the revolution begun in Havana, Ché is wounded, captured and, soon after, executed. Bound and helpless, Ché’s last words to his killer, a soldier in the Bolivian Army, are “Remember, you are killing a man.”
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Referencing internal U.S. government documentation, much of it never before published, Ratner and Smith bring their forensic skills as attorneys to analyze the evidence and present an irrefutable case that the CIA not only knew of and approved the execution, but was instrumental in making it happen. Cables from the agency disavowing any U.S. role in the murder were merely attempts to provide plausible deniability for the Johnson administration. 
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The spirit of Ché Guevara, as an icon and an inspiration, is as vibrant today as it ever was. News photographs of democracy protestors in the Middle East carrying his image have circulated the world in recent months. For anyone drawn to his remarkable life and its violent, unlawful end, Who Killed Ché ? will engage, anger and educate. 
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By this book

• Paperback

• eBook 

Cuba to Unveil Monument in Honour of State Terrorism Victims

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As part of the activities of the Seventh Colloquium to Free the Cuban Five a monument will be unveiled in honour of state terrorism victims, on Friday, in the town of Boca de Sama, in the eastern province of Holguin, which was attacked by mercenaries 40 years ago.

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The monument, by Luis Silva, member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in the province, is made up of three ‘gunshot’ marble rocks.  
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The artists noted that with these pieces he condemns atrocities and barbarities brought about to the Cuban people by state terrorism, which has also caused countless victims.

Victims of Cubana Flight 455 blown out
of the sky by CIA linked terrorists 

.As a result of the tragic events of 1971, when two pirate gunboats coming from Florida attacked the coastal village of Boca de Sama , in Banes municipality in the Eastern part of the island. Lidio Rivaflechas Galano and Ramon Arturo Siam Portelles died and Nancy and Angela Pavon, two sisters of 15 and 13 years of age, were wounded . The first one lost a foot. Also wounded were Carlos Escalante Gomez and Jesus Igarza Osorio.
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The attack, perpetrated by a group of mercenaries and organized by the Miami-based Alpha 66 terrorist group. 
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The unveiling ceremony is one of the main activities arranged for Friday, within the context of the Seventh Colloquium to Free the Cuban Five, underway in the province since Wednesday with the attendance of more than 300 delegates from 47 nations.
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The program also includes a women’s walk for Fernando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, and Rene Gonzalez –internationally known as the Cuban Five –, and the screening of materials produced by different Committees of Solidarity with Cuba worldwide.

Checkout the whole story 

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These five Cuban antiterrorists were unjustly imprisoned in the U.S since 1998 and sentenced to harsh terms for trying to prevent terrorist actions against Cuba by Miami-based right wing groups such as the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), and Alpha 66, among others.
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Fernando, Gerardo, Antonio, and Ramon still remain in U.S. prisons for 13 years now; whereas Rene was imposed with an additional three-year “supervised release” that prevents him from returning to Cuba with his family.

"Close to Perfect:" A Different, Bloodier Nine-Eleven

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The events of September 11th were horrific, tragic, and criminal on a monumental scale. Planes flew low over an American nation's leading city. Buildings erupted in flames. There was an official death toll of more than 3,000. Thousands of innocent people were ruthlessly slaughtered. Their loved ones were placed in horrible suspense, waiting to learn the fate of missing husbands, wives, sisters, cousins, and children. An American country was left in shock, with an uncertain future, as the perpetrators evaded capture and punishment. September 11th was a dark, bloody day of historic proportions. It was a prelude to regression, repression and heightened bloodshed.

Yes, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile's president Salvadore Allende on September 11th, 1973 was a terrible watershed. The low-flying planes belonged to the Chilean Air Force. They came on the orders of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet to bomb La Moneda Presidential Palace, where Allende, a self-declared Marxist, killed himself before he could be assassinated. Hundreds of real and suspected Allende supporters were gunned down in Santiago's soccer stadium, fashioned into a torture center and concentration camp. Across the nation, in the streets and military detention centers, Pinochet's forces murdered 20,000 and tortured 60,000 in the first few months after 9/11/1973. One million Chileans were forced into exile. According to leading international relations analyst William I. Robinson, it was "the bloodiest coup in Latin-American history" (Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony [Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996], p. 46).

According to a report from Patrick Ryan, the US Naval Attaché  stationed with the United States Military Group in Chile that black September, the coup was "close to perfect." It was, Ryan told his superiors, a great victory for "free men aspiring to goals which are to the benefit of Chile and not self-serving world Marxism."

Read the rest here

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The Other September 11
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Jorge Sandoval recalls the events of September 11, 1973 which saw him arrested, tortured and locked up in a Chilean concentration camp. And Victoria University Professor of Geography Warwick Murray talks about the legacy of General Augusto Pinochet, and the student protests, dubbed the Chilean Winter, which are currently sweeping the country.

RNZ National Sunday (duration: 51′26″)

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> Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973

The Bay of Pigs - 50 years on

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Fifty years ago, Cuba defeated a US-backed invading force at the Bay of Pigs. It marked the ‘first defeat of imperialism in America’, and for the Cuban people, the beginning of half a century of heroic defence of their revolution

“the mercenaries came well organized, well armed and well supported. What they lacked was a just cause to defend. That is why they did not fight with the same passion, courage, conviction, valour, firmness, bravery and spirit of victory as did the revolutionary forces”.    

Cuban General José Ramón Fernández (1999)

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On 15 April 1961 – simultaneous air strikes were launched against three airfields in Cuba with the aim of incapacitating the island and eliminating the possibility of an effective Cuban defence against impending invasion. The early assault killed 7 Cubans and destroyed two planes. The invasion was defeated within 72 hours and 1,180 members of the invading mercenary Brigade 2506 were captured.  In total, over 150 Cubans lost their lives fighting an invading force trained, coordinated and funded by the United States.  The Bay of Pigs – or Playa Girón as Cubans call it – marked a watershed in US-Cuban relations and billboards at Playa Girón remind visitors of ‘The First Defeat of Imperialism in America’. 

Playa Girón can be viewed neither in isolation nor as the original counter-revolutionary act against the Cuban revolution. It is part of an ongoing narrative of American aggression and represents the culmination of a powerful campaign of sabotage and terrorism launched by the CIA in 1959. Bombs were laid, letter boxes blown up, water mains destroyed and sugar and tobacco plantations were set alight.

Cuba militia mobilised during the invasion

Playa Girón was a project inherited by President Kennedy from his predecessor Dwight Eisenhower. Kennedy was hamstrung because his electoral campaign against Nixon was dominated by fierce interventionist rhetoric. In 1960 he evoked memory of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring he would “not let the Soviet Union turn Cuba into its base in the Caribbean”. However, now in office, Kennedy feared that overt US involvement could provoke full-scale war with the USSR.

The CIA’s failure to provoke widespread rebellion through terrorism and sabotage prompted a shift in US strategy from fermenting insurrection to coordinating invasion. This was based on a four point plan inspired by the model of indirect US involvement in Guatemala against Jacobo Árbenz. The programme involved the establishment of a political entity outside Cuba aimed at encouraging the formation of counter-revolutionary groups; the formation of a counter-revolutionary front on the island under CIA influence and the training of paramilitary forces to infiltrate the country and improve underground operations. All this would be underpinned by a pervasive propaganda offensive against the Castro government.

Arming the people 

 The psychological impact of a concerted propaganda onslaught was central to Washington’s strategy for success. Radio stations such as Radio Free Cuba and Radio Swan were established by the CIA and funded by adverts for large corporations like Coca-Cola, Colgate, Pan American and Good Year. In October 1960, Radio Swan ran a feature – corroborated by falsified documentation – declaring that the revolutionary government planned to seize all children and send them to Russia. This fabrication was reinforced by the US-sponsored Operation Peter Pan which, in partnership with the Cuban Church, removed 14,000 children from their families within Cuba. This severely discredited the Church within Cuba and typifies the extant misinformation which contaminates the Western view of Cuba and is exacerbated by the ancestors of Radio Swan – such as Radio and Televisión Martí – which continue to regurgitate lies about Cuba. 

Victory in Cuba required the US-backed mercenaries to hold Playa Girón long enough to declare a provisional government, gain international recognition and appeal for direct military invention from the United States. The primary assault was to be supplemented by small troop incursions in various places throughout Cuba and, if necessary, would be buttressed by the US air force. The dissident government – headed by former Cuban Prime Minister José Miró Cadona – was known as the Revolutionary Council or, as Castro preferred, the Council of Worms, and the tactics employed bear striking resemblance to those used during the failed coup against Hugo Chávez.  As with the coup against Chávez, however, history has resoundingly shown that the imperialist offensive was an unmitigated disaster.

José Ramón Fernández

Popular Western accounts attribute American failure to US mistakes and deficiencies including the failure of diversionary paratroopers to land elsewhere; Kennedy’s decision to reduce exile-piloted air cover and delay the use of US planes; personal clashes between the President, senior advisors and the CIA; and an ignorance of local geography.  All of these appraisals ignore a number of key factors including the actions of Cuban military leaders, the achievements of the revolution and an ability to mobilise popular support. As Cuban General José Ramón Fernández declared in 1999, “the mercenaries came well organized, well armed and well supported. What they lacked was a just cause to defend. That is why they did not fight with the same passion, courage, conviction, valour, firmness, bravery and spirit of victory as did the revolutionary forces”. In this sense, victory can only be understood as a product of the revolution.

Bay of Pigs Museum Playa Girón

Fidel Castro’s military leadership, forged during the guerrilla struggle in the Sierra Maestra, was crucial in ensuring Cuban victory. Castro knew Playa Girón intimately and had been planning against a foreign invasion since the revolution’s triumph. Landing points throughout the island were heavily fortified whilst Castro – wishing to avoid the same fate as Nasser in Egypt – had dispersed and camouflaged his few planes. Any out-of-service aeroplanes were grouped together and displayed as bait to hoodwink attackers. Castro’s hidden air force struck the invading landing squad on the morning of the attack as T33 jets chased away supply ships. The 5th Battalion refused to disembark under Cuban fire as the small but pugnacious air force dealt a fatal blow to the morale of mercenary paratroopers.   

The main reason for Cuban victory, however, can only be explained through the achievements of the revolution. By 1961, great strides had already been made in favour of the people: agrarian reform and land redistribution to 100,000 tenant farmers and sharecroppers; nationalisation of large industrial and commercial corporations and banks; literacy campaigns; reduction in rates for electricity and telephones; urban reform and house construction; the rent-control act; and public beaches – previously off limits to black people – were opened to all.

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Visit our Bay of Pigs 50th Anniversary Page




Special thanks to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and the author of this article, CSC Campaigns Officer, Dan Smith. The full article can be read here.

Photographs courteous of Raul Corrales, Giron: The Glorious Days of the Bay of Pigs Battle (Aediciones Aurelia, 2007)Via CSC UK

Cuba Urges USA to Rectify Acquittal of Terrorist.

Self-confessed terrorist Posada Carriles

.Cuba has called upon the U.S. government to rectify the acquittal of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles on charges of immigration fraud in an El Paso, Texas court, after a trial described as a farce.

  Washington is familiar with Posada Carriles’s participation in the mid-flight explosion of a Cuban airliner in 1976 off the coasts of Barbados, in bomb attacks on Havana tourist facilities in the 1990s, and in plans to assassinate the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, according to a statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

The trial of the former CIA agent on immigration charges instead of terrorism is an insult to the Cuban people and the bereaved families of the victims of this self-confessed terrorist.

The note termed shameful what occurred in El Paso, as it contradicts the anti-terrorist policy the U.S. government claims to have, using it as a pretext for military intervention in other nations that has cost thousands of lives.

73 passengers were murdered when Cubana Flight 455was blown out of the sky

And it asks if the U.S. government will be capable of putting Posada on trial again, but this time for terrorism, or extraditing him to Venezuela, a country that has made that request for the last five years.

The United States is legally obliged to extradite the terrorist because it is a signatory to international conventions, and by virtue of UN Security Council resolution 1373/2001, the statement says.

What is most ironic is that while Posada Carriles is exonerated, five Cuban antiterrorists are currently serving unjust sentences in U.S. prisons for gathering information about actions by Cuban-born terrorists who, such as Posada Carriles, freely walk the streets of Miami with impunity, the statement said.
(Prensa Latina)

Posada Carrilles Acquitted of All Charges

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A US court which reserves the right to publish a list labelling nations as "sponsors of terrorism" declared international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles innocent on 11 charges of perjury, fraud and obstruction of justice during a trial before a jury in El Paso, Texas yesterday – a ruling which is unappeasable .

The jury, made up of seven women and five men, arrived at a verdict following a mere three hours of deliberations. The jury had been previously coached by Judge Kathleen Cardone – appointed by George W. Bush – who once again presides over proceedings which culminate with the acquittal of Posada Carriles.

"Every time a jury reviews a case, we cannot predict what it will decide, but we respect the jury's decision," Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Reardon affirmed. Reardon, attached to the Department of Justice's Counter-terrorism Section, was curiously deployed from Washington, while the government still refuses to acknowledge that Posada Carriles is a terrorist and to try him on such grounds, as per the international conventions the country has ratified.

Posada is still wanted by Venezuelan authorities on 73 charges of homicide since he re-appeared in Miami in 2005.

Upon acquitting Posada, the jury refused to acknowledge his illegal entry into the United States via the Miami River, aboard the Santrina shrimp boat – despite all of the evidence presented – and opted to believe the "coyote" tale spun by the accused.

It also implicitly refuses to recognize Posada's involvement in the bombings perpetrated in Cuba in 1997, which resulted in the death of young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

A Batista police force collaborator, Posada was recruited by the CIA upon his arrival in the United States and incorporated into Operation 40, aimed at murdering supporters of the revolution during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

The CIA also recruited and trained him to conduct repressive campaigns in Venezuela, where he led the deadly DISIP "cleaning" squad operations, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where he was entrusted similar tasks.

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He was detained in Venezuela and charged with masterminding the bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner in 1976, which resulted in the deaths of 73 people. Posada escaped from prison with CIA help and was tasked with heading a drug and weapons trafficking operation, controlled from the Ilopango base in El Salvador.

In November of 2000, Posada was arrested in Panama following an attempt to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Latin American Summit. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for terrorism. He was released in 2004 on a pardon granted by President Mireya Moscoso, then under pressure from the Cuban American terrorist organization and its protectors in Washington and Miami.

El Paso Diary: The Posada Trial from the start or  the last day

Source
By Jean-Guy Allard

CIA attack on La Coubre

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Publication of the secret file on the  

CIA attack on La Coubre
 restricted 150 years

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The complete file of the investigation of the French CGT shipping company into the sabotage of the La Coubre vessel, responsibility for which is attributed to the CIA, is being held in the strongbox of a French maritime foundation, with a 150-year restriction on its release set by the legal counsel of the vessel’s last owners.

The file, whose existence was unknown until recently, lay for close to 50 years in the enormous collection of records belonging to the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT), also known as French Line, the owner of La Coubre when the tragedy struck in Havana on March 4, 1960.

Alberto Korda’s iconic photo of Ché Guevara
was taken at the La Coubre memorial service.

The content of this file would seem to be of greatest interest, given its information on details of the act of terrorism in Havana that have never been made public. It came from the Legal Office of the defunct CGT and is marked "Classified," with the surprising prohibition "PUBLICATION RESTRICTED 150 YEARS."

The existence of such a dossier of information about La Coubre crime certainly constitutes one more mysterious element in the web of enigmas surrounding the most significant act of terrorism of the century in the Americas.

You can find the whole story here

CUBA’S REASONS: There will always be an Emilio

."GREETINGS to the audience of Radio República. Carlos Serpa Maceira, director of the Union of Free Journalists of Cuba, talking to you from Havana…"

.Until shortly before this interview he was considered the spokesperson for the damas de blanco (Ladies in White) and one of the so-called independent journalists. His revelations expose the prevalence of the subversive U.S. policy toward Cuba

"Right now, I can invent some news and
 with no confirmation whatsoever,
 without verifying anything, it will
be broadcast."

The surprise was a big one: Carlos Serpa Maceira, the "independent journalist," whose reporting for the anti-Cuba media during 2009 was the most prolific is, simply, State Security agent Emilio.

Agencies linked to the Ministry of the Interior decided to disclose his identity as irrefutable evidence of the work of counterrevolutionary mini-groups, thus exposing its principal mentors and the sick proposition of successive U.S. administrations to defeat the Cuban Revolution. They direct, finance, support and promote a dissident movement without legitimacy on the island.

Read the interview ...

Also see
> Undercover Agent Emilio: "I have always been and will be a revolutionary"

> Emilio, Honorary Journalist
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Man says ex-CIA agent Posada gave him explosives for hotel bombing

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In an exclusive interview Tuesday, a Salvadoran man told The Associated Press that a former CIA operative gave him powerful explosives and cash to carry out a 1997 hotel bombing in Cuba.

Otto Rene Rodriguez said that he was given C-4 explosives and $2,000 by Luis Posada Carriles to enable the bombing at Havana's Melia Cohiba hotel on Aug. 3, 1997. He was later captured in Cuba with 3.3 pounds of C-4 that he said was given to him by Posada.

"Truthfully, looking me in the eyes he cannot say he doesn't know me," Rodriguez told the wire service. "He does know me. He used me like a tool."

Posada, 82, is on trial for lying to US immigration agents about his arrival in the United States in 2005, charges that carry a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison.

"An American prosecutor came here and talked to me, and I promised that if I needed to testify against (the man I knew as) Ignacio Medina, I would," Rodriguez said.

Cuba made Rodriguez available for an interview with The Associate Press to show it was willing to cooperate with the trial.

Interviews with Rodriguez and another confessed hotel bomber, Ernesto Cruz Leon, were conducted Tuesday in the presence of Cuban officials. The Associated Press had no way to verify either of their stories.

With a history of anti-Fidel Castro militancy that dates back to the 1961 CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion, Posada worked through the Cold War for intelligence services in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Argentina.

US documents show he also worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976.

More . . .

Also See

> Posada trial, Day 18

Trial of Posada Carriles

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Brian Becker, coordinator of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, speaks at the Posada Tribunal held in El Paso, TX on Jan. 9, 2011, the night before the beginning of the sham trial of Luis Posada Carriles.

Also so see

> Prosecutor: Ex-CIA agent lied about militant past

> US Attorney’s Office Has Evidence of Terrorism against Cuba

> Lawyer of Posada Carriles Vetoed Candidates to the Jury

Posada faces (minor) charges

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Victims of Cabaña flight 455

Today (Monday  Jan. 10th )  in El Paso, Texas, a U.S. government farce will take place with the opening of the trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in federal district court. Instead of facing charges of premeditated murder—for the bombing deaths of 73 people who died in a Cuban airliner on Oct. 6, 1976, and other crimes—Posada will only be tried for perjury and immigration
fraud.

It is widely known that Posada is responsible for the bombing of Cabaña Airlines flight 455 in 1976, which killed 73 passengers and crew members. In 1997, Posada directed a series of bombings in Havana hotels by hiring Central American mercenaries to plant the bombs. The perjury and immigration fraud charges are related to Posada’s illegal and secret entry into the United States in late March 2005, and false statements that he made to U.S. immigration officials.

In a 2006 interview with U.S. immigration, he was asked whether he had a role in procuring the help of mercenaries who planted bombs in Havana hotels in the summer of 1997. In one of those bombings, an Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, was killed when shrapnel struck him in the lobby of the Copacabana Hotel in Havana on Sept. 4, 1997.

A proud, confessed killer

In a July 13, 1998 New York Times interview with journalist Ann Louise Bardach, Posada boasted of his directing role in those bombings. He also gave the names of his financiers in the Cuban American National Foundation. Posada notoriously told Bardach about Di Celmo’s murder, “I sleep like a baby … That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Self-confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles

Despite Posada’s admission to Bardach over the murder of Di Celmo, U.S. prosecutors are only using that evidence to prove that he made false statements to them. A twice-convened Newark, N.J., grand jury’s evidence of funds that were wired to Posada — for the hotel bombs he produced — will also be presented in El Paso. But again, only for the perjury charge.

By trying Posada for perjury and fraud, Washington is hoping that it will escape worldwide condemnation for its refusal to have Posada face real justice and prosecution for his terrorist murders. The U.S. government is fully aware of his murderous crimes because he carried them out in various Latin American countries on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The only reason Posada is even in court on Jan. 10th is due to national and international outrage over the impunity and freedom he continues to enjoy in Miami, where he walks the streets a free man.

This is why, as Posada is in the docket for charges that will only yield a minor sentence if he is convicted, activists will be outside the courtroom in El Paso to expose his real crimes of terror to the world.

As José Pertierra, Venezuela’s attorney in the extradition matter, has explained, Washington’s prosecution of Posada raises many doubts about the government’s real intent.

Pertierra says: “The real purpose of the pending trial in El Paso is to hamper the extradition request to Caracas, keep Posada on the street, and save the U.S. government a full trial that would place it next to the terrorist, on the defendant’s bench. That is why the strategy is to delay the process.”

People's Tribunal deals with the real issues 

Luis Posada is a former CIA Asset
click

While Posada faces minor charges in federal court, he was tried by a “People’s Tribunal”  yesterday (Jan. 9th )  in El Paso.

The “People’s Tribunal,” hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso, 4425 Byron St., El Paso,” will hear the charges of terrorism against Posada and his accomplices. The U.S. government’s support for the Miami terrorists will also be on trial.

Participants in the People's Tribunal included:

• Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General  
• Jose Pertierra, Venezuela's attorney for the extradition order of Posada  
• Keith Bolender, author of "Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba,"  (hear an interview with Keith Bolender here)
• Gloria La Riva, coordinator, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five 
• Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition  
• Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund

We’ll bring you the Tribunal’s results 

as soon as they are available.

Also See
Excerpts from trial of Salvadoran terrorist shown 'soon' in Cuban TV special

Posada Carriles’ Trial to Include Evidences of Terrorism against Cuba

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The evidence collected by Cuban authorities and the FBI on Luis Posada Carriles’s role in the bomb attacks carried out in Havana will be included in the next trial of this terrorist, reports ACN.

According to Cubadebate, it will be the first time that a recorded interview with Posada and a journalist from The New York Times, in which he admits that he planned the attacks of 1997 to hotels in Havana, will be presented before a jury.

Cubadebate adds that at the trial, which is scheduled for January 10, 2011, in El Paso, Texas, the intention is not to demonstrate he is a terrorist but a liar, who committed fraud to the US migratory authorities when he entered the country.

According to some information published in the New Herald, this terrorist arrived in the United States five years ago, and during this time he has been tried for minor crimes so as to delay his extradition to Venezuela.

Fighting terrorism and war

click to view

Since 2005 Venezuela demanded his extradition for the blowing-up of a civil Cuban airplane in which 73 people died.

On the Texas trial, Posada is accused of lying in a routine interview with the US migratory authorities who questioned him about his role on the attacks in Havana that killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

Judge Kathleen Cardone affirmed that she decided to allow the presentation of the five-hour recordings by journalist Ann Louise Bardach because she was trustworthy taking into account she testified on a closed-door hearing on November 15, on her interview with the accused and on the management of the tapes with The New York Times.

As said by The New Herald, attorneys from the Justice Department are planning to present in the trial more than 3 500 pages of official documents from Cuba and Guatemala related to the attacks.

The prosecution said that these documents detail the attacks in Havana, those who planned them and the explosive devices used. The documents focus on the arrests, the suspects, the witnesses and the fake Guatemalan passport which was allegedly used by Posada.

The attorneys from the Justice Department will also use evidence from the FBI, which were revised by a federal instruction jury in New Jersey.

FBI agents collected documents showing money transferences of nearly 19 000 US dollars from New Jersey to Posada in El Salvador and Guatemala between October 1996 and January 1998. The FBI assumes that the money was used to finance the attacks.

However, the judged blocked hundreds of documents on the links between Posada and the CIA for more than 25 years, as requested by the prosecution. 

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Summary of major acts of terrorism against Cuba

1959 - 1997 - 1990 - 2000

Source

Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group

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Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he was involved in blowing up.

She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University – who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer.  She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana – whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras. Where he joined the leader of the failed coup in Ecuador to savage Correa, the target of the coup.  Montnaner also just happened to vociferously support the violent coup in Honduras, and chose to show up to sing the praises of the Honduran junta.

Read the whole story ...  

From Democracy Now!

Attorney: WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Endangered by Bail Denial in London; Still No Charges Filed in Sweden.

 Wikileaks: Stop the crackdown

The chilling intimidation campaign against WikiLeaks (when they have broken no laws) is an attack on freedom of the press and democracy. We urgently need a massive public outcry to stop the crackdown

EU awards Cuban 'dissident' 50,000 euros

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European Parliament encourages hunger strikes

by Helen Yaffe for RATB

The European Parliament has awarded the Sakharov Prize to Cuban ‘dissident’ Guillermo Fariñas in recognition of his contribution to 'human rights' in Cuba. Fariñas’ twentieth hunger strike, to demand the release of Cuban political prisoners, ended in July 2010 after 135 days, during which he was kept alive in intensive care by Cuban medics. The President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek said: ‘Fariñas is an independent journalist and a political dissident who has shown that he is ready to sacrifice himself and risk his health and his life as a way of applying pressure to achieve change in Cuba.’ However, Buzek did not mention Fariñas record of non-political violent crime or his employment under US programmes to destabilise the Cuban Revolution.

In 1995 Fariñas assaulted, battered and threatened to kill a female doctor, the director of a hospital. Sentenced to three years and a 600 peso fine, he initiated his first hunger strike, and joined the counter-revolution for the first time. In 2002, an old woman he attacked with a walking stick needed emergency surgery. Sentenced to five to ten years, Farinas began a second hunger strike. His third hunger strike was to demand a television in the hospital wing where he was recovering from dehydration caused by the second. In December 2003, Cuban authorities released him because of his medical condition, but in 2006 Farinas initiated another hunger strike to demand internet access from his home. This was to assist his work as a 'reporter' for the CIA radio station, Radio Martí. Fariñas works closely with the US Interests Section (a substitute for an embassy) and other European diplomats who direct subversion in Cuba, receiving instructions, money and supplies. He lacks popular support and the Cuban people, who Fariñas claims to represent, consider him to be a mercenary for US imperialism.

More ...

Helen Yaffe is the author of Ché Guevara The Economics of Revolution essential reading for those interested in understanding Ché’s full contribution to the Cuban Revolution. 

Luis Posada Carriles’ right hand man, spills the beans

Chávez Abarca tells all! 

Terrorist plans continue from the U.S.

Cuban television broadcast a special program called “Cuba’s Reasons: The Route of Terror” featuring Salvadoran terrorist Francisco Chávez Abarca confessing that he paid $2,000 for each blast during a bombing spree against Cuba’s tourist hotels in the late 1990s.

Chávez Abarca was arrested in Venezuela on July 1, travelling on a false passport, and he was later extradited to Cuba to face charges in the bombing campaign.

During the program, he said he was hired to plant bombs by international and self-confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who currently lives in the United States, where he is awaiting trial on charges he lied to federal and immigration authorities.

He also said Posada Carriles told him the hotel attacks were backed by the CIA.

The program mixed Chávez Abarca’s confession with old footage of other terrorists already arrested in the bombing campaign detailing their roles, as well as interviews with Cuban security agents and military personnel.

Chávez Abarca commented that when one of these terrorists, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, confessed to his crimes in Havana after being captured, he was ordered to kill his family.

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Terrorist Francisco Chávez Abarca Linked to Venezuelan Counterrevolution

Fidel – the La Jornada interview

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Journalist Carmen Lira spent several hours conducting a wide ranging interview with Fidel for the Mexican paper La Jornada. In one of the first exchanges with a foreign journalist since his return to public life  Fidel addressed, among other issues,  his resent illness, the US Blockades  impact on medicines and food, the CIA’s clandestine war against Cuba and  treatment of homosexuals in the past.

Part One.................... Part Two

(Google Translation - we'll get a better translation up as soon as we can)

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"If someone is responsible, it's me," Fidel referring to the injustices inflicted on the gay community in the past.