From our comrades-in-the-struggle blog,  Lefti on the News

Talk about results! Hundreds of thousands of Cubans march, and hours later Luis Posada Carriles is taken into custody (no, I don’t really think there was cause and effect, but the efforts on the part of the Cubans, and others (Left I on the News!) to bring constant exposure to this case certainly helped force Posada out of hiding.

Naturally, the U.S. is still playing games, refusing to say what they plan to do with Posada, and saying that “generally, the U.S. government does not return people to Cuba or to countries acting on Cuba’s behalf,” as if Venezuela were not a sovereign nation.

Or as if it weren’t quite obvious that Posada engineered the bombing of a Cuban airliner, killing 73 innocents. Remember that next time Dubya foams at the mouth about gittin’ the terrorists.

Just in from the national ANSWER website

News flash:
Luis Posada Carriles has been arrested

Urgent Action Needed:
Demand Posada’s Extradition to Venezuela

About 3:30 pm ET today, Luis Posada Carriles was detained by customs and immigration police, according to a live report from Andres Gomez of the Antonio Maceo Brigade in Miami. Posada was reportedly flown by the Department of Homeland Security to Homestead Air Force Base, although that base is not in operation.

It is not clear what the U.S. government plans to do with him. It is urgent that the demand of extradition to Venezuela be honored by the U.S. government. It is from Venezuela that Posada and Oslando Bosch planned the 1976 bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455.

Posada and his representatives announced today that he was now going to leave the U.S. because of the pressure on the Bush Administration. Just prior to his arrest today, 1.5 million Cubans took to the streets, marching past the U.S. Interest Section in Havana. According to the Associated Press, “‘This is not a march against the people of the United States,’ said the 78-year-old Castro, differentiating between Americans and their government. ‘It is a march against terrorism, in favor of life and of peace.’”

The question now for U.S. authorities is whether they will take Posada Carriles to some safe haven either inside or outside the U.S. or whether they will extradite him to Venezuela from which he is a fugitive. Venezuela is the site of the planning of the horrible bombing of the Cubana flight. People of the United States must keep up the pressure to demand extradited to Venezuela for trial.  More

Send a letter to Bush and Congress demanding Posada be extradited to Venezuela. Let’s keep the pressure on.

No Comments »

Democracy is not something that you believe in, or something that you hang your hat on. It’s something that you do, you participate. Without participation, democracy crumbles and fails. If you participate, you win, and the future is yours.

– Abbie Hoffman

No Comments »

Posada Carriles, an ultra-right Cuban exile who has been on the CIA payroll, is wanted in Venezuela for bombing a Cuban airliner and killing 73 people. The Bushies want to grant him asylum, making a hypocritical mockery of their “war on terror.”

The ANSWER Coalition held a major press conference in D.C. last Friday. These highlights are from their listserv. (The full post should be online shortly.)

Brian Becker spoke of the national campaign launched by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition to put pressure on the Bush administration. “The U.S. government, according to international law, has an affirmative obligation to take Posada, to arrest and extradite him to Venezuela where he has been charged with a grievous crime. The Bush administration might want to sweep this case away and find some third way, but justice requires only one way. Justice requires that Luis Posada Carriles be extradited to Venezuela, to stand trial for the bombing of Cubana Flight 455.”

Not that Bush has ever cared much about international law. However this story is now getting so much media that he may be forced to. And ANSWER has been instrumental in mobilizing on this.

Gloria La Riva presented video documentation of family members of Posada’s victims from the Cubana Airlines Flight 455 plane bombing.

Wayne Smith explained the Bush family’s links with the right-wing Cuban exile groups. “Jeb Bush was working on the re-election campaign of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and was part of the campaign to allow Orlando Bosch to remain in the United States. George H.W. Bush, then president, approves the pardon and allows Bosch to remain.

“Posada has never expressed any regret of the bombing of the airliner. He continues to say there were no innocent people, he has never renounced terrorism.”

“What is the position of the U.S. government? History repeats itself, but after different circumstances. We are supposedly in an all-out war to combat terrorism. How can we harbor Posada Carriles and maintain any credibility? Bush on September 19, 2001, said anyone who harbors terrorists encourages terrorism. He said on September 23 if you harbor a terrorist you are just as guilty as a terrorist. What is the U.S. government going to do?” 
 
Verheyden-Hilliard from the National Lawyers Guild, continued, “As anyone can recognize, there is no way that Posada can be eligible for asylum by any standards. He would be barred from being granted asylum because the first primary bar rendering a person inadmissible is if a person has engaged in terrorist activities. Without question, Posada meets this standard.”

“Bush’s posture in this situation takes us back to the question, what is a terrorist? … Posada has bragged about his conduct in murder. He has been linked to the most awful and sick crimes, and yet for the Bush administration, this is not troubling. If Bush is so plainly harboring Posada, he is equally culpable and plainly responsible for the crimes of Posada and his colleagues.”

The US government wants to grant this thug asylum, however opposition to granting Posada asylum has now gone mainstream, and indeed, the story is front page on Google News as I write this. This is precisely what the neocons don’t want - exposure to their slimy hypocritical backing of an admitted terrorist. 

Send a letter to Bush and your Congressmembers demanding Posada not be granted asylum.

Venezuela asks U.S. to extradite Posada over bombing

Cubans march, demand arrest of exile 

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans answered Fidel Castro’s call to file past the American mission early Tuesday in a “March against Terrorism,” demanding that the United States arrest a Cuban exile sought in a deadly airliner bombing three decades ago.

Rally in New York to demand arrest and extradition of Posada Carriles

Posada emerges from hiding in Miami

No Comments »

Hey! Instead of funding more police, how about we put the money into mass transit and more efficient freeways, because road rage would then drop, resulting in less crime because people won’t be going berserk after spending 2 hours on the 405 to go ten miles with no coherent reason for the traffic jam except that the Traffic Gods were in a foul mood and were deliberately tormenting them personally and by God they’re gonna take it out on someone …

No Comments »

Immigration May Split GOP.

“Immigration policy threatens to shatter the Republican governing coalition,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Because its implications for the nation’s economy, security and its social fabric pit Republican constituencies against one another, the issue could imperil the party more than anything Democrats could do on their own.”

No Comments »