Posada Carriles has no motherland
Posada Carriles has no
motherland
By
José Pertierra
(Progreso Weekly reproduces the speech given by José Pertierra at the act
summoned in Miami on September 18 by the organizations that form Alianza
Martiana, for the commemoration of the 7th anniversary of the
incarceration of the Cuban Five in the United States.)
“Men,”
Martí said, “march in two bands: those who love and lay a foundation, and those
who hate and destroy.” Approximately 65 percent of Cubans who live in Miami
believe that Posada Carriles is a patriot and support or justify his terrorist
campaign against the Cuban people. The poll was conducted earlier this year in
May among Cuban immigrants of all ages by pollster Sergion Bendixen. I don’t
know if the Bendixen survey really reflects the Cuban American philosophy on the
morality of terrorism, but the thesis that there are good terrorists that
deserve our support is part of “the horrors of the moral world” that poet José
María Heredia pitched against “the beauties of the physical world.”
Posada
Carriles was born in Cienfuegos on February 15, 1928. He is a confessed murderer.
He has cynically asked Judge William Abbott in El Paso, Texas not to deport him,
alleging that he would be tortured in Venezuela, and is trying to seek
protection under the International Agreement Against Torture, an agreement
created by persons of good will precisely to protect the innocent from torturers
such as Luis Posada Carriles.
Posada
Carriles was Head of Special Operations at DISIP (Venezuelan political police)
in the 70s and his main mission was overseeing the torture of prisoners. One of
his victims in 1973 was Jesús Marrero. At a recent press conference, Marrero
told that after being arrested in Valencia he was transferred to a DISIP cell at
the Caracas borough of Los Chaguaramos.
“Heading the torture operations was Posada Carriles,” Marrero said. “It was him.
He questioned us. It’s very hard to forget his face. Not only because he was a
big stocky man; with those green eyes that are not common among us. Almost every
night we were tortured with electricity, they put us in a metal tank and hit us
until we were stunned, they tied us to a metal bed with no mattress and put
sticks in our ears until they almost burst.”
Among
the horrors of Posada’s moral world we would have to add now that he disguises
himself as a tortured person in order to escape from his extradition to
Venezuela. Among the horrors of Miami’s moral world we would have to add that
instead of condemning him, most of the so-called Cuban exiles would rather give
him refuge and some would honor him with a parade down Calle 8.
Among
the horrors of Posada’s moral world is the use of explosives in Cuban embassies
in Argentina, Peru, Mexico and Portugal, plus the bombing at the Costa Rica-Cuba
Cultural Center; the bomb that he placed with the luggage of a Cuban commercial
plane in Jamaica; and the explosives that he planted at the Cubana Airlines
office in Barbados.
But
Bendixen claims that Cuban exiles in Miami do not believe it is “fair” to punish
Posada Carriles, because at the time he was following the CIA’s strategy to
fight Communism. Posada simply obeyed orders from his superiors at the CIA. To
accept the horrors of Miami’s moral world would mean that the defense used by
the Nazis at Nuremberg to justify their crimes against humanity is valid now in
order to harbor this terrorist.
Among
the horrors of Posada Carriles’ moral world is the bombing of a commercial plane
over Barbados on October 6, 1976. Posada nurtured and plotted in rooms of the
Anauco Hotel and Caracas Hilton the attack on the plane that killed 73 people,
among them a pregnant woman. When the C-4 explosive planted in the rear rest
room of the plane exploded, the aircraft went down rapidly towards the populated
beach of the island. The pilot veered sharply to one side avoiding people
watching in horror the last minutes of Cubana Airlines Flight 455. The
passengers were locked in the worst circle of hell, unable to defend themselves
and unable to see the faces of their murderers.
The
forensic team that investigated the site reported that human remains were found
in pieces floating in the water. Most of the families were never able to
recognize their beloved ones. A few hours later, Herman Ricardo, the man who
planted the bomb on the plane, left a telephone message for Posada in which he
said that the “critter” had exploded and “the dogs” were dead.
To the
horrors of Miami’s moral world we would have to add that for almost 30 years
there has been no condemnation for the murder of these 73 persons organized and
perpetrated by Posada Carriles and his accomplices. Among the dead were 57
Cubans, 11 Guyanese and 5 North Koreans. They were murdered in cold blood by
that person considered a “patriot” by some in Miami.
Venezuela arrested Posada Carriles days after the bombing and charged him with
first degree murder of 73 persons. After a long judicial process, interrupted
twice because of his escape attempts, Posada finally escaped from jail in 1985.
In a few weeks he established his multinational crime corporation in Central
America, where he acted as a consultant to the most sinister countries and
groups in Latin America.
To the
horrors of Posada’s moral world we would also have to add the conspiracy to send
murderers and explosives to Havana in 1997. A wave of terror that cost the life
of an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo, and left 12 Cubans wounded. A year later
he proudly confessed to The New York Times that he had masterminded the
murderous venture.
To the
horrors of Miami’s moral world we would have to add that the 1997 terrorist
campaign against the Cuban tourist sector was planned, financed and organized
here (in Miami). And to the horrors of Washington’s moral world we would have to
add that instead of investigating, arresting and putting on trial the Miami
terrorists responsible of the bombings in Havana, the U.S. government sentenced
Five brave Cubans that were able to penetrate the network of extremist
organizations in order to avoid more civilian victims and do what Washington
usually avoids when the issue is Cuba: fight Miami terrorism against an innocent
population.
Washington turned a blind eye in the face of a trial characterized by
exaggeration, bias, and cruelty, because it happened in this very city and not
in any other city of the United States. As the Appeals Court in Atlanta said a
few weeks ago, the prosecution was able to get a conviction in Miami for the
Cuban Five in a prejudiced process contaminated by hate. Miami is a world upside
down. Heroes are in prison and terrorists are glorified.
To the
horrors of Posada’s moral world we would have to add the assassination attempt
against Fidel Castro in 2000 with more than 30 pounds of C-4 planned for when
the Cuban leader was to give a conference to 2,000 students at the University of
Panama. Posada was sentenced to 8 years in jail by a Panamanian court and
shamefully pardoned by President Mireya Moscoso in one of her last acts in
office.
To the
horrors of Miami’s moral world we would have to add the welcoming as heroes of
Posada’s accomplices when they returned to this city last year.
The
war by Posada Carriles and by Miami extremist groups is a dirty war against
their brothers on the island. It is a terrorist war against defenseless
civilians. A war without principles. An immoral war. A war lacking the ethical
standards of civilization.
We can
say of Miami’s terrorism for the past five decades what José de la Luz y
Caballero affirmed about slavery in Cuba in the 19th century: “It is
an ethical problem, a collective sin, a social cancer.”
About
the lack of ethics, collective insensitivity and moral vice you can not sustain
an idea of motherland. Posada Carriles has never been nor can he ever be the
“patriot” mentioned in the Bendixen poll, as insinuated by the other 35 percent
of Miami Cubans that did not accept such a qualifying term for that murderer.
The
motherland is not sustained by a territory, but by a people, beings of flesh and
blood that love her and share a particular world of feelings, remembrances,
smells, flavors and respect toward those that have tried to keep and exalt the
affective memory of that human group. And we are all aware that the motherland
is not the place where you are, but where you live. Never was Heredia more Cuban
than we he wrote his poem about Niagara Falls.
The
Motherland is the people that breathe it. A patriot does not murder his brothers
in cold blood. He does not use a cowardly ideological argument for torturing and
bombing. Luis Posada Carriles has no motherland.
José
Pertierra is a Cuban American lawyer living in the U.S.
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