Vol. 71/No. 19      May 14, 2007

Both demands deserve the support of working people everywhere. What’s more, the well-known record of Posada Carriles, and Washington’s double standard on these two cases, is a powerful argument for the demand to free the Cuban Five.

Posada is currently on bail in his Miami home, awaiting trial in May on charges of immigration fraud. A U.S. immigration judge ordered him deported to any country but Cuba and Venezuela—the two nations that have asked for his extradition.

A collaborator of the Batista tyranny in Cuba in the 1950s, Posada Carriles was recruited by the CIA and has been active in Washington’s war of terror against the Cuban Revolution for nearly five decades. He orchestrated anti-Cuba bombings in a dozen Latin American and Caribbean countries, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Arrested in Venezuela to face trial, he escaped thanks to his connections in the Venezuelan and U.S. secret police and resumed his bloody activities, including a string of bombings of Cuban hotels in 1997. Sentenced in Panama to eight years in prison for a failed assassination attempt against Cuban president Fidel Castro in 2000, he was pardoned by the Panamanian government in 2004. When Cuban leaders exposed his presence in Florida in 2005, U.S. authorities arrested him—not for his crimes, but for immigration violations!

In contrast, the FBI arrested the Cuban Five—Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, René González, Gerardo Hernández, and Ramón Labañino—in 1998 on phony charges including “conspiracy to commit espionage.” They were put in solitary confinement, convicted after a flagrantly unfair trial, and given long prison terms—three of them life sentences.

What was their “crime”? Helping defend Cuba's sovereignty by reporting on the activities of right-wing Cuban groups and individuals who have organized violent assaults on Cuba with the knowledge and complicity of U.S. authorities.

Posada’s record and Washington’s role in protecting him are ample proof of why the actions of the Cuban Five were fully justified. The U.S. government’s conduct stems from a simple fact: the wealthy rulers of this country hate and fear the example of the Cuban Revolution because it shows working people throughout the Americas and the world that it’s possible to win freedom from imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation.

All those who defend elementary justice and Cuba’s sovereignty should support the campaigns to release the Cuban Five and to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela. One way to do so is by joining the May 11 protests called in a number of U.S. cities to press these demands.
 
 
Related articles:
Cuban delegate at UN body answers Swedish minister on 'human rights'
Many in U.S., China want to learn about Cuban Revolution'
N.Y. event promotes book by Chinese Cuban generals
International conference on Cuban Five held in Havana
More than half a million at May Day in Havana:‘Free Cuban Five! Extradite murderer Posada!’
‘Stop raids and deportations! Legalize undocumented now!’
• 150,000 in Chicago
• L.A. cops attack rally
'La migra' sweeps through Pennsylvania town
NBC cameraman in Houston disciplined for flying Mexican flag at May Day rally
May day actions in the United States  
 
 
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