By Will Weissert
ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:10 a.m. April 20, 2007
HAVANA – Cuba's communist government on Friday blamed the White House
for the release of an anti-Castro exile wanted in the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban airliner, as outraged Cubans pressed demands that the man they
call a terrorist be brought to justice.
Cuba and Venezuela accuse Luis Posada Carriles of violent acts,
including the 1976 bombing that killed 73 – something the former CIA
operative denies. And the government here renewed accusations that
Washington has a double standard on terrorism, as the 79-year-old was
released on bond and allowed to await trial on immigration fraud charges
under house arrest.
"Cuba condemns the shameless decision to free Luis Posada Carriles and
signals the government of the United States as the only one responsible
for this cruel and infamous act," the government said in a statement
published on the front page of the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
Cuba said Posada's release was an attempt "to buy the terrorist's
silence about his crimes for the CIA."
Venezuela plans to ask the United Nations to investigate why the U.S.
has failed to prosecute or extradite Posada, said Jose Pertierra, a
lawyer representing the Venezuelan government. He said Venezuela would
make similar requests at the Organization of American States and
international tribunals.
Yellow school buses on Thursday brought about 600 youths – some barely
old enough for grade school, others pursuing doctorate degrees – to a
plaza outside the U.S. mission in Havana, where they waved small Cuban
flags and chanted "Justice! Justice!"
"It's an insult for all Cubans and a tragedy for the families of his
victims," said Ereslandi Rodriguez, a 22-year-old student clutching a
sign that read "The Dog is Loose" and featured a cartoon of Posada with
bloodstained fangs and a canine body.
Posada was freed from a New Mexico jail after he posted $250,000 bond
and his family put up another $100,000. He must wear an electronic
monitoring device while under house arrest at his wife's home in Miami
pending his May 11 trial on immigration fraud charges.
At Thursday's protest, university communist youth leader Silviano Merced
cited a 2003 speech in which President Bush said anyone who harbors or
supports terrorists is as guilty as the terrorists themselves.
"For that reason, Mr. Bush," Merced cried, "you are as much of a
terrorist as Posada Carriles and his accomplices."
In Washington, Dagoberto Rodriguez Barrera, chief of the Cuban Interests
Section, said his country "energetically condemns this decision and
holds the United States government responsible."
The U.S. and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations, and maintain
interest sections in each other's territory rather than embassies.
Pertierra said in a telephone interview with Cuban television that
Posada's release "shows the double standard of (the U.S.) government
when it protects the Osama bin Laden of the hemisphere."
Castro's ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is demanding that the
U.S. extradite Posada to stand trial in Venezuela for the bombing, which
he allegedly plotted while living in Caracas.
Posada, a Cuban naturalized in Venezuela, escaped from a Venezuelan
prison in 1985 and was detained in Florida in May 2005 for entering the
United States illegally.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070420-0710-cuba-militantreleased.html
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