Cuba Cooperating in US Case Against Ex-CIA Agent

[Judi Lynn]

Cuba Cooperating in US Case Against Ex-CIA Agent
Cuban government cooperating with US in immigration case against former CIA operative Posada
By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
EL PASO, Texas February 8, 2011 (AP)

Three officials from Cuba are expected to testify in the U.S. trial of a former CIA operative and anti-communist militant accused of lying during immigration hearings in Texas — a rare example of cooperation between two governments paralyzed by more than a half century of frigid relations.

Two police officers and a state medical examiner from Cuba could begin testifying as early as Tuesday in the U.S. government's perjury case against Luis Posada Carriles. The 82-year-old native of Cuba spent a lifetime using violence to destabilize communist political systems throughout Latin America before seeking U.S citizenship in 2005.

Posada is not on trial for his Cold War past, however. Instead, U.S. prosecutors allege that during immigration hearings in El Paso, Posada made false statements about how he reached American soil in March 2005 and failed to acknowledge planning a series of 1997 bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist. Posada faces 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud.

Neither side in Posada's trial has released a witness list, but both the prosecution and the defense said privately Monday evening that they expect Cuban experts to begin testifying this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday. They have divulged the names of the three witnesses, but only on the condition they not be published until they take the stand.

More:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=12863821

[Peace Patriot]

1. Why on earth would anybody un-rec this thread?

Do they just un-rec anything with the word "Cuba" in it (unless it's anti-Castro propaganda, then it's okay for people to read it)?

I rec'ed this because it contains important news and I'm glad you posted it--and I noticed that my rec brings the rec count to "0"--so somebody went to the trouble of unrec'ing it.

I am always amazed at rightwingers' impulse to suppress information. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. How can anybody hope to understand anything going on in the world with important pieces of information edited out of their brains? I tend to forget that rightwingers--and often the corpo-fascist press itself--don't want to understand the world; they want to bully it. And they don't want anybody else to understand the world; they want to impose their own views on everybody.

This corpo-fascist 'news' tendency is evident in this article. (I don't call them the Associated Pukes for nothing.) For instance...

"Cuba and Venezuela would like to try (Posada) for the 1997 hotel attacks as well as a 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people, but a U.S. immigration judge previously ruled Posada can't be sent to either country for fear he could be tortured." --from the OP

They don't mention that the Chavez government in Venezuela has NEVER even been accused of torture, let alone committed it--and I don't think that there is any proof of it as to Cuba's government--but guess who IS guilty of torturing prisoners--blatantly guilty, right there on the other end of the island of Cuba, at Guantanamo Bay and other places?

These kinds of "black holes" where information should be, in corpo-fascist 'news' articles, drive me nuts. They allow this accusation to stand, against Venezuela and Cuba, as if it were true, because a "U.S. immigration judge" ignorantly or maliciously made this suggestion, without even seeking a statement about it from Venezuela's or Cuba's governments.

That is nasty-ass journalism!

The article is informative on some other matters. For instance, it fills us in on who Posada is--in addition to his more recent terrorist activities...

"Posada participated indirectly in the U.S.-backed, ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 before joining the U.S. military and becoming a CIA asset. In the 1980s, he helped Washington provide aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. In 2000, he was arrested in Panama in a plot to kill Castro during a regional summit there. He was pardoned in 2004." --from the OP

And it describes, in a fairly objective way, the defense's plan to question the word of Cuban government experts/prosecution witnesses in a general attack on the Cuban government (which the judge put a limit on).

But you have to be careful--and do some reading between the lines--of AP (and other corpo-fascist) articles. For instance, if the CIA had decided to protect Posada, we wouldn't likely see this other damning info on Posada in a 'news' article. So why has it been included? Was it that AP was given the okay, or takes the trial as a signal that it's okay, or is siding with the FBI/DOJ vs the CIA in some internal battle, or what?

Also, since the article basically buys and promotes the bullshit of the "immigration judge" that Posada might be tortured in Venezuela or Cuba, this eliminates questions about the trial itself and what the U.S. government is trying to accomplish with it. Posada should rightfully be on trial in Venezuela. They have asked for his extradition for the Cubana airliner bombing. Is the U.S. using this trial to COVER UP its own connections to that bombing?

Posada is a CIA asset. That much is clear (from the article). Why is he being tried in the U.S. for mere perjury? That is the question. And some "immigration judge"'s feeling (based on NO evidence) about Venezuela and Cuba and torture ISN'T the answer.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Posada Carriles was the head of the secret police in Venezuela under Carlos Andres Perez,

who was later impeached, and imprisoned, the man who called his military to fire directly into crowds of protesting Venezuelans and created the massacre named "El Caracazo," during whose Presidency Posada Carriles himself ordered the torture of political prisoners, some of whom still live in Venezuela, and remember very clearly what the hell happened to them.

I'm sure he fears fate might arrange for THEM to get their hands on him!

Odd, isn't it, that during his lifetime he also found a way to worm his way into the government of a monster like Carlos Andres Perez?

You can be sure if there were any REAL instances of people really being tortured in Cuba by the revolutionary government, or in Venezuela by their government we would be hearing about it every day if the US hadn't already used it as an opportunity to invade them, a la "Operation Northwoods." (This brainstroke, signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was flatly rejected by President John F. Kennedy.)

Operation Northwoods Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

Posada Carriles is someone our own government doesn't want running loose, and angry at it. He knows where so many of the bodies are buried in the history of US machinations in Latin America.