Prensa Latina
Caracas, Jan 16 (Prensa Latina) Accusations of drug trafficking, limitation of freedoms and destabilization marked the end of a slight rapprochement on Tuesday between the US and Venezuela and signaled a more difficult stage.After the landslide win of President Hugo Chavez in the December 3 elections, Washington s spokespeople and US Ambassador to Caracas William Bronwfield expressed interest in improving the tense bilateral relations.
Those declarations were welcomed by Venezuelan official sectors as signs of a change of policy for Venezuela s main trade partner.
However at the beginning of 2007, Undersecretary of State John Negroponte, who as national intelligence director had termed Chavez a threat for the region, affirmed they will not change positions soon.
Once more, a report from the US National Intelligence Director s Office called Venezuela a threat to democracy.
For US investigator Eva Golinger, who disclosed declassified files on Washington s financial aid to the Venezuelan opposition, that is the current Department of State guideline and an increase of CIA actions against the South American nation should be expected.
That analysis could serve to explain imputations from Farid Dominguez, a Colombian capo caught in Venezuela, who accused authorities in this nation of being involved in drug-traffic.
Source: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B9012B679-9E4B-4F4D-90D3-C4B317343E89%7D)&language=EN
Luis Posada Carriles Must Be Tried as a TerroristBy Roberto Perez Betancourt
ACN Special Service
The most naïve of observers could have their intelligence offended to learn that only recently the Bush administration has discovered that terrorist Luis Posada Carriles repeatedly lied about his illegal entrance into the US and is pressing charges against him.
This "discovery" allows seven minor charges against the international terrorist, which theoretically can mean some 35 years in prison, but it has the legal advantage for Bush of evading the responsibility to extradite the terrorist to Venezuela, in compliance with international agreements signed between Washington and Caracas.
Now the US authorities have admitted the denunciations made by President Fidel Castro on April 11, 2005, that Posada Carriles had entered the US on board the Santrina boat with the complicity of the other terrorists Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat among others.
They have forgotten the words of Roger Noriega in May of 2005, when he was Under Secretary of State for Latin America, when he said in front of television cameras: "The Cuban government's accusation might be something completely manufactured".
Other high ranking US officials expressed themselves in that same tone. The Justice Department has just confirmed in a press note that Posada Carriles lied to immigration officials and later under oath during interviews with Homeland Security on April 25 and 26, 2006, whom he had attempted to deceive with false information about documents and his route to Florida.
The old employee of the CIA enjoys privileged detention in Texas, while Posada's request for US citizenship is delayed, and up until now the terrorist has only been accused of illegally entering the country.
However, everyone knows, above all the US authorities, that Posada Carriles was the mastermind of the bombing of a Cubana Airliner in 1976 killing 73 innocent people on board, together with Orlando Bosch, who is walking the streets of Miami since Bush Senior pardoned his crimes.
In reality, the long-term criminal history of Posada Carriles, includes many other crimes, among them some committed within the US itself, in Cuba and other countries, which are all well documented.
Posada was an active CIA agent from 1963 until February 13, 1976 according to the declassified documents of the Church Commission.
This person, who many analysts characterize as the most dangerous terrorist in the western hemisphere, was also suspiciously in Dallas, Texas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
According to the CIA, he acted as a demolition, sabotage expert and informant until his close relations with drug trafficking in southern Florida led the Company to suggest he look for another way to survive.
Venezuela is demanding the extradition of the criminal Posada to try him for the bombing of the Cubana airliner, where it was organized. He also acquired the Venezuelan citizenship when he also worked as head of the repressive services of the political police of former Venezuelan governments.
Posada Carriles escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, while he was under a judicial process for that sabotage bombing in 1976 off the coast of Barbados.
The terrorist's escape was instrumented and financed by Jorge Mas Canosa, main leader of the Cuban American National Foundation. It allowed Posada to re-appear at the Salvadoran Base of Ilopango, where alongside Felix Rodriguez, a close ally of Bush Senior, they organized a weapons exchange for drugs for the Nicaraguan contras.
Among his "credits" are also included various assassination attempts against President Fidel Castro and a program of terrorist actions executed in 1997 in tourist centres, where Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo was killed.
After his failed attempt to bomb the University of Panama, where President Fidel Castro and hundreds of Panamanian students were at the time, in 2000, Posada Carriles and several of his gang members were sentenced to prison, but were 'pardoned' by former President Mireya Moscoso at the end of her term.
And now, surprise, surprise, Posada Carriles is simply a liar in this new chapter of the illegalities of the US Justice system under the leadership of the Bush clan.
As the declaration by the Cuban Foreign Ministry points out, the international community must be alert since these lesser charges could turn into "a smoke screen to extend impunity for the serious crime of terrorism".
Source:
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/idioma/ingles/2007/ene17especialposada.htm
Also see: Witness against militant Posada reports a bomb under his pickup
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16485137.html
ACLU Raises Objections Over Expanded Military and CIA Domestic Spying (1/14/2007)The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed serious concerns about the use of “National Security Letters” by the Department of Defense and the CIA to collect the financial records of American citizens and called on Congress to launch an immediate investigation. ...
See:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/27973prs20070114.html
The Watchful & the Wary
... From FBI and CIA headquarters to small-town police departments, the government is building a massive intelligence network designed to spy on terrorists -- and on everyday Americans. ...http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/07/ma_445_01.html
