[News] Cuba - Interview with Ricardo Alarcón, on Posada Carriles and the Cuban 5

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To: "CubaNews" <CubaNews at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 10:16 AM
Subject: Interview with Ricardo Alarcón, President of Cuban Parliament


(Thanks to Bernie Dwyer for sharing this
interview. It was conducted June 24, 2005.)
===========================================

Interview with Ricardo Alarcón, President of the Cuban
Parliament by Bernie Dwyer Radio Havana Cuba

Introduction

"Posada was in charge of the secret operation to supply the
Nicaraguan Contras with weapons; something that was
prohibited at that time by US Congress law".

In a recent interview with Radio Havana Cuba, the President
of the Cuban Parliament Ricardo Alarcón, points out that
the treatment accorded to self-confessed terrorist Luis
Posada Carriles in custody is summed up by his only
complaint that there was "a lack of "pastelitos Cubanos.
The only things not available in that jail are Cuban
pastries".

He compares that with the treatment received by the Cuban
Five currently serving excessive prison sentences in the
US.

Alarcón also outlined to RHC journalist Bernie Dwyer some
of the documented crimes committed by Luis Posada Carriles,
currently seeking political asylum in the United States. He
pointed out that, for instance, in an operation organized
by Posada the same planes that were used to carry arms to
the Nicaraguan Contras in 80's and 90's were used take back
drugs to the US.

In this interview conducted on June 24th , 2005, Ricardo
Alarcón draws the conclusion that "the Bush administration
is showing its shameless commitment with the terrorist, not
against the terrorists but with the terrorists and in favor
of terrorists".

INTERVIEW

[Bernie Dwyer] Can you point our some of the differences in
the custodial treatment enjoyed by self-confessed terrorist
Posada Carriles and the five Cuban men who are presently
serving long prison sentences in the US for defending their
people and country against precisely those actions
undertaken by Posada?

[Ricardo Alarcón] The differences in the treatment of the
Five and Posada are striking.

For example, just recently, the administrative immigration
judge was requested to give the defense lawyer one month's
delay. He was asked if it was possible to postpone the
hearing that was to take place on June 24th until July
25th. What was the argument of the defense lawyer? -that he
needed more time to go through the large amount of papers
and documents that the US government has given them and the
judge: the very foundation of the reasons why the
government is against Posada this moment. It is a normal
procedure in the US legal system-what they call: the
discovery process- that the government is supposed to show
the other side what they have against an accused person.

The Five are still, after more than five years of being
condemned and sentenced, waiting to have access to at least
80% of the documents that were taken from them. These
documents were classified as secret materials by the
government, thus making them unavailable to not only the
accused but to their lawyers as well.

This man, an accused terrorist, a person that was going
through a foreign tribunal proceeding in Venezuela for the
bombing of a civilian airplane-a classical terrorist act-
is detained because he entered the US without a visa. That
man is given the opportunity, through his lawyer, to read
the same amount of papers that the government presented to
this judge. While the five Cubans, including two of whom
are US citizens and their five US lawyers were always
prevented from having access to those papers. That's one
thing.

The other thing is the treatment in prison. Posada himself
during the first interview he gave to a journalist from the
Miami Herald, expressed his happiness and his satisfaction
that he doesn't have any complaint.

He has his own private water supply. He has special meals.
He doesn't go to the regular areas where the other
prisoners have their lunch and their dinners. He doesn't go
to the backyard where the other prisoners go to exercise
and get some sunshine and so on. No, he has his own private
backyard.

He has a private room or cell and private dining
facilities. He described the menu and it was pretty good.
His only complaint was a lack of "pastelitos Cubanos"
That's a quote, unquote. The only things not available in
that jail are Cuban pastries! He doesn't have limitations
in the use of telephone. He doesn't have visiting
limitations including members of the media.

And he has access to all the evidence that the government
is presenting against him. He is not in isolation. He was
not handcuffed when he was being arrested. Yesterday I saw
an interview with Mr. Santiago Alvarez, his friend from
Miami and he reiterated that when he was asked how is his
friend Posada feeling, he said that he had spoken to him by
telephone that morning and he doesn't have any complaints,
he is happy there. He is just waiting and is very confident
that he will get what he wants.

[Bernie Dwyer] Much of what is being said about Posada
Carilles is that he is in contact with people that are
involved in drug trafficking and human trafficking. What is
the basis of that kind of talk?

[Ricardo Alarcón] Posada Carriles was involved in one of
the most serious cases of drug trafficking into the US from
Central America, which was very well documented in the 80's
and 90's.

Posada was in charge of the secret operation to supply the
Nicaraguan Contras with weapons; something that was
prohibited at that time by US Congress law. The same
airplanes that brought the weapons to Nicaragua were used
take back drugs to the US.

Mr. Posada disappeared when the Contra scandal exploded.
There was a also second "explosion" in Los Angeles (LA)
when a local newspaper, the San José Mercury, disclosed
that case about the introduction of drugs into the
African-American community of South Central LA, where there
was an explosion of drug addiction in the late 80's and
early 90's. This was part of the US Central Intelligence
Agency's (CIA) effort to weaken the African American
movement in LA.

That was admitted by the CIA later when the Agency's
director had to go to LA and appeared before a large
gathering of African American community leaders and
activists to apologize. Maxine Waters, the congress person
for that area, made that denunciation in the US congress.
She raised hell about what was going on in the CIA's secret
operation and she got the CIA director to go there and
present his apologies in front of the people in LA.

But let's return to Posado Carriles:

The CIA recognizes and apologizes for what has happened in
Los Angeles but who was the person sending the drugs from
Central America? It was Luis Posada Carriles. At that
moment he had disappeared again. He was in hiding during
the 1990's until he reappeared first in Panama and now in
the US.

The way he entered the US follows exactly the drug
traffickers' route from Central America to the South East
of the US. Following press reports in Mexico, he got the
co-operation of some drug traffickers in the area who
helped him when he entered into South East Mexico moving
through Central America, using the same route, the same
people.

He even himself, according to his version in the press of
how he entered the US, tried to hide the truth of having
entered on the Santrina, the boat from Quintana Roo to
Miami. But in exchange for that, he said that he entered
through the Mexican border in the North but with the help
of the smugglers. These people use those routes for both
human beings and drugs.

He is an old hand in drug trafficking in Central America
and in the US.

[Bernie Dwyer] Posada Carrile's defense lawyer, Eduardo
Soto, is trying to block the evidence contained in
documents handed over by the Cuban government to the FBI at
a meeting in Havana in June 1998. Some people even suggest
that the Cuban 5 were arrested as a result of those very
documents being handed over at that meeting. Are these
documents publicly available?

[Ricardo Alarcón] You can find those documents at the Cuban
website: www.antiterrorist.cu. We put up the whole set of
documents given to the FBI and we also gave them to the New
York Times

I think it's clear that the US, instead of acting in
accordance with international obligations and laws and
acting against those organizing terrorist actions against
Cuba from US soil, decided to kill the messenger, to act
against those who were contributing to the knowledge that
the government had about those activities.

This is the substance of the case of the Cuban 5. The
reason why it has been so difficult to get through the
media with the real story of the Cuban 5 is precisely that.
The story is very simple, that the US administration acted
against those 5 Cubans in order to protect those that are
very closely linked to the US Administration, that they are
part and parcel of the anti-Cuba policy of the US.

Now, when the entire world can witness how the US is
protecting Posada Carriles and refusing to hand him over to
Venezuela to be tried on a very heinous terrorist act, it's
demonstrating what we knew already: that they are closely
linked and very supportive of the worst terrorist in this
hemisphere.

That's why they tried to hide the case of the Cuban 5. But
now when the world discovers the reality of the US
government's very, very close connection with terrorism,
everyone can understand why the Cuban 5 were arrested. And
it's not an exaggeration...they were arrested seven years
ago because they oppose terrorism.

For some Americans it was very difficult to understand and
admit that because their government is supposed to oppose
terrorism.

And secondly the best proof of the impossibility of having
a fair trial for the 5 in Miami is demonstrated now. Why
Mr. Posada wants to be accepted and where? He didn't show
up in Boston, he showed up in Miami. He wanted to be
admitted in Miami, to join Orlando Bosch, to join the Novo
Sampol and the whole Mafia of terrorists that move freely
in that city. The idea of being able to have in that city a
fair trial of 5 young people being accused precisely of
opposing that Mafia is simply preposterous. It's simply
contrary to any logic and any sense of justice.

[Bernie Dwyer] It appears that Posada Carriles tried to
sneak into US. However there has been a public and media
outcry worldwide. How do you think the US will deal with
this problem?

[Ricardo Alarcón] The US government simply doesn't know how
to get rid of this problem. It's like another Iraq
entanglement that they are facing with Posada. They
probably would have wished him to disappear, to die or not
to exist any more.

Unfortunately for the Bush administration, Mr. Posada is
there. Remember for nearly two months they simply refused
to admit that man was there. Notwithstanding his public
statements and his daily announcements from his house that
he was there: notwithstanding his application for political
asylum. He managed to fill in a number of papers and send
them with photographs and the address of where he was
staying.

Notwithstanding all that, every day the spokesperson for
the US government kept saying "we don't know where he is"
and "it is not confirmed he is here" and blah, blah, blah.

He had to come out publicly and give a press conference to
have the US finally take him into custody and it was at
that moment they showed their commitment to Posada and
terrorism.

He wasn't arrested for the purpose of considering his
extradition back to Venezuela to face trial on terrorism.
He was arrested on migratory grounds and to receive VIP
treatment, not to be treated as a normal, undocumented
alien, not to be expelled expeditiously but to be offered a
protracted process that can take years before defining if
he was or was not legally there.

The last and only hope that the administration has now is
to get people to forget this story: to cover it with tons
of other stories, other news and so on and hope that with
the passing of time people will forget and then ignore the
presence of Mr. Posada in the US.

We have to take every opportunity now not to permit the
administration to simply ignore public opinion: assuming
that people can be fooled and can be forced to ignore and
forget. It is very important not to forget, to remember
every day, that the US, with every passing day, the Bush
administration is showing its shameless commitment with the
terrorist, not against the terrorists but with the
terrorists and in favor of terrorists.

This interview was broadcast by Radio Havana Cuba in two
parts on the 27th and 29th June 2005

The Freedom Archives
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