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CounterPunch - Sept 11-12, 2004<br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/landau09112004.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.counterpunch.org/landau09112004.html<br><br>
</a>When Our Assassins Go Free<br><br>
Geezers Make Gas<br>
by Saul Landau<br><br>
Our cause is just, it's just to slay<br>
Fidelista Cubans on any given day<br>
If cops ever catch us, we could care less<br>
Proud members of GAS will never confess<br><br>
We are GAS<br>
You bet your ass<br>
We got class<br><br>
We kill for cause and cause is a killer<br>
Posada's his name, he's our Godzilla<br>
We whack Commy dragons, they go straight to hell<br>
The Commy of Commys his name is Fidel<br><br>
We are GAS<br>
We kick your ass<br>
We are nass--ty<br><br>
(Lyrics from the GASeous hymn)<br><br>
GAS, or Geezers Assassination Society, a Miami source claims, refers to
<br>
a secret club formed by four recently pardoned anti-Castro terrorists,
<br>
all in their twilight years. The group offered honorary membership --
<br>
women can only become honorary members -- to outgoing Panamanian <br>
president Mireya Moscoso, who on August 26 released the convicted men.
<br>
A Panamanian court had sentenced them and two others to 7 and 8-year
<br>
terms for threatening public security and falsifying documents. The
<br>
prosecutor presented a large cache of explosives and related gear with
<br>
the defendants' fingerprints on them. Witnesses avowed that the men
<br>
planned to use this material in 2000 to bomb Cuban President Fidel <br>
Castro--not engage in playful fireworks -- during a scheduled speech at
<br>
a Panamanian university.<br><br>
GAS membership requires that aspirants swear in blood rituals to <br>
dedicate the remainder of their lives--when not seeing prostate <br>
specialists to plotting to assassinate Castro. GAS stole its credo --
<br>
Viva la Muerte!--from Nazi pilots during the Spanish Civil War
(1936-9).<br><br>
The newly pardoned admirers of those Nazi aces caught a waiting airplane
<br>
that carried them out of Panama. The plane stopped in Honduras to allow
<br>
the padrino of Latin American terrorism, Luis Posada Carriles (76), to
<br>
disembark. Guillermo Novo (65), Pedro Remon (60) and Gaspar Jimenez
<br>
(68), the other august GAS founders, all with impressive criminal <br>
records, continued on to Miami, where perspective GASers and groupies
<br>
greeted them.<br><br>
Out-going President Moscoso apparently contravened Panamanian law by
<br>
issuing the pardons before the appeals process had ended. Moscoso <br>
immediately phoned US Ambassador Simon Ferro, saying she had complied
<br>
with Washington's request to release the men. Their arrival in Miami
<br>
coincided with President Bush's campaign stop there. Bush had declared
<br>
himself a mortal enemy of those who harbor terrorists. Apparently, he
<br>
made a nuanced exception for anti-Castro terrorists--"zealous
patriots."<br><br>
Some Panamanians suspect that Moscoso deposited millions in a Swiss bank
<br>
prior to issuing the pardons. Such an act would have helped offset the
<br>
hurt feelings she suffered from the worldwide criticism of her actions.
<br>
I empathize with Moscoso. The poor woman had become addicted to the
<br>
lavish lifestyle she developed in her five years as President. But she
<br>
spent only $23 million of public money on her personal needs and only $3
<br>
million on trips abroad. Her critics charged her with disguising <br>
personal tourism as state missions since her overseas junkets <br>
accomplished nothing for Panama. I say: "No one's
perfect."<br><br>
Unkind Panamanians call her a kleptomaniac. More generous compatriots
<br>
consider this a slight exaggeration. But, her defenders point out, she
<br>
resisted pressure to pardon the anti-Castroites until their advocates
<br>
offered a sufficient sum of money.<br><br>
The newly liberated but still grumpy seniors had shared membership in
<br>
various terrorist organizations like Omega 7 and the Cuban Nationalist
<br>
Movement and had received support from the prestigious Cuban American
<br>
National Foundation (CANF) for their ongoing but unsuccessful efforts to
<br>
whack Cuba's leader. They had, however, dispatched other, lesser Cuban
<br>
officials and destroyed Cuban property in New York, Argentina, Mexico,
<br>
Barbados and elsewhere.<br><br>
Indeed, part of GAS' pledge week activities require aspirants to <br>
memorize Posada's decades of failed assassination attempts, just as
<br>
religious Christians return to the film, "The Passion of
Christ," to <br>
internalize the pain of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, en route to his
<br>
crucifixion.<br><br>
The Prince of terrorists, Posada Carriles, achieved world status in 1976
<br>
by directing the sabotage of a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados.
<br>
Shortly after taking off from Barbados International Airport, the bomb
<br>
exploded on board, the plane plunged into the sea and all 73 passengers
<br>
and crew members died. Posada denied involvement, but police nabbed two
<br>
of the plotters who identified Posada as the man who hired them to place
<br>
the bomb on the plane before they disembarked in Barbados.<br><br>
Posada's wife told a Venezuelan journalist of her mate's emotions.
"When <br>
he started with the Barbados affair, I knew he would be successful <br>
because the 'poor guy' had dedicated so much effort, with so much <br>
passion" (We Placed the Bomb and So What, by Alicia
Herrera).<br><br>
Born Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles, he became known as Bambi to
<br>
his terrorist pals--how sweet. He served on dictator Fulgencio Batista's
<br>
repressive forces until the January 1959 revolutionary takeover. Posada
<br>
then swore vengeance.<br><br>
In 1963, after the Bay of Pigs, the CIA trained Posada at Fort Benning,
<br>
Georgia on the fine points of spying, using explosives and other lethal
<br>
devices. In 1971, he partnered with Antonio Veciana, founder of Alpha
<br>
66, another anti-Castro terrorist group, to plan a movie script type
<br>
plot to assassinate Castro.<br><br>
In 1996, Veciana told me how he and Posada had recruited a couple of
<br>
Venezuelan hit men, disguised them as a TV news crew and sent them to
<br>
Santiago, Chile before Castro arrived on a visit. Meanwhile, the <br>
assassins "blended in" with the rest of the media. CIA
technicians had <br>
outfitted one of their news cameras with a gun that would fire when they
<br>
activated the camera. Fortunately, for Fidel, the assassins chickened
<br>
out. Posada became enraged over their cowardice, Veciana continued, and
<br>
recruited other assassins to use the same camera on Castro when he <br>
stopped in Caracas for a press conference on his return to Cuba. But
<br>
those whackers also had second thoughts.<br><br>
The plot failed again. But killing Castro remained the driving force in
<br>
Posada's life. Veciana quit the assassination business in 1973 after an
<br>
unknown gunman shot him in the head.<br><br>
Perhaps, Posada's frustration over the failed 1971 hits abated after the
<br>
"success" of his 1976 Barbados air sabotage. But, alas,
Venezuelan <br>
authorities charged him with that crime and threw him in prison, where
<br>
he remained until August 1985, when leaders of CANF bribed prison <br>
authorities to help Posada "escape."<br><br>
Lt. Col. Oliver North then engaged him in the late 1980s to re-supply
<br>
the CIA-backed Contras from El Salvador. In 1990, in Guatemala, a gunman
<br>
shot Posada in the face. Down, but not out, the determined Castro slayer
<br>
hatched a plot to bomb Cuban hotels to deter the tourist trade. In one
<br>
hotel bombing, an Italian tourist died. Cuban police nabbed a Salvadoran
<br>
man who fingered Posada as his recruiter. The attacks did reduce tourism
<br>
for a brief time.<br><br>
In a New York Times interview (July 12, 1998) with Anne Bardach and
<br>
Larry Rohter, Posada described "the Italian tourist's death as a
freak <br>
accident." But "I sleep like a baby," he said. "That
Italian was sitting <br>
in the wrong place at the wrong time." Posada told the Times that he
<br>
"still intends to try to kill Castro, and he believes violence is
the <br>
best method for ending Communism in Cuba."<br><br>
Inevitably, the violence-prone Posada linked his fading professional
<br>
destiny with another pit bull-like GAS founder, Guillermo Novo.<br><br>
When the newly freed Novo landed in Miami in late August he passed <br>
quickly through US Immigration. Luckily for him, his name wasn't Ted
<br>
Kennedy or the authorities would have questioned him about terrorist
<br>
connections. "We beat you," Novo crowed to Fidel, who wasn't
listening. <br>
There were no reports that Castro had conceded or even acknowledged
<br>
Novo's existence.<br><br>
Novo, like Posada, eligible to collect social security, swore eternal
<br>
allegiance to terrorism as the only way to remove Castro. Terrorism has
<br>
animated his life since 1964 when he fired a bazooka at the UN building
<br>
in New York while Che Guevara addressed the General Assembly.<br><br>
In 1979, a Washington DC jury convicted him of conspiring to assassinate
<br>
former Chilean Chancellor Orlando Letelier. Novo appealed and got <br>
acquitted at a second trial, but was convicted of perjury for lying
<br>
about his knowledge of the assassination conspiracy. But he had already
<br>
served his time, the judge ruled. Novo rejoiced in the courthouse hall.
<br>
Since then, he's had little to laugh about.<br><br>
Both Novo and Posada have earned reputations as serious men. So, when
<br>
they smile, it's not because they've succeeded in whacking Fidel. <br>
Remember, young babies also evince smiles when GAS enters their
system.<br><br>
<br>
[Saul Landau is the Director of Digital Media and International Outreach
<br>
Programs for the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. His new
<br>
book is The Business of America.]<br><br>
*<br>
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