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<font face="Verdana" size=3><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3 color="#B70101"><b>THE DEVIL’S
COOKROOM <br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=3>John Maxwell<br>
Sunday, May 15, 2005<br>
<b>10:41 PM EST<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3 color="#B70101">
<a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20050514t230000-0500_80402_obs_the_devil_s_cookroom.asp">
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20050514t230000-0500_80402_obs_the_devil_s_cookroom.asp</a>
<br>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3>There is a small area of the Caribbean
Sea, a few miles away from where I was born in Trelawny, which is marked
on old maps as "The Devil's Cookroom." I imagine it got that
name for the sudden, explosive storms which can develop there especially
in winter.<br><br>
<br>
</b>But I have always thought that if the small patch of sea near Duncans
deserved such a name how much more apt it would be applied to the entire
Caribbean.<br><br>
The Caribbean can probably claim a greater quantum of extreme human
suffering over a longer time than anywhere else in the world. Millions of
people were exterminated by the Spanish through ill-treatment and disease
"they died in heaps, like bedbugs", Las Casas
reported.<br><br>
There was the Middle Passage with its bestial cruelty and slavery itself,
degenerate and murderous, the brutal conquests of Central and South
America on the same grisly pattern, and for five hundred years, slavery
followed by colonial exploitation no less brutal or inhumane.<br><br>
The paradoxes abound: Haiti, the first people in modern history to
abolish slavery and to free themselves from the bonds of plantation
colonialism, are now the most miserable and poorest, occupied by
foreigners, ruled by psychopathic gangsters, convicted assassins,
torturers and rapists;<br><br>
Cuba, one of the last to abolish slavery, is now, unarguably, the most
socially advanced, and, arguably the place in the world where people can
claim to be most free.<br><br>
Of course, freedom is different things to different people. Mr. Bush
declares that he is spreading freedom around the world, notably in
Afghanistan and Iraq both now in the throes of civil war.<br><br>
In Haiti, agents of American freedom are busy preparing "free and
fair" elections while the lawful prime minister is unlawfully
incarcerated and on the point of death from a hunger strike.<br><br>
The lawfully elected president is seven time zones and half a world away
in an exile planned, promoted and executed by the same people who are
preparing those free and fair elections.<br><br>
Meanwhile, the majority of the Haitian people, marching for their
president's return, are butchered and tortured by elements who seem to be
the moral descendants of Henry Morgan and his cutthroat brethren who
looted and raped Cartagena, Porto Bello and Panama.<br><br>
As Dr Pangloss was declaring at the time of the Haitian revolution -
everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. As it was
then, so it is now. Mr. Bush now has the same kind of problem that
Charles II had with Henry Morgan.<br><br>
The King solved his problem by making Morgan a knight and Lieutenant
Governor of Jamaica. President Bush is unequivocal: those who harbour
terrorists are terrorists and those who are not against terrorism are
themselves terrorists. So what does one do when a committed, veteran
terrorist makes a present of himself to the US government?<br><br>
Declassified FBI documents say Mr Posada Carriles spent time working for
the CIA and blame him for the bombing of a flight from Caracas to Havana
via Guyana and Barbados. The bombing killed 73 people. Some call it
Cuba's 9/11.<br><br>
Posada Carriles hates Fidel Castro and has been plotting against him for
more than 40 years, along with such partners as the CIA, the Mafia, the
Iran Contra organizer, Oliver North and a host of others, some of
distinguished ancestry and barnyard morality.<br><br>
Mr Posada expects to be granted asylum by Mr Bush, as his equally
murderous comrade in arms, Orlando Bosch, was granted a presidential
pardon by the other President Bush.<br><br>
He reasonably expects that after a lifetime of dirty work on behalf of
well-heeled and important people, he should now be able to come in from
the cold and live like a gentleman in Miami or somewhere else in Florida,
where he has lots of friends, including many in very high
places.<br><br>
However, as the New York Times and other important newspapers around the
world have pointed out, Mr. Posada is a professional terrorist, trained,
like Mr Bin Laden, by the CIA.<br><br>
According to the Cubans, former US undersecretary Otto Reich got Posada
out of prison in Venezuela in the '80s and no less an intermediary than
Colin Powell paved the way for his pardon in Panama last year. In Panama,
Posada was jailed for plotting to blow up an entire auditorium of
students in order to kill Fidel Castro.<br><br>
The Cubans allege that the former president of Panama, Mrs. Meyrel
Moscoso, was given US$4 million and a Lincoln Town car to sign pardons
for Posada and his criminal associates on the day she demitted
office.<br><br>
The Cubans say Posada was flown from Panama in an unmarked plane to
Honduras where he remained for months until he slipped away in a fishing
boat sent by one of his rich Cuban patrons in Miami.<br><br>
The Cubans say that Otto Reich's successor, Mr Noriega, oversaw Posada's
translation to the US, although Mr Noriega strenuously denies that the
United States has any idea where Mr Posada might be. This is strange,
since any application for asylum must state the applicant's actual legal
address.<br><br>
The San Francisco Chronicle asks -"When is a terrorist not a
terrorist? When he's an anti-Castro "freedom fighter'' hiding in
Florida. The White House should lose no time in deporting Luis Posada
Carriles, a prime suspect in the midair bombing of a civilian airliner
that killed 73 people in 1976. It was a terrorist act by any
definition."<br><br>
The New York Times (NYT) concurs: "The one thing the Bush
administration cannot do is to shelter Mr Posada by granting him
political asylum.<br><br>
Since 9/11, the United States has become so zealous in its efforts to
exclude potential terrorists from American soil that it has made it much
harder for genuine refugees fleeing deadly persecution in their home
countries to find sanctuary here. Washington would offend American
principles and set an extremely damaging precedent by making a special
exception for an admitted terrorist"<br><br>
The NYT demands a single standard for terrorists, despite the risks of
"retribution at the polls from a ferociously anti-Castro
Cuban-American community that has helped swing Florida into the
Republican column in recent elections".<br><br>
Venezuela has now officially demanded Posada's extradition. <br><br>
Hopefully, that may happen before Mr. Posada dies either of old age or of
one of those unfortunate accidents to which septuagenarians are so
susceptible.<br><br>
Neither the NYT nor any other major US news agency considers that the
situation in Haiti may, as the Times puts it, "offend American
standards".<br><br>
Caricom has piously declared its concern but champions of freedom and
human rights like the Prime Minister of Jamaica (Patterson) and Barbados
(Owen Arthur) have been conspicuously silent, no doubt because they have
ceased to be young, gifted or black.<br><br>
Next week, supporters of constitutional legitimacy and human rights in
Haiti will be making a special effort on Wednesday, May 18, to bring the
noxious situation there to world attention. <br>
I am scheduled to be the host of HOT 102's Disclosure program that day
and I will be happy to discuss Haiti if you are minded to telephone
me.<br><br>
In the meantime I ask you to consider the appeal by Haiti's President,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, speaking from exile in South Africa to the
courageous American journalist Amy Goodman on Democracy
(<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/)">http://www.democracynow.org/)</a>
a few days ago.<br><br>
"It is very sad what we have as information about our Prime
Minister, Yvon Neptune. He is still in hunger strike. How long he will be
able to survive, we don't know. That's why we grasp this opportunity to
ask everybody who can do something to not hesitate, because it is a
matter of life and death. We need to save his life.<br><br>
". We need many, many voices to equal the voices of Haiti. The
people of Haiti want life and not death. They want peace and not
violence. They want democracy and not repression.. Whoever can say
something, whoever can do something, please do it, because the Haitian
people right now are waiting for your help..<br><br>
"You arrest someone, as they did with Minister Pivert, So Ann and so
many others - there are hundreds who are in jail - there is no basis, no
legal basis for that. But they just put them in jail because they have
power with them, weapons with them, support of the United States, France,
Canada, some others..it's a matter of life and death. We need many voices
to put that truth out and see finally if they can pay attention to that
and save his life.<br><br>
"Today, those who kidnapped me and continue to support those
criminals while they're killing innocent people, while they keep Yvon
Neptune the way he is, clearly they maintain the black holocaust. The
United States, France, Canada and so many others should do something to
repair, if they can, what they did.<br><br>
Because what they did is a crime. The same way slavery is a crime against
humanity, the same way what they're doing against the Haitian people,
it's also a crime. And all of that [is] maintaining a black holocaust in
Haiti..<br><br>
They already killed more than 10,000 people. Can you imagine Cite Soleil,
where people need food, not violence; where people need work, jobs, not
violence? And we have tanks surrounding Cite Soleil, as if it were a
concentration camp.<br><br>
God, can you imagine what we have in Bel Air? Can you imagine what we
have in so many popular areas, poor areas where they continue to kill
people while people are asking for the respect of their votes? They voted
for democracy, as our forefathers fought for our independence in
1804..<br><br>
"But there is clearly a small minority in Haiti with their allies in
foreign countries. Together, they said no to elections, because they knew
once they respect the will of the people in a democratic way through
free, fair democratic elections, then they will not be able to continue
to live in a country where they don't pay tax, where they still have the
wall of apartheid.<br><br>
" Once we keep the line of peace, of nonviolence, we will win,
because peace must be the way to go towards the victory. And love from my
heart to all our friends, because we have many friends who love Haiti,
who are trying to do their best to help the people of Haiti.<br><br>
Of course, sharing that love, this is one way for me to express deep
respect to them and also renewing my commitment to move with all of them
in order to build, slowly but surely, a civilization of
love."<br><br>
<b>Copyright©2005 John Maxwell <br>
jonmax@mac.com<br>
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