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<a href="http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/vier29/09llama.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/vier29/09llama.html<br>
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<a href="http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/vier29/../../../../aleman/portugues/documento/ingles04/003.html">
I N T E R N A T I O N A L</a><br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=1>Havana. February 29,
2008<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>BUSH’S JUSTICE AND ANTI-CUBAN
TERRORISM<br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=5>A long succession of scandals that
have been ignored<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Georgia" size=1 color="#006F93">BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD
<b>Granma International</b> staff writer <br><br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=3>TWENTY months after having been
denounced by one of its members, a terrorist group active within U.S.
territory, operating with a budget of $1.4 million and with a potent
arsenal that includes a helicopter, 10 remote-controlled airplanes and a
large amount of explosives, continues to function without being targeted
by the law. <br><br>
In a country that pretends to teach everyone else how to combat terrorism
and is subjecting its own citizens to countless security measures for
that supposed reason, both the FBI and the Department of Justice’s
anti-terrorist prosecutors have not found any reason to take action
against the paramilitary group or the individual who exposed it, or the
accomplices he identified. <br><br>
On July 19, 2006, FBI special agent Omar Vega and his colleague, Jorge L.
González of the Miami Police, both on the state of Florida’s Joint
Terrorism Task Force, visited Cuban-American José Antonio Llama, alias
"Toñín," a former director of the Cuban-American National
Foundation (CANF) in his home. <br><br>
Despite the serious nature of a confession by Llama on June 22 in an
interview with <b>The</b> <b>Miami Herald</b> newspaper, Vega and
González were satisfied with listening to him. They noted that he wanted
to sue the CANF for fraud (which never happened) and that he had nothing
else to say apart from what he had already told the newspaper. <br><br>
Neither of the two agents ever showed the least intention of taking Llama
to court. <br><br>
None of the CANF members fingered by Llama in this gigantic conspiracy to
commit acts of terrorism including bombing Havana’s Plaza of the
Revolution during a mass demonstration was ever questioned with respect
to the events described. <br><br>
More than 18 months after those events and in the light of what is known
about the stance taken by the U.S. justice system toward anti-Cuban
terrorism, we must come to the conclusion that the visit to Llama had two
purposes: one, to neutralize his actions against the CANF; and two, to
collect any information that he might have about the CANF’s ties to
terrorism with the goal of evaluating any danger to the support mechanism
for the use of terror against Cuba, promoted by the U.S. government
itself. <br><br>
One detail confirms it all: Vega and González are the same investigators
who were in charge of the case of Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat,
limited to charges of illegal weapons’ possession, when it was
well-documented that Alvarez is one of the most dangerous elements in
Luis Posada Carriles’ terrorist gang, guided and financed for years by
the CANF "paramilitary group" itself. <br><br>
Years before Llama’s statement to the <b>Herald</b>, Posada had already
confessed to <b>The</b> <b>New York Times</b> in articles published on
July 11 and 12, 1998 that the CANF had sponsored his terrorist campaign
against tourist facilities in Cuba without the FBI intervening in Miami
to counteract the activities of that organization. <br><br>
Even more scandalously, U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, a New York
Democrat, specifically requested in letters dated July 13 and addressed
to Attorney General Janet Reno and Charles Rossotti, Commissioner of the
Internal Revenue Service, an investigation into the legality of the
CANF’s activities. He also called for influential Congressman Bill Archer
to review the CANF’s status as a non-profit organization. <br><br>
Neither of these investigations ever happened. <br><br>
Llama’s confession, as well as Posada’s, are just two events in a long
succession of scandals ignored by the U.S. media that show the complicity
of U.S. authorities, that country’s political police and its intelligence
services regarding anti-Cuba terrorism. <br><br>
Likewise, on August 26, 1998, prosecutors forgot to include Francisco
"Pepe" Hernández Calvo on the list of defendants implicated in
the terrorist plot involving <i>La Esperanza</i> yacht in Puerto Rico,
right before the trial was to begin in Miami. They were all acquitted for
"lack of evidence." <br><br>
That was also how, via an order from President George Bush Sr., Orlando
Bosch was freed from prison in November 1987; how a similar decision by
George Bush Jr. likewise freed José Dionisio "Bloodbath" Suárez
Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero in July 2001; and how the president of
Panama pardoned and freed Luis Posada Carriles from prison in August
2004, which led to his return to his mafia-filled Miami. <br><br>
Meanwhile, Venezuela continues to wait for an answer to its extradition
application for Posada Carriles, the most dangerous terrorist on the
continent, and the Cuban Five, who risked their lives to penetrate that
criminal network, remain imprisoned in the United States.<br>
<hr>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=4><b>All terrorists<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Georgia" size=3>Llama’s confession in June 1998 to
the <b>Herald</b>, by definitively unmasking the terrorist nature of the
CANF, revealed the masterminds of the criminal plot. The accomplices he
fingered included, among others: José "Pepe" Hernández, Elpidio
Núñez, Horacio García and Luis Zúñiga, a personal friend of George W.
Bush, who left the CANF in 2001 to form the Cuban Liberty Council (CLC).
He also exposed Erelio Peña and Raúl Martínez, of Miami; Fernando Ojeda,
Fernando Canto and Domingo Sadurni, of Puerto Rico; and Arnaldo Monzón
Plasencia and Angel Alfonso Alemán, today an aide to Congressman Albio
Sires, both of New Jersey.<br><br>
<br><br>
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