MB Civic

Posada Carriles’ Victims Will Not Be Forgotten

by Jos Pertierra

Speech given at the Sept. 23, 2006 Forum at
George Washington University following the historic Free the Five March on Washington.
In less than two weeks, we will solemnly observe the 30th anniversary of the cold
blooded murder of 73 innocent men,
women and children over the waters of
Barbados. Too often we speak about
terrorism in general terms, as if it is
something that involves issues-rather than
people, and I suppose that this makes it
easier to swallow the U.S. government’s
double standard in its so-called war on
terrorism. But we should never forget that
terrorism is principally about the victims
and that the memory of lives cut short by
bombs or bullets ought never be forgotten.

The most notorious terrorist of the
Western Hemisphere, Luis Posada Carriles,
stands on the verge of being released from
immigration custody by the Bush
Administration. This terrorist is wanted in
Venezuela for seventy-three counts of first
degree murder in relation to the downing
of a Cubana de Aviacin passenger plane on
October 6th, 1976. Aboard CU-455 were 73
persons. 57 of the passengers were Cubans,
11 were Guyanese including a little nine
year-old girl named Harry Paul, the
remaining five passengers were Koreans.
Those on board averaged only 30 years of
age. Traveling with the group were 24
members of the Cuban fencing team, many
of them teen-agers fresh from gold medal
victories at the Youth Fencing
Championship in Caracas. One of the young
fencers Nancy Uranga, was only twenty-
three years old and pregnant. The athletes
proudly wore their medals dangling over
their clothes, as they boarded the aircraft.

Cubana de Aviacin 455 stopped first in
Trinidad at 11:03 AM, and then touched
down again in Barbados at 12:25 PM. Nine
minutes after take-off from Barbados, two
bombs made of C-4 exploded and the
plane caught fire. The passengers on board
who survived the explosions then lived the
most horrifying ten minutes of their lives,
as the plane turned into a scorching coffin.
The cockpit voice-recorder captured the
last terrifying moments of the flight at 1:24
PM: “Seawell! Seawell! CU-455 Seawell…!
We have an explosion on board…. We have
a fire on board.” The pilot, Wilfredo Prez
(affectionately known as “Felo”), asked
Seawell Airport for permission to return
and land, but the plane and its passengers
were already doomed. As the plane
approached the shore, it was rapidly losing
altitude and control. “Hit the water, Felo,
Hit the Water,” said the co-pilot. Rather
than crashing into the white sands of the
beach called Paradise and killing the
beachgoers, Felo courageously banked the
plane toward the water where it crashed in
a ball of fire one mile north of Deep Water
Bay.

Pieces of bodies were slowly recovered
from the sea. Most of them too
grotesquely disfigured to be identified by
their family members. There were no
survivors. The forensic report performed
by the coroner describes the condition of
the bodies recovered from the sea. I read
to you the part that describes the remains
of Harry Paul, the nine-year old Guyanese
girl who was traveling with her family to
Cuba: “Body of a girl around 9 years of age Brain missing, only facial bones, scalp and
hair remaining. Lungs and heart destroyed.
Liver and intestines shattered. Buttocks
missing on right lower limb. Compound
fracture of tibia and fibula …”

Declassified documents from the U.S.
government’s own files tell us who the
mastermind of the worst act of terrorism
perpetrated on a civilian airliner at the
time. According to the CIA’s own
documents from 1976 posted by the
National Security Archive of George
Washington University, Luis Posada
Carriles spoke of his plans to “hit” a Cuban
airliner only days before CU-455 was blown
out of the sky on October 6, 1976.

The CIA document described a $1000-a-plate fundraiser in Caracas held between
September 22 and October 5, 1976, to
support the activities of Orlando Bosch, the
head of CORU, which the FBI has described
as “an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella
organization.” Bosch was Overheard
stating: “Now that our organization has
come out of the Letelier job looking good,
we are going to try something else.”
Several days later, Posada was reported to
have stated that “we are going to hit a
Cuban airplane” and “Orlando has the
details.” Listen to Orlando Bosch’s own
words during an interview he gave to
Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper last
month. Speaking of the murder of the 73
passengers aboard CU-455, Bosch has no
misgivings: “For me it is a target of war,
there are many things that I cannot say but
they were actions of war. We had agreed in Santo Domingo (when CORU was formed in
1976) that everything that comes out of
Cuba and gives glory to Fidel would run the same risk as those of us combating the dictatorship.”

Bosch has been running his mouth to
reporters in recent weeks. In early April of
this year, he gave an interview to a
television reporter in Miami and said of the
passengers aboard that plane: “We had
decided in Santo Domingo (at the Bonao
meeting of CORU) that everyone who
comes from Cuba to glorify the tyrant had
to run the same risks as those men and
women that fight alongside the tyranny.”
He said that he had been particularly
peeved at the young Cuban fencers when
he listened to one of them on television say
that “The team dedicated their triumph to
the Cuban revolution and gave a speech
filled with praise for the tyrant.”

Regarding the murder of Fabio Di Celmo in
Havana in 1997, Bosch said last month “Luis
Posada did that. He paid a Salvadorean
and a Central American because they’re half starving, you give them $100 and
they’ll do anything. This one entered Cuba,
carried the material in a television and
planted three bombs, one in a hotel that
killed an Italian; another in the Bodeguita
del Medio.”

Mr. Bosch, that “Italian” that Posada
Carriles killed had a name. He was Fabio Di
Celmo. He had a family that loved him and
will forever live in pain because of his loss.
Fabio also had a brother (Livio) who is here
with us today, working with all of us to free
the Five in memory of his brother.

President Bush said this week that he
would “absolutely” order military
operations inside Pakistan if Osama bin
Laden or other top terrorists were found
to be hiding there. The Bush
Administration’s pursuit of terrorists is
widely publicized, as the United States
military invades countries, detains suspects
without charges, tortures and disappears
them at will. Virtually everything is
permitted in the American War on
Terrorism. It is a battle for freedom, Bush
says, and the U.S. is winning.

All over the world, said President Bush at
the United Nations last week, “people are
choosing freedom.” Mr President, among
those choosing freedom, do you include
terrorists such as Orlando Bosch, Guillermo
Novo Sampol, Pedro Crispn Rem Hernndez,
Gaspar Jimnez Escobedo and so many
others whose “freedom” was negotiated by
the United States government, so the
terrorists could live in freedom and receive
a parade in Miami? Mr. President, why
does the U.S. government choose freedom
for its terrorists of choice? Mr. President,
you don’t have to go to all the way to
Pakistan to find terrorists. Many of them
live freely in Miami. You and your
predecessors have set them free.

Luis Posada Carriles, the Osama Bin Laden
of Latin America, now stands on the verge
of freedom, Mr. President. Thanks to you.

From the moment that Luis Posada Carriles
arrived in the United States last year, the
United States government has preferred to
shelter rather than prosecute this terrorist.
Under instructions from the White House,
the Department of Justice has ignored
Venezuela’s request for extradition and
instead charged Posada as an
undocumented immigrant. We have sent
countless diplomatic notes, made countless
telephone inquiries and had high level
meetings with State Department officials
regarding the extradition case-only to be
told in November of last year that “soon”
Venezuela would receive “questions” that
the Department of Justice had
formulated. “Soon” has never arrived, and
the White House has now chosen to mock
its international legal obligations to
extradite or prosecute this terrorist.

During the immigration proceedings, the
United States offered no witnesses and no
evidence. During the habeas corpus
proceedings, the United States again
offered no witnesses and no evidence. Is
that the way this government fights a war
on terrorists?

On September 11 (an ironic date for such a decision), Magistrate Garney
recommended that Posada Carriles be
released from immigration custody. We
don’t blame Magistrate Garney. Judges
and Magistrates do what the evidence
tells them to do. Magistrate Garney
pointed out, in a carefully worded 23
page decision, that the prosecutor offered
no evidence or witnesses to show that the
detainee is a terrorist. The prosecutor,
continued the Magistrate, failed to certify
(as the regulations require) Posada as a
terrorist, and the prosecutor failed to
make a motion that the Immigration Judge
continue to detain him as a danger to the
community. In the face of such inaction by
the government, the Magistrate had no
choice but to recommend his release. He
gave the government ten days to rebut the
findings, a deadline that the government
has asked to extend to October 5. It is
evident that the government is not
interested in extraditing, prosecuting or
even detaining Luis Posada Carriles.
Although he is a terrorist, he is not the
government’s terrorist of choice.

All terrorists are criminals. Their political
ideology makes no difference. Even war has
rules. To blow innocent passengers out of
the sky is terrorism. To murder innocent
tourists in a hotel is terrorism. Those who
perpetrate terrorism ought to be tried (not
rewarded) for their crimes. They should
never be set free to live in our communities
and to appear on late television in Miami.

Mr. President: we don’t want to see Luis
Posada Carriles living comfortably in
Miami, while his crimes go unpunished. We
don’t want to see him exhibit his fourth-grade quality paintings in a Miami gallery
again. We don’t want to see him again on
Miami television as an honored guest,
pontificating about his warped version of
freedom.

We want to see him punished. For the sake
of Harry Paul, the little Nine-year-old girl
whose body was blown to pieces by his
bombs, we want him punished. For the
sake of Nancy Uranga, a pregnant 22 year
old fencer from Cuba, we want him
punished. For the sake of the families of
the 73 passengers aboard Cubana de
Aviacin 455, we want him punished. For the
sake of Livio Di Celmo (who is here with us
today) who lives with the pain of losing his
brother Fabio to one of Posada Carriles
bombs, we want him punished.

For Carlos Alberto Cremata and his
brothers who were mere teen-agers when
they lost their father, their inspiration and
their friend, Carlos Cremata Trujillo. For
Margarita Morales who lost her father,
Julio-the fencing team’s trainer. For Odalys
Prez, whose father Wilfredo bravely piloted
the doomed plane away from Paradise
Beach to avoid crashing it into the
beachgoers on shore. For Camilo Rojo,
whose memories of his father, Jess, are the
incomplete memories of a toddler. For
their sake, and for the sake of the pain
they have endured for the past thirty years.
For the pain of growing up without a
father or a mother or a brother or a sister
or a spouse, we want him punished. In
Caracas, in Washington. It doesn’t matter
where, we want him punished.

We want this terrorist punished for his
crimes. We will not forget the victims.
Venezuela will not let them be forgotten,
Cuba will not let them be forgotten, and
neither will all of you here today. Their
memories will live long after we are gone
from this planet.

Compaero, Orlando Letelier-presente.
Compaero, Fabio Di Celmo-presente.
Compaero, Carlos Alberto Cremata, presente.
Compaero, Jess Rojo-presente.
Compaero Julio Morales-presente.
Compaero Carlos Miz Varela-presente.
Compaerita Harry Paul-presente.
Compaera Nancy Uranga and her unborn baby- presente.

All of the compaeros who were murdered
aboard Cubana de Aviacin 455-presente.

Jos Pertierra is an attorney. He represents the government of Venezuela in the
extradition case of Luis Posada Carriles