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Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

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Mr. Attorney General

From The Nation, October 16, 2006

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061016/kornbluh
____________________________________

Test on Terrorism

by PETER KORNBLUH

On September 11 a midlevel magistrate named Norbert Garney filed legal papers in an El Paso, Texas, court recommending
that notorious Cuban-exile terrorist Luis Posada Carriles be set free.
In response to a petition of habeas corpus  filed by Posada’s lawyers, Garney’s twenty-three-page “Report and Recommendation” (R&R)
concluded that the Bush Administration had failed to avail itself of basic legal procedures to keep Posada in jail, Posada “was never certified by the Attorney General as a terrorist or danger to the
community” under the Patriot Act according to the R&R, nor had the Justice Department presented evidence of “special circumstances” that would allow it to hold Posada  for security or terrorism concerns.
In light of those findings, the magistrate wrote, “the Court recommends that Petitioner’s request for habeas relief be
granted, and that [Posada] be released.”

The Bush Administration is now facing the
moment of truth in its handling of Posada’s
case. Long considered the godfather of
vicious anti-Castro violence, Posada–a k a
Bambi, Comisario Basilio and Ramon
Medina–has  practiced the art of sabotage,
bombing and attempted assassination for
much of  his 78 years. Yet unlike the way
that many terror suspects with Middle
Eastern names have been rounded up by
US authorities and detained indefinitely
under special anti-terrorism provisions, the
Department of Homeland Security has
chosen to treat the Posada problem as a
simple “illegal entry” immigration
proceeding.

Any “special circumstances” appear to have
more to do with Posada’s  tenure with the
CIA in the 1960s, his politically powerful
right-wing  Cuban-American allies in
Florida and with Washington’s hostile
relationship with Venezuela, from where, in
1985, Posada escaped from incarceration as
a  mastermind of the October 6, 1976,
midair bombing of Cubana Flight 455,
which killed all seventy-three passengers
on board.

Since Posada was arrested May 17, 2005,
after sneaking into the United States and
flaunting his presence in Miami for almost
two months, the Administration has
struggled to avoid the political problems of
prosecuting him as well as the hypocrisy of
setting him free. For more than a year, the
Administration has refused to respond to a
formal extradition petition filed by
Venezuela and instead has sought to
deport Posada to a third country other
than Venezuela or Cuba. (If the
Administration denied the petition
outright, it would be obligated under the
1973 Montreal Convention to put Posada
on trial for that crime in the  United
States.) So far, as described in court records, US officials have  attempted “to
secure travel documents” for Posada to
Canada, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, El
Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala. All have
said no.

Only in March, when the court was poised
to release Posada on bail, did the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
office issue an “Interim Decision to
Continue Detention” identifying his
proclivity for terrorism. “You have a history
of engaging in criminal activity, associating
with individuals involved in criminal
activity, and participating in violent acts
that indicate a disregard for the safety of
the general public,” the ICE stated in a
letter to Posada. “Due to your long history
of criminal activity and violence in which
innocent civilians were killed, your release
from detention would pose a danger to
both the community and the national
security of the United States.”

But that letter is insufficient to hold
Posada, according to Garney’s  R&R; the
evidence behind it or a certification by
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that
Posada is a terrorist must be presented to
the immigration court.

Certainly the evidence is overwhelming.
The Posada files include court records  of
his conviction in Panama on charges of
endangering public safety after he was
caught in November 2000 with thirty-three
pounds of C-4 explosives in yet another
plot to assassinate Castro; his admissions
in 1997 to Ann Louise Bardach of the New
York Times that he had orchestrated a
series of hotel bombings in Havana that
took the life of an Italian businessman; and
volumes of US intelligence documents that
identify him as one of the perpetrators of
the 1976 bombing of the Cubana jet. “We
are going to hit a Cuban airplane,” a secret
CIA intelligence cable reported Posada as
saying days before the aircraft exploded
after takeoff from Barbados.

As the thirtieth anniversary of that atrocity
approaches, Posada has become a litmus
test of George W. Bush’s mantra that no
nation should harbor terrorists  and that
every nation must do its part in bringing
those who commit acts of terrorism to
justice. Families of those who perished on
the plane are bringing  pressure on the
Administration to hold Posada
accountable. In Cuba the Communist Party
newspaper, Granma, published a
declaration on September 19 from the
Comit de Familiares de las Victimas that
stated, “Unlike the families of the  9/11
victims…we know where those who
assassinated our families are, who is
protecting them, and who is harboring
them.” In a letter dated September 20 to
Attorney General Gonzales, Roseanne
Nenninger, the sister of Raymond Persaud,
a 19-year-old Guyanese medical student
killed on the plane, appealed “in the name
of justice for my brother, and the other 72
passengers of that doomed plane,”  for
Posada to be certified as a terrorist. “If Luis
Posada Carriles does not  meet the
definition of a terrorist,” she noted, “it is
truly hard to imagine who  does.”

Even so, the White House appears
internally conflicted on how or even
whether to proceed. On September 21 the
Justice Department filed papers requesting
an extension to respond to Garney. The
government’s motion labeled Posada “an
admitted criminal” and “a terrorist alien”
whose release “could have significant
national and foreign relations
consequences.” But “due to the nature and
complexity of the case,” government
lawyers declared, “additional time is
necessary to conclude the consultations
and deliberations within the United States
Government.”

The extension request, through October 5,
means that the Administration’s decision
will likely become public on the actual
anniversary of the bombing of Cubana
Flight 455. It is against that historic
backdrop of the most heinous act of
international terrorism ever committed in
Latin America that the fate of Luis  Posada
Carriles could be determined–and along
with it, the credibility of the  President’s
anti-terrorist campaign.