Castro: US ignored its offers on counterterrorism

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Castro: US ignored its offers on counterterrorism
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 6, 2010; 6:12 PM

HAVANA -- Raul Castro says the U.S. has ignored Cuban overtures to cooperate on counterterrorism.

Cuba decided Wednesday to make Oct. 6 its annual "Victims of State Terrorism Day." In a speech, Castro said the island offered 2001 and 2002 proposals for "bilateral cooperation to fight against terrorism."

It repeated the offer last year.

The U.S. made no reply, said Castro, who accused Washington of harboring Luis Posada Carriles, accused of involvement in 1990s Cuban hotel attacks and in the bombing of a Cuban jetliner.

Castro said his country urges President Barack Obama to "abide by his commitment to fight terrorism and act with determination and without double standards against those who, from U.S. territory, have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate terrorist acts against Cuba."



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100605947.html

[Chan790]

1. Third rule of the study of political violence.

Every "terrorist" is someone else's "freedom fighter".

That said, there is no good reason to not turn over Posada; even if there is a fine-line between terrorism and resistance, targeting civilians puts him on the wrong side of that line.

[Billy Burnett]

2. More "American exceptionalism".

[defendandprotect]

3. Go Castro--!! but, evidently Obama now thinks that Americans are a bigger terrorist

threat than foreigners!!!

[JohnyCanuck]

4. What Henry Kissenger and the FBI knew about Cubana Flight 455 Bombing

“Representatives from Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, China and Barbados gathered today at the Cubana monument site in Paynes Bay, St James and laid wreaths in memory of those killed in the deadly attack.” (From The Nation)

Why didn’t the representative from the United States attend the Cubana memorial service in Barbados?

Most of our readers from the United States of America probably have no idea of the roll that their government played in the bombing of a Cubana airliner full of innocent people. After all these years, many of the declassified documents from American government archives prove the US involvement.

Each of our good American readers owe it to themselves, to their country and to the world to investigate the Cubana bombing to the best of their ability. You can’t change what your government has done, and you probably can’t change the USA’s stonewalling of the truth – but you can know for yourself what the truth is…

33 34 years after the terror bombing of a Cuban airliner, the United States continues to protect the guilty

(Also see Rickey Singh’s October 5, 2010 article Revisiting the Cuban tragedy)

On October 6, 1976, anti-Castro terrorists murdered seventy-three people on Cubana Flight 455 off Barbados.

Declassified letters and reports (like below from FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley to Henry Kissenger) show that the United States Government knew of the plot beforehand and not only that: they knew exactly who was involved almost four months before the bombing.

http://barbadosfreepress.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/what-henry-kissenger-and-the-fbi-knew-about-cubana-flight-455-bombing

[Judi Lynn]

5. The only honorable thing the US can do about this mass murder on board the Cubana airliner

is to allow Luis Posada Carriles, former CIA operative to stand trial in one of the two countries which have total rights in prosecuting him. Anything less is conspicuous criminality by the US government.

~~~~~Cubana crash remembered
10/7/2010
By Erica Lazare

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Maxine McClean, joined the Cuban Ambassador to Barbados, Lisette Pérez Pérez and Juan Carlos Valdez González, Venezuelan Ambassador and Dean of the Diplomatic Core, in laying reefs yesterday at the Cubana Airlines memorial monument in St. James to mark the 34th anniversary of the deadly crash in Barbados’ waters.

Ambassador Perez and Senator McClean laid the first reef on behalf of the victims. The Minister then placed another at the monument’s base on behalf of the Government and the people of Barbados. The final commemorative reef was laid by Valdez González on behalf of the Diplomatic Core.

Pérez, who was recently appointed by the Cuban Government to this post, presented her credentials to the Governor General yesterday during a formal ceremony.

Also present at the memorial, which began promptly at noon, were the Ambassadors of China and Brazil to Barbados and President of the Clement Payne Movement, David Comissiong.

On October 6, 1976, Flight CU-455 was scheduled to fly from Guyana to Havana, Cuba via Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica. The journey was never completed after an onboard bomb, caused the plane to go down off the island’s West Coast.

All 73 passengers, including flight crew, died. Among them were 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five North Koreans. These included several Cuban and Korean Government officials, Guyanese medical students, and the young wife of a Guyanese diplomat. Also onboard were 24 members of the 1975 Cuban national fencing team. The team was returning home, having won all gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championships.

More:
http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=local&NewsID=13185

[Judi Lynn]

6. Opinion Leaders Hold Forth While Dodd Visits Cuba

Opinion Leaders Hold Forth While Dodd Visits Cuba

The Havana Note
October 04, 2010
John McAuliff

Breaking news: Senator Christopher Dodd is in Cuba. Is this a pre-retirement last hurrah as chair of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Might he be laying the groundwork for a valedictory lame-duck initiative to end travel restrictions?
Radio Marti speculated his visit was connected to resolving the Alan Gross problem. That's nice to imagine, but seems unlikely unless the US somehow acknowledges that Gross violated Cuban law on three counts (a democracy project funded by USAID, inappropriate use of a tourist visa, providing illegal satellite transmission equipment).

Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations has an excellent op ed published in the International Herald Tribune and on the New York Times web page contrasting change in Cuba with inertia in Washington. Here is part of it:

In one example, senior political advisers in the White House recently shut down the revival of a Clinton administration "people-to-people" program ­ one approved over the summer by President Obama, his secretary of state and sub-cabinet deputies from throughout the executive branch ­ to allow Americans tied to educational, cultural, religious and other nongovernmental organizations to travel to Cuba. Senate and House Democrats from Florida and New Jersey persuaded President Obama's political hands to stop the modest opening lest they inflame Cuban-American voters and jeopardize campaign contributions.

Such legislators also fear that by allowing some Americans to travel to Cuba, the White House could strengthen supporters of legislation to lift the entire travel ban, scheduled for a politically decisive vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee during the lame duck session of Congress. As with the White House, these legislators have lobbied their colleagues in the Congress that such a move will backfire against Democrats in 2010 and 2012 elections.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/cuba/7134.html