Bush' Justice/Anti-Cuban Terrorism: Long Succession of Scandals Ignored

[magbana]

From Karen Wald's Cuba-Inside- Out list

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/vier29/09llama.html
I N T E R N A T I O N A L

Havana. February 29, 2008

BUSH'S JUSTICE AND ANTI-CUBAN TERRORISM
A long succession of scandals that have been ignored

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD -Granma International staff writer-

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.

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.

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.

Despite the serious nature of a confession by Llama on June 22 in an interview with The Miami Herald 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.

Neither of the two agents ever showed the least intention of taking Llama to court.

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.

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.

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.

Years before Llama's statement to the Herald, Posada had already confessed to The New York Times 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.

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.

Neither of these investigations ever happened.

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.

Likewise, on August 26, 1998, prosecutors forgot to include Francisco "Pepe" Hernández Calvo on the list of defendants implicated in the terrorist plot involving La Esperanza yacht in Puerto Rico, right before the trial was to begin in Miami. They were all acquitted for "lack of evidence."

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.

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.

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All terrorists

Llama's confession in June 1998 to the Herald, 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.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Keeping this article for future reference. Hope there will be more about this ahead.

What a shame they've had so much protection here, and given so much encouragement to butt in destructively where they don't belong.

If these assholes want to interact with honest Cubans they need to do it honorably, not in this cowardly, filthy way. That stupid stunt in conspiring to bomb Cuba during a protest is so typical of deviants.

Thanks.