What the CIA now publicly acknowledges is not a thing of the past. As the facts prove, it is the present state of affairs. Next September 12, five Cubans, who endure unjust convictions for having combated U.S.-sponsored terrorist actions against Cuba, peacefully and without weapons, will have served nine years of harsh and arbitrary imprisonment.

For over two years, the worst murderer in the hemisphere has been living in the United States, enjoying Bush's protection.

By releasing Luis Posada Carriles, the current U.S. administration has shown its true face: an abettor and promoter of international terrorism.

Bush tears to shreds the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, which oblige him to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela or to try him in U.S. courts for the mid-air bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner on October 6, 1973 and for the murder of 73 people.

Bush also takes no heed of Resolution 1373 of 2001, approved by the UN Security Council at the instance of his administration, which demands that all states respect those conventions, that they do not harbor any terrorists and that they guarantee such terrorists do not evade justice. By harboring Posada Carriles, the U.S. government insults its own people, particularly the victims of September 11, 2001, and violates its own laws, including the controversial Patriot Act, conceived to incarcerate thousands of people within and outside U.S territory, but conveniently neglected in the case of an anti-Cuban terrorist.

As affirmed by the judge who reviewed the unimaginative charges of migratory fraud, with which the district attorney's office seeks to deceive public opinion and spare Posada Carriles a trial for his true crimes, Posada Carriles participated in or "was associated with some of the most infamous events of twentieth-century Central America". Those events include “the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Iran-Contra affair, the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455, the tourist bombings of 1997 in Havana and even – according to some conspiracy theorists – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy".

Bush's decision, not unlike that of his father with respect to Posada Carriles' partner Orlando Bosch, who is also a confessed murderer, reveals how Washington connives with international terrorism when it suits its interests and is expressive of an immoral double standard.

Making a mockery of justice, U.S. authorities protect a notorious criminal while they impose unjust and cruel imprisonment upon Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, whose one crime was fighting against terrorism, without causing anyone any harm. This scandalous injustice continues in spite of the call for the immediate release of the Five made throughout the world, a demand which has also been made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.

The actions of the Bush administration clearly reveal its intention of continuing to use the most detestable methods against Cuba. The CIA documents reveal some of the efforts aimed at assassinating comrade Fidel Castro and to bring death and pain to our people. The hypocritical protection afforded Posada Carriles and the shameful punishment of our five anti-terrorist activists are irrefutable proof that those vile intentions, now acknowledged, are not a thing of the past but rather continue to be part of the policy of current US administrations.

Those who harbour murderers and seek to destroy the Cuban Revolution should know that, sooner rather than later, the peoples of the world shall call on them to account for their actions and that the noble people of the United States shall one day undo the wrongs brought them by this affront to their dignity. They should know that we Cubans are determined to hold our ground and to struggle to guarantee our homeland's freedom and independence, that, next to Fidel and Raúl, we shall defend our socialist Revolution at the cost of our very lives, fulfilling Maceo's fateful promise: "whosoever attempts to conquer Cuba shall reap only its blood-soaked earth, if they do not perish, before, in the struggle". 

National Assembly of the People's Power of the Republic of Cuba

Havana, June 29, 2007

“YEAR 49 OF THE REVOLUTION”

(AIN)