Center for International Policy

As printed in
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
February 10, 2007

Shelter terrorists and we damage credibility

By Wayne S. Smith

The Bush administration says it is leading an all-out struggle against terrorism. But in fact, the administration itself and influential members of the Florida congressional delegation have consistently taken positions which, in one way or another, support terrorism.

On Dec. 23, for example, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (lately tapped to become the top Republican on the House International Relations Committee) acknowledged that she had said in a recent interview that she would "welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people."

Wishing to see a political leader's defeat or downfall is one thing; calling for his assassination is quite another.

Bush has often said that "anyone who shelters a terrorist is a terrorist." And yet, as has been pointed out before, in cases involving President Bush himself; his brother, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida; various members of the Florida congressional delegation; and even former President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. is sheltering a whole series of terrorists.

The latest is the case of Luis Posada Carriles, who at one point confessed to being one of the masterminds of the bombing of a Cubana airliner in 1976 with the loss of 73 lives (though now he denies it). In a 1998 interview with The New York Times, he also acknowledged that he had directed the bombing of a number of tourist hotels in Havana, which left at least one dead and a dozen or so wounded.

In 2000, he was arrested in Panama and later convicted of "endangering public safety" because of his involvement in a plot to assassinate Castro by blowing up a public auditorium where he was to address some 1,500 people. Pardoned in August 2004, along with three cohorts, by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso (for reasons we shall examine below), Posasda turned up in Miami in March 2005. For weeks he was untouched by U.S. authorities, until he brazenly held a mid-May press conference; then the Department of Homeland Security felt compelled to take him into custody. And although the Venezuelan government had days earlier requested that the U.S. detain him for extradition, he was charged only with illegal entry and sent off to El Paso for an administrative hearing. Incredibly, he is still there.

The administration cannot simply release him, but accusing him of terrorism would infuriate the hard-liners in the Cuban-American community, who are already demonstrating on his behalf. And so, nothing at all is said about his terrorist acts, but he faces new charges of making false statements on his naturalization application and lying under oath.

Crucially, the Bush administration refuses to honor its treaty obligation to extradite him to Venezuela, where he was being held in prison for the Cubana bombing until escaping in 1985. On the basis of no evidence at all, the Bush administration contends that he would be tortured by the Venezuelans -- even though the latter have indicated he would be held under the most transparent conditions. So, rather than having him tried for his real crimes, thanks to the Bush administration, he will be held under comfortable conditions for making false statements.

And so what was it back in 2004 that persuaded Moscoso to pardon Posada? Why, because Ros-Lehtinen and her two congressional colleagues, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, wrote to her and urged that she pardon him, as well as three others involved in the plot: Guillermo Novo, who had been convicted of the 1976 murder in Washington of Orlando Letelier (though the conviction was later overturned); Gaspar Jimenez, who spent six years in prison in Mexico for trying to kidnap a Cuban diplomat and killing his bodyguard; and Pedro Remon, who had pleaded guilty in 1986 to trying to blow up the Cuban Mission to the United Nations.

Interestingly, upon signing the pardon, Moscoso called a former U.S. ambassador to Panama, Simon Ferro, to assure him that the deed was done.

Upon release, Novo, Jimenez and Remon all flew directly to Miami to a hero's welcome. Posada dropped off in Central America to wait for a more propitious moment, which, as we have seen, came in March 2005.

And thus, in a sense, history has repeated itself, for the other mastermind of the Cubana bombing, Orlando Bosch, when released from prison in Venezuela under mysterious circumstances in 1987, had returned to Miami the following year without a visa. The Immigration and Naturalization Service began proceedings to deport him, and, as the associate attorney general argued at the time: "The security of this nation is affected by its ability to urge credibly other nations to refuse aid and shelter to terrorists. We could not shelter Dr. Bosch and maintain that credibility."

But shelter him we did. Urged by the omnipresent Ros-Lehtinen and Jeb Bush, then managing her election campaign, the administration of George H.W. Bush allowed Bosch to remain as a permanent resident. He has lived freely ever since in Miami lately leading demonstrations demanding Posada's freedom.

Sheltering and supporting anti-Castro terrorists in Miami seriously undermines our credibility, and thus our security -- just as the associate attorney general warned back in 1989.

Wayne S. Smith, now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, 1979-82.