Some News...

THE CREATION OF BISCET

Tomorrow, our three favorite members of Congress (Ileana, Lincoln and Mario) will be making an important presentation at Mario Diaz-Balart's Miami district office. Beginning around 10:30am, the three will officially inaugurate their Oscar Elias Biscet awareness campaign, recent winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Part of the campaign was reported by Pablo Bachelet for the Miami Herald on Monday:

"Miami Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Monday, Biscet supporters will begin an awareness campaign on U.S. college campuses with T-shirts and other items, calling Biscet 'a new hero for a new Cuba.' Among the campuses: University of Miami, Miami Dade College and Florida International University."

The three members of Congress called in to Radio Mambi Wednesday evening (between 6-6:30pm) detailing some of the event, which will include a video about Biscet. On the show, Mario Diaz-Balart, still delighted by Pres. Bush's recent speech on Cuba, made sure to let listeners know that if you don't spend at least sometime EACH DAY being active for a Free Cuba, then you "don't deserve to be called Cuban."


THE IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT IN CHILE

The 17th Ibero-American Summit began yesterday, and so far most of its invited guests which include all Latin American nations, Spain, Portugal and Andorra, have made the trip to Chile. Cuba's Vice-President, Carlos Lage, was in attendance for the Summit and appeared on Chilean television saying that Fidel Castro was "reading, studying, analyzing, offering ideas, thoughts, giving us ideas for us to continue the battle for the ideals of justice and solidarity to which he has dedicated his entire life."

There are indications that members of the Summit have already "approved a special communiqué" that condemns the US embargo towards Cuba and supports the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. These resolutions against US policy have been persistent at the Summit since 2005 and 2006.


MIAMI BOOK FAIR INTERNATIONAL

This Sunday, Ann Louise Bardach, author of several articles and books on Cuba (and famed interviewer of Luis Posada Carriles) will be present at the Miami Book Fair, among several other famed authors. Bardach has recently released The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro, and is scheduled to release a new book next year titled Without Fidel: The Death of Castro and Other Tales.

Bardach will be present with Patrick Symmes, long-time travel writer, and famed author of Chasing Che, the book which soon became the film The Motorcycle Diaries. Symmes is the recent author of The Boys from Dolores: Fidel Castro's Classmates from Revolution to Exile and, with Bardach, will present a discussion titled "Portrait of [Fidel] Castro as a Young Man" at 3pm [PDF of Sunday Schedule].

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The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro produces letters that began in 1953, after Fidel Castro was arrested for his attack on the Moncada Barracks. One of the persons that Fidel wrote to was Luis Conte Agüero, a former close friend, but today one of his fiercest opponents. Conte Agüero has his own show on a local Spanish station (TeleMiami) which runs weekdays from 11am to noon. He's a hard-liner who describes his intransigence in the memory of Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, 19th Century heroes for Cuban independence.

But, before the conflict between Fidel Castro and Conte Agüero, he wrote with great praise of Fidel as the leader of the 1959 Revolution, and included in the prologue of the original release of 1959's The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro:

"This is Fidel Castro Ruz: Endurance, sacrifice, stoicism, study, brotherhood, foresight and destiny, beating heart, closed fist, will to make history; flower and firearm, bread and spirit, milk and spear, land and dream."

Today, Conte Agüero writes that Fidel "subverted and defiled the eternal values of liberty." But, its revealed that Fidel Castro was very clear in his letters to Conte Agüero of being a communist and opposed to freedom of speech. In a great article by Meg Laughlin for the St. Petersburg Times, Laughlin points out that Fidel laid out his plans "to take land and sugar profits from the wealthy and redistribute them to sharecroppers and workers." Furthermore, Fidel specifically wrote to Conte Agüero that "[t]he apparatus of propaganda and organization should be so powerful as to implacably destroy anyone trying to create fissures, cabals, and schisms or to rise against the movement." Conte Agüero seemed to not be bothered by these personal statements when he wrote his prologue in 1959.

Today, Laughlin gets a reply from Conte Agüero saying: "Communism did not occur to me at the time." And, concerning the use of propaganda to "implacably destroy" their opponents, Conte Agüero says: "In the very early days, it was necessary for consolidation."

There you have it. Power certainly corrupts.

No Defense for Terror (Part 11)

Reporter Ann Louise Bardach, who has interviewed Luis Posada Carriles extensively, mentioned the lack of evidence at Posada's first trial in an interview on Democracy Now! (October 10, 2006):

"... almost all the evidence was ruled inadmissible. It was really stunning. All the police reports from Trinidad, the confessions of Ricardo and Lugo, all the reports out of Barbados, every shred of evidence that was extraordinarily compelling was ruled inadmissible on of the grounds of, guess what? They said, 'Well, the interviews were done in an English-speaking country,' even though there were, you know, certified Spanish language translators involved at all times. So they threw out the file -- so there was no evidence. So once you got a judge to declare it inadmissible, what was there to try Bosch [or Posada] on? So, not surprisingly, he did win an acquittal. And I found that one of the more interesting points, because you hear this endlessly in Miami, how he won an acquittal."

But, let's examine the evidence that was left to the judge, and supported by Fontova.

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THE ROYAL ARMAMENT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHMENT

So, some of you might be asking: but didn't Ricardo Morales Navarrete confess to the 1976 bombing? And, thus, Fontova (or Posada) isn't totally wrong to blame Morales, right?

Correct, Fontova is partially right to blame Morales, but the evidence he provides doesn't add up.

The centerpiece to Fontova's defense lies with the examination of the forensic evidence by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE). RARDE was part of several defense establishments in the UK , which in 1991 together became the Defence Research Agency, and has gone through many changes over the years.

RARDE provided the results of their scientific examination of the Cubana flight wreckage (what was found floating) to the Venezuelan courts. According to Jay Ducassi*, reporting for the Herald, the "controversial 1980 verdict that acquitted Miami Cuban militant Orlando Bosch in one of history's most deadly plane bombings was strongly influenced by a British expert's investigation of the explosion."

The British expert in question was an aeronautics engineer named Erick Newton who was an investigator of aerial accidents for the British Royal Air Force. A man who definitely seems qualified (with 33 years of experience in this department) to investigate the Cubana flight bombing. But, it is not known how many bombing investigations he has done in all his years, unless bombings are frequent in the Royal Air Force.

But, what Fontova forgets to mention (also Ducassi) is the fact that Newton was not alone in his investigations, he had help. And how odd that his help came from a former subordinate of Luis Posada Carriles when Posada worked for the Venezuelan intelligence agency DISIP.

Carlos Fabbri was chief of DISIP's Explosives Department under Posada for two years, and an expert in the field of explosives (with an impressive resume). In a 1980 interview with a publication called ELITE, Fabbri said that he knew Posada was his boss, but only knew him by sight and never met him.

According to a declassified FBI document, a "confidential source who has furnished reliable information in the past" said that "Fabri [sic] and Posada Carriles are good friends and that [both] had actually been arrested a couple of years ago by Venezuelan authorities after it was learned they provided false documentation and explosives to Dr. Orlando Bosch Avila in Venezuela at that time."

*[The Miami Herald, May 15, 1983, "Bosch's Acquittal Hinged on British Expert's Views" by Jay Ducassi.]

[Part 12]

Looking for the Truth

Been busy, but plan to post big soon on the ongoing case of Luis Posada Carriles (he's not off the hook YET). Some time back I was carefully looking at one of Enrique Encinosa's arguments defending Luis Posada Carriles. The article, titled La Verdad sobre Luis Posada (The Truth about Luis Posada), is in fact very far from the "Truth." Doing some simple research on his allegations shows that Encinosa conveniently leaves out a lot of information that contradicts his side of the story. It's embarassing.

Anyway, my next post will definitely target most of the popular "defenses" and defenders of Luis Posada Carriles. I will try to show that there really is no defense for people who have long and undeniable histories of violence. Those who attempt to, end up sacrificing any form of logic and rationale, contradicting their very own principles.

This may explain why some prefer not to directly comment on Posada's or Orlando Bosch's past violent history, and prefer to obviate by describing them as heroes, thus automatically justifying all their prior actions as noble. This method has its limits, especially in the face of facts.

Late last month, Nick Welsh for the Santa Barbara Independent wrote about Ann Louise Bardach, the journalist who extensively interviewed Posada Carriles in 1998. Welsh reminds us that the FBI has been very active in its investigation on Luis Posada Carriles, in an attempt to be "consistent with our global-war-on-terror rhetoric," but also suggests that the Justice Department may have something else up their sleeve, which may be good news for Posada Carriles, and bad for Ann Louise Bardach.

Welsh recounts how the FBI has repeatedly subpoenaed Bardach for important information on Posada Carriles (ever since they mysteriously destroyed their Posada files in 2003), and how they may be deliberately targeting Bardach "precisely because they know she’ll put up a fight" (Bardach has refused to hand over her notes on Posada Carriles to the government).

The rationale by the FBI may be the based on the fact that "the feds can’t afford to go after Carriles because of what he knows and what he might say. But because of the administration’s so-called war on terror, the feds can’t afford to give him a pass either. The best solution... is to orchestrate an impasse."

Provided that the FBI has been to Cuba to collect facts, and shown others positive signs, there seems to be a strong case to charge Luis Posada Carriles in the US. Welsh also writes that Bardach "contends the government already has more than enough information to nail Carriles to the wall." But, there also seems to be a growing motivation to allow the federal investigation to stall, and maybe even collapse with a simple order by the executive branch.

It seems that only time will tell.

Enrique Encinosa in the Spotlight

Aside from Ileana's supporting role in the documentary "638 Ways to Kill Castro," Univision's own Enrique Encinosa plays a small role as "man who justifies terrorism."(my title)

Just yesterday, I posted Encinosa's comment about what he thinks Cubans should do with a thousand boxes of matches. Well, now its pretty clear that Radio Mambi's Enrique Encinosa, who works as their news editor, favors terrorist methods. In this part of the documentary, when he's asked about the hotel bombings in Cuba in 1997, Encinosa replies:

"I personally think its an acceptable method. Its a way of damaging the tourist economy. The message that [almost says YOU, as if he's done it before]... one tries to get across is that Cuba is not a healthy place for tourists. So, if Cuba is not a healthy place for tourist, because there's a few windows being blown out of hotels, that's fine."

There's an interesting psychology involved here. It seems that acceptance for this form of terrorism, which seems to target property only and not civilians, totally denies the fact that there are financial victims nonetheless. And, furthermore, does not account for use of explosives, which can cause accidental bodily harm, or death. Incidentally, the bombing campaign in '97 led to the death of an Italian tourist, of which suspected terrorist mastermind Luis Posada Carriles responded: "It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop... That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time.''

According to the US Department of Defense, terrorism is defined as:

"... the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."

There's no question that Posada Carriles' aims are political, and not alone economically focused. In his 1998 interview with Ann Louise Bardach, Posada Carriles passed her a three-page manifesto that read at one point:

"The absence of freedom of expression, of freedom of movement for a hungry people oppressed and terrorized by communist repression... This gives all free Cubans a right to take up arms against the tyrant, using violence or whatever means at our disposal to derail this terrible system and bring freedom to our country."

Enrique Encinosa has mentioned many times on radio that he keeps in touch with Posada Carriles, who is now in prison for federal charges, and how he's a patriot above all. Just last week, Encinosa said that if things get worse, Posada Carriles was prepared to hunger strike to his death!

I can't say I would admire such an act.