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Co-editors: Seán Mac Mathúna • John Heathcote
Consulting editor: Themistocles Hoetis
Field Correspondent: Allen Hougland
Echoes of Lockerbie
Seán Mac Mathúna
e-mail: thefantompowa@fantompowa.org

 

George Herbert Walker Bush accused of war crimes by Sean Mac Mathuna

POSADA CARRILES THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD CIA and FBI Documents Detail

Echoes of Lockerbie:

CIA links to blowing up of Cuban airliner exposed

USA exposed again as state sponsor of terrorism

Family members of Capt. Wilfredo P who was killed in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane.

 

Massive controversy now surrounds the fate of one of the CIA's leading terrorists now detained in the USA.

The story of Luis Posada Carriles contradicts the whole stance the US has taken in its bogus "war on terror".

Here is a terrorist, directly implicated in a classic act of terrorism - the blowing up of a civilian airliner - but this is no "normal" terrorist: Carriles was a long-term CIA agent in numerous CIA sponsored terrorist groups- such at CORU- who waged a "dirty war" against states like Cuba and opponents of US foreign policy.

The whole case has had huge media coverage one central fact is missing.

Not only did Carriles work for the CIA and is directly implicated in the attack on the airliner; but these events happened when a certain George Herbert Walker Bush, was director of the CIA - a post he held from 30th January 1976 until 20 January 1977.

Bush, the former US President has always been closely connected to the Cuban exiles, who are mainly based in Florida. His son, Jeb is now Governor of Florida and of course his other son, George W. is the current US President.

When he was arrested in 2005, his lawyer announced that Posada is asking the Bush administration for asylum because of the work he had done for the CIA in the 1960s.

This coincided with CIA records being released that confirm Posada was an agent in the 1960s and early 1970s, and remained an informant in regular contact with CIA officials at least until June 1976.

This, of course, links Carriles ultimately to the then CIA director, George Bush and begs the question: exactly what did Bush know about these attacks - and what was his involvement ?

When these kind of links were made with Libya and the Lockerbie bombing it was front page news - why then keep the President's father out of the picture ?

Back in Spring 1999, Flame reported on the involvement of the George Bush senior, the former US President and CIA director and his links to terrorism in Latin America in the 1970s. We detailed the background to the blowing up of a Cuban Airlines plane shortly after it took of from Barbados on 6th October 1976. The attack, which was claimed by a then new Cuban exile terrorist group called CORU, killed 73 people, including the entire Cuban Olympic championship fencing team.

The good thing about the arrest of Carriles is that is had led to even more information being released from the official archive of various US government departments confirming the role of the CIA in this case and its general involvement in certain types of state terrorism - the case of the murder of Orlando Letelier and the attack on the Cuban airliner in 1987 - both when Bush was CIA Director.

For example, on May 18, 2005, the National Security Archive released documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cuban airliner.

Another document showed that the FBI's attach? in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.

In addition, the Archive posted the first report to the alleged (!) war criminal, Henry Kissinger from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research on the bombing of Cubana flight 455.

The report noted that a CIA source had overheard Posada prior to the bombing in late September 1976 stating that, "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner." This information was apparently not passed to the CIA until after the plane went down.

Other declassified CIA and FBI records released by the National Security Archive at George Washington University identify Posada Carriles as one of the "engineer[s]" of the attack on the airliner.

The Archive also posted a second FBI report, dated one day after the bombing, in which a confidential source: ". . . all but admitted that Posada and [Orlando] Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline."

In October 1976, the CIA admitted that it "had a relationship with one person whose name has been mentioned in connection with the reported bombing" . . . Luis Posada Carriles.

A secret intelligence Report, "Suspected Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados" released by the FBI from 1976 notes that a confidential source has identified Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch as responsible for the bombing: "The source all but admitted that Posada and Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline."

The recent demands by Cuba and Venezuela for Carriles to be extradited to face justice have placed the Bush Administration in a conundrum. On one hand, it cannot grants asylum to Luis Posada Carriles because this would negate its so-called "war on terrorism", which is supposed to be a bastion against those nations that offer "harbor or refuge terrorists".

But if it denies asylum to Carriles, it turns it back on a powerful and influential CIA sponsored terrorist - and who is to say that if he is sent back to Venezuela he would not want to call George Bush as a witness in his trial - and reveal even more embarrassing secrets for the Bush familyalong with their links to the Cuban exiles in Florida.

His trial would expose the "war on terrorism" for what it is.

After all, as Cuba has noted you cannot have "good" terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles and "bad" terrorists (like Bin Laden).

It appears that the US thinks that it can. The US is also in an awkward position because any extradition here would be victory for both Hugo Chavaz and Fidel Castro who have both really put the pressure on for the USA to extradite Luis Posada Carriles.

It could even lead to a break in diplomatic relations between these countries. Such are the contradictions in this case most of the mainstream western media have chosen not to cover it at all.

Relatives of Cuba's national fencing team and teachers that died in 1976 plane bombing.

 

 

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