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November 2005

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Injustice is Justice

By Tom Crumpacker
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November 2005
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In George Orwell’s novel 1984 the rulers of Oceania, by their language of newthink and process of doublethink, convince the masses that statements formerly considered irrational were rational. The Party’s slogans, accepted by the ruled, include War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength. Our U.S. rulers seem to have us well along these same paths, with new realities surfacing each year. Another one, Injustice Is Justice, became apparent to some of us in the press who were permitted to attend the Luis Posada Carriles asylum hearing before Homeland Security immigration judge William Abbott in El Paso, Texas this past September. 

By way of background, what is known publicly about Posada is that as a young man he worked in Havana in enforcement for the Batista regime and came to the U.S. in 1960. In the CIA-directed Bay of Pigs invasion, he and his partner Orlando Bosch joined CIA Operation 40, made up of sharpshooters whose job was to murder the leaders of Cuba’s government. When the invasion failed, the CIA sent him to the School of the Americas where he trained with explosives and learned interrogation by torture. 

During the 1960s Posada was involved in the CIA’s Operation Mongoose (murderous incursions into Cuba). He also ran the CIA’s demolition school in Florida and made some deadly forays into other countries, such as blowing up the Soviet Library in Mexico City. In 1972 the CIA sent him to Caracas with substantial bomb-making materials and equipment to work with the Venezuelan intelligence agency, DISIP. The secretary general of DISIP, Joachim Chaffardet, made Posada the head of his “special services,” which involved teaching demolitions and interrogating people by torture. 

In 1975 Posada left DISIP and opened a detective agency (in reality a CIA cover) in Caracas  with Chaffardet as his silent partner. On October 6, the two employees of the agency, former DISIP agents Lugar and Ricardo, placed a bomb in the restroom of a civilian Cubana airliner, which blew up in midair after leaving Barbados for Havana, killing all 73 civilians aboard. After apprehension, Lugar and Ricardo confessed that Posada and Bosch had directed the operation and this participation is confirmed by recently declassified CIA, FBI, and State Department records. All four were charged in Venezuela; the other three were eventually convicted, but Posada escaped in 1985, shortly before his verdict was to be handed down. (The CIA allegedly bribed the guards.) Venezuelan law prevented the court from proceeding with Posada’s case in his absence. 

Posada went to work in El Salvador in the Iran-Contra supply operation being run by CIA agent Felix Rodriguez (who murdered Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967) and by Colonel Oliver North out of the White House. Subsequently Posada helped in Operation Condor (involving the CIA and DISP, the Chilean intelligence service), which exterminated many South American progressives. He also worked as a security agent for the Guatamalan dictatorship in the late 1980s. From El Salvador he masterminded and directed the 1997 Havana tourist hotel bombings. He was finally caught in 2000 in Panama City with 30 pounds of explosives in his car, intending to kill Castro at a speech to be given at a local university. Last year the U.S.-friendly president of Panama pardoned Posada and his three Miami cohorts and Posada returned to the U.S. this March. After a Miami press conference in May, Homeland Security took him into custody and charged him with failure to report to them on entry. 

In reviewing Posada’s known career, the Bush family name appears on several occasions. In 1960 Bush senior was running his oil company, Zapata Drilling, out of Houston. He was also recruiting for the CIA’s planned Bay of Pigs invasion and some CIA meetings allegedly were held in Zapata offices. After the Bay of Pigs failure, Bush senior was critical of the Kennedy administration’s effort there and he urged a new invasion of Cuba. 

In 1976, when Bush senior was made CIA director, he put in charge of special operations the head of the Miami CIA station, who had been and continued to be Posada’s direct supervisor. In 1976 the CIA urged the various violent anti-Castro groups in Florida and New Jersey, such as Omega 7 and Alpha 66, to merge under one authority, which was called CORU and was headed by Bosch. At that time Zapata had drilling contracts in Venezuela and Jeb Bush (now governor of Florida) was working for a Texas bank in Caracas. According to recently declassified reports, the CIA, which had offices, operatives, and assets in Caracas (besides Posada), was at least aware of the two failed attempts to bomb Cubana civilian airliners in the summer of 1976. About a week before the successful bombing on October 6 it received a report, “We’re going to hit the Cuban airliner,” from an “informant” —likely Posada. 

As CIA director, Bush senior did not warn potential passenger/crews of any of the pending attacks on Cubana airliners, nor did he advise President Ford of these projects. The CIA tried to get Posada and Bosch out of Venezuela before they could be charged and helped in the successful effort to delay court proceedings. Bush senior was vice president in 1985 when Posada was helped to escape Venezuelan custody. In 1985-87 Bush senior’s assistant was getting direct reports from Posada’s partner Felix Rodriguez (a Bush senior personal friend) in the Contra supply operation. Bush senior was president in 1990 when he deferred Bosch’s deportation, thereby allowing him to live freely in Miami. This overruled the strong recommendation of his own Justice Department, which had implicated Bosch in over 50 terrorist crimes both inside and outside the U.S. Bush junior was president last fall when the outgoing president of Panama pardoned Posada. 

When it became apparent this spring that Posada was living in Miami, Venezuela requested that he be extradited to Caracas to complete his trial there and asked that he be held in custody until the extradition court determined the matter (the request was denied). In May, Secretary of State Rice, who must make the decision on filing the extradition case, indicated vaguely that she was going to wait for the immigration matter before deciding. On June 15, Venezuela filed its formal extradition demand, with 500 pages of overwhelming evidence that Posada committed the 1976 Cubana murders in Venezuela, in addition to interrogating people by torture there. Although U.S. law is clear that extradition takes precedence over deportation, the State Department has neither done nor said anything about extradition, except to indicate its opinion that the law is being followed. 

At the deportation hearing, Posada agreed his entry was illegal. During cross examination he eventually withdrew his claim for asylum, stating through his lawyer that his further testimony on this issue might “embarrass” the U.S. and endanger its security, which he didn’t want to do. However, Posada continues to seek protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which has been his only real claim all along. CAT provides that deportation or extradition will be deferred where the deportee or accused shows “by a clear probability” that the deportee or accused will be tortured by the receiving country. 

The only torture evidence offered by Posada was the testimony of his old friend and supervisor in DISIP, Chaffardet, who opined that Posada likely would be tortured in Venezuela. His evidence was equivocal, often using words like “subjected to humiliation or torture.” His opinion was not based on knowledge of the Venezuelan system, but on one case. He claimed that when he was in court once last year, the three men accused of murdering Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson were brought in three days after their arrest with black eyes and swollen lips. (At the time of his death, Anderson was investigating U.S. funding through the NED and CIA of the prior Chavez coup and recall.) Chaffardet also testified that he “agreed with” a U.S. State Department report, which said the three men’s “lawyers alleged” they had received electric shocks, and the judge called for an investigation, which had not been completed. 

The U.S. lawyers did not cross examine Chaffardet. He came across as a respected, reputable lawyer. If they had brought out his relationship to the 1976 Cubana airliner bombing, his credibility would have been destroyed. Obviously he doesn’t want Posada to face a trial because his own participation in the bombing, as well as the CIA’s, would be exposed. Lawyers’ allegations are not evidence and one incident, even if true, does not condemn an entire system, especially when the incident is being investigated. Judge Abbott, however, said this was sufficient to make a “prima facie” case and he will defer Posada’s deportation. 

It doesn’t seem rational or just to protect a CIA mass murderer and torturer from facing justice out of fear he’ll be tortured where there’s no real evidence that he will be tortured. If there is no rational explanation, the only thesis must be the Orwellian one: in the U.S. today, injustice is justice. 

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