Campaign Launched to Extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela

[Joanne98]

Caracas, January 24, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Medea Benjamin, spokesperson for CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a well known anti-war group in the US, and Jesús Marrero from the Committee for the Extradition of Posada Carriles in Venezuela, held a joint press conference in Caracas today to demand the arrest and extradition to Venezuela of former CIA operative and international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

Described by Venezuela's Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, as the "Bin Laden of Latin America," Posada, a Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen, is wanted in Venezuela on 73 counts of first degree murder in connection to the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. Posada was charged over the bombing of the Cuban airliner in Venezuela, but escaped from prison in 1985 before going to trial. In an interview with the New York Times Posada has also freely admitted his involvement in numerous other terrorist attacks, including a string of hotel bombings in Cuba, which killed an Italian tourist in 1997.

Venezuela has sought the extradition of Posada since 2005, however the U.S. Department of Homeland Security initially decided to try Posada on the charge of illegal entry into the U.S. rather than to process the Venezuelan request for his extradition. Posada was freed from a U.S. jail in El Paso, in May last year after a federal judge dismissed the charges against him for illegally entering the U.S. and U.S. courts have ruled that he cannot be extradited to Venezuela on the grounds that he may be subjected to torture - a claim which the Venezuelan government says is baseless.

Since then he has been living freely in Miami where he spends his time at the Versailles Restaurant or the Big Five social club lounging by the pool, according to Benjamin. "He is even hosting an art exhibition because now he is an ‘artist'," she added.

"George Bush claims nations that ‘harbor terrorists...are just as guilty as the terrorists and will be held to account,' therefore our government should be held to account for supporting terrorism, because we have Luis Posada Carriles who is living in the United States," Benjamin said.

CODEPINK recently initiated a campaign to include Posada on the FBI's 20 "Most Wanted" terrorists and is demanding his immediate arrest. However, Benjamin explained that when they attempted to peacefully collect signatures for the arrest of Posada at the Versailles Restaurant in Miami on January 12 their car was attacked by a violent mob of Posada's supporters from the Cuban exile community who threw bottles and eggs. The FBI and Miami-Dade police, "did nothing" to guarantee our security she said.

Benajmin also pointed to the close links between the Bush family, Posada Carriles and Cuban exile community in Miami as an explanation for the reticence of the US government to act on the Posada Carriles case. "George Bush senior was chief of the CIA and knows well the movements of Posada when he was acting as an as an agent of the US government in Latin America. Jeb Bush was supported as governor of Florida by the same group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles that are now attempting to prevent actions agianst Posada."

The failure of the Bush administration to arrest and extradite Posada Carriles makes an absolute mockery of the so-called "war on terror," Benjamin added.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3097

[Judi Lynn]

1. She's so right, isn't she? People all over the world agree with her.

_Bush HAS made a mockery of our country protecting this bomber/mass murderer.

What else would you expect from a pResident who goes to Miami, and invites a Cuban "exile" terrorist to sit on the stage, behind him, while he gives a speech?



Sixto Reinaldo Aquit Manrique (aka, El Chino Aquit), sharing the platform with Bush in Miami, May 20, 2002. The UN Rapporteur cited Aquit firing a 50 caliber machine gun at a Cypriot tanker in Cuban waters in his 1994 annual report on human rights in Cuba.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00224.htm

(Photo's fuzzy as it was taken from a local Miami news program, with _Bush's image in the smaller picture-in-picture in the lower left corner.)

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Posada's claim is that he may be "tortured" in Venezuela, if he has to go there. He doesn't mention the fact to anyone publicly that when he, himself, headed the Venezuelan secret police, (don't know how you can swing THAT, it must have to do with his CIA connections) back in the 1980's, he tortured people, himself, and there are victims there who have identified him in statements.

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_Bush family ties to Cuban "exile" assassins, bombers, mass murderers go back a very long time with the father, to before the Bay of Pigs, and also include the porky _{Jebster, who, oddly enough, was a banker in Caracas, for a while.}