May 28, 2002

• The president avoids talking of ‘terrorism’ in front of his court of Miami terrorist capos... but then puts Cuba — victim of 40 years of U.S. terrorism — on the list of ‘terrorist’ countries • U.S. people held hostage by mafiosos?

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)

ON May 20, in Miami, almost one week after confessing that he knew before September 11 that terrorists were going to hijack commercial planes in U.S. territory, President George W. Bush suddenly abandoned his rhetoric of the last eight months.

The White House incumbent was in Miami to give a speech full of violent anti-Cuba rhetoric. He did not once mention the word "terrorist," and for good reason: he was completely surrounded by eminent Miami terrorists.

Some of the most faithful sponsors of terrorism aimed against Cuba over the past four decades, plus various individuals who have masterminded and carried out attacks and assassinations, were gathered around Bush.

Without any sense of shame, the capos and their killers continue to maintain a high profile in public, reaping the benefits of a purported legitimacy based on the president’s infinite gratitude to those who put him in power, although he wasn’t even elected; the presence of 18 Miami mafia cronies in the White House; and the FBI’s benevolent tolerance of Miami’s most extremist groups.

And even in the presence of the U.S. head of state, they didn’t see the need to use the least discretion.

AN OPERATION TO COLLECT SPURIOUS FUNDS

It’s worth taking a brief inventory of the fauna that effusively applauded him that day, rehashing the old anti-Cuba rhetoric aimed at raising support and, above all, funds for the "democratic" election of his brother Jeb:

• In the front row were the heads of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), the main organization of the "anti- Cuba industry." From Jorge Mas Santos to Joe García, all the leading elements of the principal Cuban-American annexation- terrorist lobby had the opportunity to shake the hands of George II and his brother. It’s interesting to note that for decades now, the CANF has financed Luis Posada Carriles, who shares with Orlando Bosch the title of the most dangerous terrorist in the hemisphere. Posada Carriles masterminded the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in which all 73 people on board died; he is also responsible for more than 50 other attacks, including those that took place in Havana in 1997. In an interview with The New York Times, he confessed that for many years he has been able to count on the CANF’s unfailing economic support.

• Other "experts" proven to have received money for terror (and above all from the network of Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch) appeared in the chorus of Bush’s friends: Roberto Martín Peréz (also a participant in plans for bombing attacks), Elpidio Núñez, Diego Rolando Suárez Muñoz and Felipe Vals Brau.

• At a short distance from the CANF troops, the former capos of the CANF’s most fanatical wing, ecstatic with beatitude; they are now "dissidents" joined together in an organization pompously christened the Council for Cuban Liberty. It was possible to spot Ninoska Pérez-Castillón (spokeswoman for the group and promoter of support for Posada Carriles), Alberto Hernández (former CANF president), Feliciano Foyo (whom Posada Carriles calls his "financier"), and Horacio García. Many of them signed a call to terrorism published by the Miami Herald in August 2001, in which they coldly affirmed that all means, however violent, are admissible to change the island’s government. The document was also signed by Miami terrorist leader Orlando Bosch, accomplice of Luis Posada Carriles and defender of the principle that it’s "normal" for innocent people to die in any confrontation.

TRAFFICKERS OF ARMS, DRUGS AND MURDERS

Also present were:

• Félix Rodriguez, one of the Watergate burglars and the head of the drug operation in El Salvador’s Ilopango base that allowed the Nicaraguan contras to buy arms, financed by cocaine sales on U.S. territory. A buddy of George Bush I and Otto Reich, both of whom covered up his activities, Rodriguez was closely linked to terrorist activities by secret organization Omega-7, responsible for several attacks and assassinations.

• Huber Matos, head of Independent Democratic Cuba, who "distinguished" himself in the dirty war in Nicaragua.

• Armando Pérez Roura, a Batista follower, Alpha 66 member, leader of the terrorist group Cuban Unity, involved in various criminal activities in Miami, hysterical announcer on a well- known terrorist radio station. Over the years Alpha 66, led by Nazario Sargent, has instigated and organized many terrorist raids on Cuba (all of which failed). In Miami, he continues to openly advocate the absolute need for violent actions without any interference by the authorities. His son also trafficked drugs.

• "Specially" invited to the event were killers Dionisio Suárez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, who had the pleasure of personally thanking their benefactor George Bush. The two men were freed by President Bush in August 2001 (just before the September 11 attacks), after being imprisoned for the murders of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and human rights activist Ronnie Moffit on a Washington DC street! This horrendous crime was denounced throughout the entire world, except in Miami of course.

• Also identified were Roberto Rodríguez de Aragón of the Cuban Patriotic Junta, godfather of various violent actions, alongside Sisto Reinaldo Aquis Manríquez and his crony Eugenio Llameras Rondón, both members of the Secret Army and Commandos L, and with abundant antecedents of participating in acts of terrorism.

• Bush finally had the opportunity to greet those who kidnapped Elián González, as uncles Delfín and Lázaro González and ditsy cousin Marisleysis were in there in the crowd of admirers.

Nobody in the United States seems surprised by the sight of Bush fraternizing with such people in the capital of the banana republic of Miami, much less the establishment press, which refuses to touch the subject, maybe it’s too hot. Nor does the press dare to ask how, despite official reports characterizing him as a well-known terrorist, murderer Orlando Bosch – an international criminal and mastermind of innumerable attacks – could have been allowed to live in the so-called land of the free. The current president’s father granted Bosch a pardon, in gratitude for the dirty work he carried out on behalf of the CIA.

COMMITTED TO FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS

Given that 18 eminent members of the Bush administration have close ties to the capos of the Miami camarilla, it seems fully acceptable in certain parts for the emperor to protect the terrorist fauna that allowed him to accede to the throne without being elected. And without a doubt, brother Jeb will be able to carry out the same feat, with the self-same tricks and fraud we saw in the November election.

But it’s worth asking: How much longer will the U.S. people put up with a president held hostage by a handful of mafia terrorists? How much longer will the U.S. people put up with a shameless gang of criminals directing their nation’s foreign policy on Latin America? How much longer will the U.S. people put up with the cruel punishment meted out to five Cuban patriots who were imprisoned for counteracting terror?

In Miami, where all the anti-Cuba hysteria is set, the Cuban- American terrorists can do anything openly. And the spectacular May 20 presidential blessing only confirms the mafia’s sinister privileges.

The Batista underworld’s blackmail and domination is strangling Miami, and no sector of the city’s administration escapes the camarilla’s tentacles. The FBI comes off worst: its role is the best example of the mafia’s power in the territory. And there are examples aplenty.

The FBI publicly defended its lethargy toward miniscule terrorist groups such as Alpha 66, claiming to control them through a network of informers. But it can’t have failed to notice who placed the bombs that exploded in Havana, in 1997. Indeed, Luis Posada Carriles, the main author of the crime — which caused the death of Fabio Di Celmo, an Italian tourist — confessed to The New York Times on July 12, 1998, that he’d received CANF funding.

In 1998, Héctor Pesquera — ineffable head of Florida’s FBI office — was dedicating himself to arranging a rigged trail against the five Cuban patriots who had risked their lives to counteract the Miami terrorists’ criminal plans. Meanwhile, those same terrorists were preparing their attack on Fidel Castro in Panama, which was ultimately foiled.

FBI TOLERANCE

Thanks to the benevolent tolerance of the FBI, Luis Posada Carriles’ friends, all Miami residents, calmly planned to blow up to an auditorium full of students. Their objective: to kill the Cuban president.

And nobody can pretend they don’t know who those Miami residents were. They all have long criminal records and are meticulously registered in the FBI files:

• Pedro Remón — as the FBI’s own files confirm — killed Félix García Rodríguez, a Cuban diplomat at the United Nations in New York, in September 1980. In November 1979, he also murdered Eulalio José Negrín, a Cuban-American who supported the island’s government, in front of his 12-year-old son. He has participated in broad range of terrorist crimes.

• Guillermo Novo Sampoli has maintained an extensive history of terror for the last 40 years. Accomplice in the assassinations of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit, he was arrested in Miami carrying half a kilo of cocaine. He was finally found guilty of the double murder, but was "absolved" on appeal, thanks to legal shenanigans by the CIA, whose director at the time was George Bush I.

• Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, old conspirator buddy of Orlando Bosch, was involved in the savage murder of Cuban technician D’Artagnan Díaz Díaz in Mérida, Mexico, and later escaped from jail there. He took part in various other assassination attempts on the Cuban president in Jamaica, Mexico, Spain, Honduras, Colombia, Argentina and the Dominican Republic.

He likewise collaborated in the sinister Panama conspiracy, along with Nelsy Ignacio Castro Matos, Santiago Alvarez Fernández and Rubén Darío López Castro. All live in Miami and all are "eminent" personalities in the community of professional terrorists who, one supposes, are fully documented by the FBI.

After the spectacular November 2000 arrest of Luis Posada Carriles and his pals in Panama, the three "eminent" individuals involved in the assassination plan were NOT bothered by the FBI, and later they themselves took on the responsibility for establishing links between the CANF and the detained terrorists.

They traveled to Panama with impunity, carrying large sums of money for Posada and his accomplices, in order to pay for the services of a famous drug traffickers’ lawyer. The three also exerted political pressure on the Panamanian state, in the name of the Miami camarilla.

All those activities took place without the slightest interference from Héctor Pesquera, a silent witness to the plot since its beginning.

Worse still: while they were looking after their imprisoned cronies, following the failure of the attack they helped to organize, Castro Matos, Alvarez Fernández and López Castro carried out an armed incursion to Cuba, which also failed.

At 6:20 a.m. on April 26, 2001, Cuban border guards caught three infiltrators on Cayo Jutía, armed with four 7.62-millimeter AK-47 rifles, one M-3 rifle with silencer, three Makarov pistols, night-vision and communication equipment, and more than $3,000 USD.

The names of the infiltrators were Ihosvani Suris de la Torre, Santiago Padrón Quintero and Máximo "Robaina" Pradero Valdés. The first, leader of the group, is known for collaborating with Rodolfo Frómeta Caballero’s Miami terrorist organization called Commandos F-4. The second, apart from his past as a common criminal, is an Alpha 66 activist with military training. The third participated in a failed infiltration attempt whose objective was to blow up the Havana Tunnel.

While in a Cuban jail, Ihosvani Suris de la Torre confirmed during a telephone conversation with Santiago Alvarez, broadcast by Cuban television, that he had been ordered to set off an explosion in Havana’s Tropicana cabaret.

Suris de la Torre and his accomplices are Miami residents and it can be assumed, from their activity in terrorist circles, that they likewise appear in Special Agent Héctor Pesquera’s files.

Can the FBI contend that it knew nothing about the Posada Carriles-CANF connection, despite the public confession of the most dangerous terrorist in the hemisphere?

Can the FBI claim that it knew nothing about Luis Posada Carriles’ terrorist plan, conceived in Miami, to be carried out in Panama by six residents of that Florida city who are well known in circles that promote violence?

Can the FBI confirm that it also knew nothing about the infiltration plans of armed mercenaries recruited by Santiago Alvarez and his accomplices?

It’s evident that the most important police force of the largest world power could not have been completely ignorant of such conspiracies.

Meanwhile, President Bush shamelessly walked around Miami escorted by confirmed terrorists who are participating in his brother Jeb’s reelection campaign, and securing financial and organizational support for his own reelection.

He walked the streets of Miami accompanied by the Miami Connection, composed of 18 members of his administration who maintain ties with Miami capos.

But as if that weren’t enough, at the same time as the disgraceful anti-Cuba spectacle in Miami, attended by the local terrorist fauna’s "eminencies," George Bush II and his 18 advisors connected with that same gang were placing Cuba on their list of seven countries presumed to be terrorist!

And at the same time, Bush keeps five Cuban patriots in his jails, cruelly isolated, for fighting against the Miami groups that his "crime fighters" tolerate more than ever.

Could it be that Bush is attempting, once again, to please the allies he appreciates so much?