The secret of Luís Posada Carriles

By Jesús Arboleya Cervera

I don’t know if you readers agree with me, but I have the impression that the most puzzling aspect of the trial of Luis Posada Carriles in El Paso, Texas, is that, as we Cubans say, the list does not match the ticket. In other words, they’re talking about one thing and trying something else.

Unfortunately, not all the people who should know are aware of the crimes committed by this man, but anyone familiar with the case, especially Cubans everywhere, knows well that Posada is an international terrorist. And we don’t need anyone to prove that.

We all know that the man has done nothing else in his long life, and, as if the evidence presented by the government of Cuba and many declassified FBI reports were not enough, Posada himself has assumed the task of advertising that fact even in an autobiography, where he unabashedly describes a good many of his misdeeds.

Nevertheless, among those who had not heard it all before are the jurors who must render their judgment in El Paso. This is required by a law that for some reason assumes that ignorant people are the best dispensers of justice. Maybe because of that, amid a courtroom tangle where the obvious facts are dizzying, the prosecutor has taken on the task of “revealing” to the jurors who the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is. The question is, why is this being done?

The numerous witnesses for the prosecution, including Cuban officials, have merely described again what we already knew, namely, that Posada was the organizer of the series of bombings carried out against Cuban tourist facilities, in which Italian Fabio di Celmo was killed.

In fact, even Posada himself confessed that to The New York Times, even though the journalist who did the interview now appears as the prosecution’s star witness to certify something that the defendant confirmed to American television cameras.

Another issue that is also public knowledge thanks to Posada, and that the prosecutor brought up, was that these actions were carried out with the political and financial support of certain members of the Cuban American National Foundation. This implicates important figures of the Cuban-American lobby, among them some Congressmen and senators of Cuban origin.

However, as only a few dead people or smaller partners have surfaced, the revelation left us wanting to know more things that pique our imagination but have never been fully clarified.

Similarly, nothing has been said about the worst of Posada’s crimes, the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner in Barbados that killed 73 people, in which CIA involvement remains nebulous.

No effort has been made to clarify the role of the U.S. Embassy in Posada’s escape from the Venezuelan prison where he was detained and his later surfacing in a CIA camp in El Salvador. The tale, also narrated by Posada, that all this happened thanks to the support of some friends, is not very convincing.

It is no secret that the CIA recruited Posada in the early 1960s, that it trained him and used him in numerous attacks against Cuba. It even placed him as an agent in the Venezuelan security forces. The testimony of persons who describe how they were tortured by the notorious “Commissar Basilio,” one of his many pseudonyms now internationally known, has been published.

What is still not known with certainty is how long the CIA used him and what is its ongoing commitment to the fellow, something we had hoped to learn at the trial. Let us remember that the defense based its case on the value of this collaboration.

However, things have not gone beyond threats. And the prosecutors, with the support of the judge and the indulgence of the defense attorney, have managed to keep secret – for “reasons of national security” – the documents that could have enlightened us.

No one doubts that Posada entered the U.S. illegally. In fact, he is currently there without documents to back him up. For the same misdemeanor, hundreds of luckless immigrants are deported every day, no matter how they entered the country, whether on foot or under a parachute.

But we even know exactly how Posada arrived, because the Mexican, Cuban and American press and this weekly magazine disclosed it at the time, while the man rested quietly in the house of a friend in Miami without the authorities deigning to capture him.

It was the megalomania of the man (who dared to give a press conference) that forced the authorities to carry out a VIP arrest and imprison him briefly as an illegal immigrant. However, not even then did they charge him because to do so they would have had to seriously consider the request for extradition from the Venezuelan government.

The twist is that this information, which is enough (despite manipulation) to send any Muslim terrorist or someone who resembles a terrorist to the electric chair several times, is ultimately irrelevant to try him for these crimes, because that’s not what the trial is all about.

What the prosecutors want to show is that Posada actually committed the crimes, but did not properly confessed them to U.S. authorities – and for that reason he is being tried for lying. A curious contradiction: if the guy had been sincere, there would be no charges against him.

On Posada’s behalf, I must say that he did not do it because he was aware that those who knew it would do the utmost to protect it. The silence about U.S. complicity in his crimes and the people involved in them is his life insurance. And this time Posada’s long tongue is not going to wag loose.

Therein, and only therein, lies the secret of Posada Carriles. Everything else we know and it’s all inconsequential. Therefore, as lawyer José Pertierra tells us, the old man sleeps peacefully while the others argue, in the certainty that some very powerful people have no choice but to wait impatiently for him to take his secrets to the grave.

Otherwise, they risk seeing the old terrorist causing another of his massacres, although this time the victims would not be innocent persons.