NO ASYLUM TO TERRORIST POSADA CARRILES

Prime Minister of Canada
Minister of DFAIT
Members of Parliament

Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA-trained Cuban exile who has engaged in four decades of terrorism and murder, has requested asylum in the U.S. He went into exile from Cuba in 1959 to be trained in explosives by the CIA in preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. He has continued to be involved in deadly attacks on civilian targets and attempted assassinations in Cuba, Canada and the US since that time. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian tourists have visited Cuba and continue to do so. We cannot and must not tolerate the impunity with which terrorists like Posada Carriles can carry out terrorist attacks which endanger lives of innocent people and which, in his case, include the murder of an Italian-Canadian tourist.

Posada Carriles list of crimes includes the following:

-Masterminding the terrorist bombing aboard a Canadian-made civilian aircraft, leased by Cubana Airlines, which took off from Barbados October 6, 1976, killing all 73 people on board.

-While in Venezuela in the 70s, he also headed the Intelligence and Preventive Services Division of the national police (DISIP) and oversaw the murder of Venezuelan progressives;

-In a New York Times interview on July, 1998, he bragged about directing the bombing of hotels in Havana in 1997 by hiring mercenaries to plant them. One of those bombs killed a 32 year old Italian-Canadian tourist, Fabio di Celmo, at the Hotel Copacabana. In one of his media interviews, Posada Carriles shrugged off this murder as a case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Livio di Celmo, Fabios brother who lives in Montreal, continues to seek justice for those who perpetrated the murder of his brother;

-In the 80s, Posada Carriles commanded the supply of munitions to the contras in Nicaragua through the Ilopango airbase in El Salvador;

-In November, 2000, he was caught with 33 pounds of C-4 explosives which were to be used to assassinate President Fidel Castro of Cuba while he was attending an Ibero-American summit meeting in Panama. Explosives were to be placed in an amphitheatre at the university where President Castro was scheduled to speak and it was estimated that well over a thousand casualties would have resulted. Posada Carriles was tried for this crime in Panama, jailed and subsequently pardoned on August 26, 2004, by then-outgoing President of Panama, Mireya Moscoso; he was supplied with a false U.S. passport by the U.S. Embassy and has been brought to the U.S. in the latter part of March, 2005, in a boat belonging to Miami businessman, Santiago Alvarez.

- Posada has worked closely with his associate, Orlando Bosch, both of whom have been implicated in murders committed in the U.S. including the car bombing which killed a former government minister of Chiles Allende government, Orlando Letelier, and his associate, Ronnie Moffitt.

Over 3,400 Cubans have been murdered through terrorist activities perpetrated by para-military groups, operating freely in Miami. Five young Cubans, known as the Cuban Five, who were monitoring these activities and sharing the information with the FBI, were arrested and are now imprisoned in the U.S. serving horrendously long sentences.

One can assume that Posada Carriles would not have returned to the U.S. without a signal from some top government officials that they intend to protect him and continue to support him in his terrorist actions as they have in the past.

The US government must be called to account for its hypocrisy in pursuing its so-called war against terror and its cynical manipulation of the term, when anti-terrorists such as the Cuban Five are imprisoned and a proven terrorist like Posada Carriles is able to live in the U.S. while waiting for possible asylum.

As Canadians we are not only concerned about the safety of our tourists, students, business people, etc who travel to Cuba but we also have a moral responsibility to speak out and inform people about terrorists such as Posada Carriles who have committed crimes against innocent people in several countries.

The U.S. government, on the other hand, should respect its own Resolution passed by the UN Security Council that prohibits governments from sheltering and supporting terrorists.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, URGE YOU TO PUBLICLY AND CONSTRUCTIVELY ENGAGE WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO DEMAND THAT NO ASYLUM BE GIVEN TO TERRORIST POSADA CARRILES. HE MUST BE ARRESTED AND EXTRADITED TO VENEZUELA TO STAND TRIAL FOR CRIMES COMMITED OR BE TRIED BY A COMPETENT INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL.

To write directly to President Bush, please visit: http://www.internationalanswer.org and click on the left under the title Tell Bush/Congress: NO asylum for Luis Posada Carriles". You can also go directly to: www.pephost.org/PosadaCarrilesasylumINT

For more information about the Cuban Five, visit:
www.freethefive.org
www.freethecubanfive.ca
www.anti-terroristas.cu

Petition by Free the Cuban Five Committee-Toronto, P.O. Box 61558, Richmond Hill, ON, L4C 0C9 and the Canadian Network on Cuba (www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca)