Cubans Wondering What’s Going On
Ricardo Chavira     [Photo]

HAVANA—Cubans are stunned and angered by what they see as the Bush Administration’s coddling of an accused terrorist. Cuban-born Jesus Posada Carriles, who with the aid of the CIA has made a career of waging war on Cuba, sits in an El Paso immigration jail. That he isn’t in Venezuela for his role in killing 78 people aboard a Cuban airliner blown up in midair has many here convinced that American justice is fatally flawed.

Posada, a fugitive after escaping from a Venezuelan jail some 30 years ago, has dual Cuban and Venezuelan nationality. So, when he mysteriously surfaced in the United States in April seeking political asylum, Cubans were baffled. How could a foreigner sought in connection with a terrorist atrocity be accorded the courtesy of an immigration hearing? The administration might opt to prosecute him for illegally entering the country from Mexico or consider his asylum petition.

“I always thought the United States, despite its faults, had a justice system in which no one could get favored treatment,” says 72-year-old Estela Morales. “What I see happening leaves me cold. The United States and Venezuela have an extradition treaty, and this man was being tried for his crime when he ran away. Send him back, Mr. Bush.”

But administration officials are going to great lengths not to deport him to Venezuela. They suggest that the government of Hugo Chavez, friendly to Cuba these days, could not offer Posada a fair trial. There is also the matter of strained relations between Caracas and Washington following two attempts to oust Chavez. The U.S. is widely suspected of being behind those efforts.

Still the evidence, including newly declassified U.S. documents, is fairly damning. Posada has proudly and loudly bragged about his violent efforts to bring down the Castro government, even writing a book about his actions. He has sought to assassinate Castro at least three times; the last time ended with his arrest in Panama.

For Alfonso Gonzalez the Posada affair is heartbreaking. The 74-year-old Havana retiree spent a decade living in Tampa, where he developed a deep affection for the U.S. He speaks glowingly of his years in high school, a job selling newspapers and the rich American food.

“Explain this to me,” he says pleadingly. “You know the government doesn’t always tell us everything,” Gonzalez says to me. “Is there something they are leaving out?” He’s crestfallen to learn the facts are as reported in Havana.

“I lived in the States during the Second World War,” he says in fluent, lightly accented English. “FDR was the president, and there wasn’t a better country in the world. I believed that, especially because I came from a country where corruption and misery were everywhere,” Gonzalez adds. “The Americans were standing up against evil and giving the world hope. What happened to those people and that country?”

Most Americans, I assured him, would not favor keeping a fugitive terrorist in the U.S., especially with the U.S. battling global terrorism. Cuban authorities have been quite convincing in contending that hard line and politically potent Cuban-Americans are quietly but firmly pressing Washington not to follow the proper legal course.

Hard as it is to believe, years of official acrimony between Cuba and the U.S. have not made most Cubans dislike Washington. Even the economic embargo has been accepted stoically. But between the prison abuses in Guantanamo and now the Posada miscarriage Cubans are reevaluating our country’s respect for human rights.

(Ricardo Chavira is a professor at Cal Fullerton. To reach him, send an email to editor@hispaniclink.org)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
07/10/05
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