Ozzie Guillen is Very Lucky that The Miami Terrorists Did Not Put a Bomb in His Car

Salon.com

Guillen’s pro-Castro candor

The Miami Marlins' manager is lucky to get a suspension. Not so long ago, he might have received a car bomb.

Tuesday, Apr 10, 2012 6:30 PM EDT

By Jefferson Morley

There’s not much reason to doubt that baseball manager Ozzie Guillen admires Fidel Castro. He said so five years ago in an interview with Men’s Journal. When asked to name the toughest man he knew, Guillen replied, “Fidel Castro. He’s a bull—- dictator and everybody’s against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him. Everywhere he goes, they roll out the red carpet. I don’t admire his philosophy; I admire him.’’

No one cared about that macho thought because Guillen was skipper of the Chicago White Sox at the time. As the newly hired manager of the Miami Marlins, Guillen repeated the notion to Time last week–”I respect Fidel Castro,” he said. “You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that [expletive] is still there”–and he found himself on the brink of unemployment.

As Miami’s Cuban-American talk radio hosts whipped up a storm of protest, the Marlins denounced Guillen and suspended him for five games. On Tuesday the chastened manager repudiated his statements, said Castro was a bad man, and apologized “on my knees.” With Guillen’s job hanging in the balance, most sportswriters attributed the controversy to his big mouth: He is known for insulting gays and admitting he likes to get drunk often.

But Guillen’s real problem is Cuban Miami, where enforcing the anti-Castro party line is a more popular pastime than baseball, not the least because the Marlins owners arranged to stick the city’s taxpayers with the bill for their new $640 million ballpark in Little Havana while depriving local residents of legal parking spaces. The combination of Guillen’s candor, Miami politics, and the Marlins’ arrogance is what has brought the Cooperstown-bound skipper to the brink of being fired.

The city has never shown much tolerance for people who say nice things about Castro. In 2000, Jim Mullin, editor of the city’s alternative weekly New Times, compiled a chronology of violent intolerance that has few parallels in modern America. In 1975 a Cuban American man was murdered after advocating closer relations with Castro’s Cuba. In 1978, an anti-Castro talk radio host had his legs blown off by a car bomb because he dared criticize his fellow exiles for resorting to violence. In 1983, the Little Havana branch of a Miami bank was bombed because one of its executives had negotiated with the Castro government for the release of 3,600 political prisoners. In 1998, a bomb threat emptied a concert hall during a performance by Compay Segundo, a 91-year-old musician made famous by the movie “The Buena Vista Social Club.” All told, Mullin found more than 40 instances of bomb threats and explosions directed at people who had somehow offended the anti-Castro orthodoxy.

A 1994 Human Rights Watch report on the sorry state of free speech in Miami concluded, the city is “dominated by fiercely anti-Communist forces who are strongly opposed to contrary viewpoints.” The HRW reports linked these forces to “acts of repression ranging from shunning to violence.” The reports found “significant responsibility” by the government at all levels, including “direct harassment by the government and government support of groups linked to anti-free speech behavior.”

That tradition continued this week when two local politicians injected themselves into the controversy by calling for Guillen’s firing. The call was echoed by a vigilante group known as Vigilia Mambisa, which describes itself as “a hard-line, right wing, Anti-Castro, Anti-Communist group of dedicated Cuban-American demonstrators … known for their rapid response to calls for protest aired on Miami Spanish-language stations.” The group is calling for a boycott of the Marlins until Guillen is fired.

The problem is Miamians are already boycotting the Marlins. The team ranked 28th out of 30 major league teams in attendance last year. Dario Moreno, a professor of political science at Florida International University, said, “I don’t think this is a free speech issue. There’s a lot more tolerance than there was 30 years ago.” Moreno noted that south Florida’s three Cuban-American congressional representatives and the state’s Cuban-American senator have not called for Guillen to be fired.

“This has more to do with the Marlins and a community that invested large sums of money in their stadium over the objections of lots of people,” Moreno said. “The promise was that they would bring the community together and give us something to be proud of. It’s not working out very well.”

Moreno says he thinks Guillen may be able to keep his job if the Marlins muzzle Guillen (good luck with that) and reach out to the community. “The baseball fans are willing to let this one go by if he just promises to not talk politics,” Moreno said.

“As a Christian, I accept his apology,” said Alberto Muller, a former newspaper columnist who spent 15 years in a Cuban prison. “But in Miami, not everybody is a Christian.” Muller thinks Guillen will be fired.

A Miami Herald online reader survey found 57 percent of 2,500-plus respondents saying Guillen’s five-game suspension was sufficient punishment. If Guillen only loses his job for expressing admiration for Fidel’s toughness, it will be a sign of civic progress. Not long ago, he might have lost his legs or his life.

Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles Planned to Attack Cuban Book Fair

Radio Cadena Agramonte

Havana, Feb 13.- New evidence shows that Luis Posada Carriles planned to carry out violent actions during the International Book Fair Cuba 2012, Cuban-Guatemalan writer Percy Alvarado said in Havana on Saturday.

When presenting his book "Luis Posada Carriles: Un Engendro Incondicional de la CIA" (Luis Posada Carriles: An Unconditional Monster of the CIA), the ex agent Frayle of Cuba's State Security said that the monitoring of the enemy's activity showed that in a recent meeting between Posada Carriles, a well-known terrorist, and his accomplices, they planned the operation.

Alvarado noted that thanks to the immediate action of Cuban secret services, the plan and its possible media show were dismantled, as well as provocations planned in Havana and Santiago de Cuba prior to Pope Benedict XVI's visit in March.

Speaking to his audience at the fortress of San Carlos de la Cabaña, the main venue of the Havana Book Fair, Alvarado noted that among those who tried to carry out those violent actions were the Cuban-born terrorists Santiago Alvarez and Reinol Rodriguez. The latter is the chief of the armed group Alpha 66.

He added that those people are planning other actions to create a conflict between the United States and Cuba based on recent statements by Cuban-American Congresswoman Ileana Ross Lehtinen about the operation of the oil platform in deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico, a region shared by Cuba, the United States and Mexico.

That is why; there will always be an anonymous and modest hero like the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unjustly held in U.S. prisons, whose release will depend on not yielding in the effort to denounce terrorism against Cuba and internalizing that anyone of us can be one of them.

The book on Luis Posada Carriles deals about the life and criminal record of this man on the payroll of the empire, in addition to being a solid denunciation of the plans funded and organized by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against Cuba.

Little known and unpublished passages about Posada Carriles, the confessed organizer of the sabotage on a Cubana Airline plane in mid-flight in 1976, are combined in the book with other events of world relevance, such as his participation in Operation Condor, designed by the CIA during the period of Latin American dictatorships. (Prensa Latina).

Luis Posada Carriles [is or] was planning new violent actions against Cuba

Miami Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles
Cubadebate has published an article today with the following title: "Posada Carriles estaría planificando nuevas acciones violentas contra Cuba."

I got up today in a lazy mood, so I did not translate the title myself. I used Google Translate, which most of the time commits big errors with the Spanish Grammar. That is what happens when a computer does the translation. Human beings are more efficient and intelligent.

The last time I was a "translator" was in 2004, during the reign of the infamous POTUS George W. Bush, who is also known as Dubya. By the way, the Internet website Urban Dictionary defines Dubya as "...the most inept president the United States has ever had."

I agree!

Lawyers Request the Extradition to Panama of Luis Posada Carriles and Other Terrorists

Panama, Jan 19 2012 (Prensa Latina) A request for the extradition of the terrorists of Cuban origin Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Remon and César Matamoros, and Panamanian Jose Hurtado, was filed on Thursday, said lawyer Silvio Guerra.

Those criminals tried to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro at the main hall of the University of Panama, where he was scheduled to speak at the end of an Ibero-American Summit. Hundreds of people would have died if they had succeeded.

In remarks to Prensa Latina, Guerra confirmed that they went today to the Fifth Court of the Criminal Circuit to file the official request of extradition of Posada Carriles and his accomplices and also request that the Foreign Ministry sends it to the US government.

That step has been possible because the Second Court confirmed the ruling of the Fifth Criminal Court through edict notifying eight years imprisonment for Posada Carriles and Jimenez; seven years for Novo Sampol, Remon and Matamoros and four years for Hurtado.

Such a court ruling, with an address by magistrate Secundino Mendieta, resolves the appeal filed by defense lawyers and plaintiffs in favor of the defendants. However, these sentences were not for possession of explosives to assassinate, an outstanding claim.

Guerra said he was aware that international extradition requests filed by Venezuela and Ecuador have also been registered and the United States has never agreed to them, but they will continue insisting.

The plaintiff, who appeared in the trial against the terrorists on behalf of student groups of the University of Panama, added that he is interested in registering the extradition request made by the Panamanian State on the grounds of its jurisdiction and through the Panamanian Foreign Ministry.

Guerra strongly criticized ex President Mireya Moscoso, who met this week with Posada Carriles in Miami, and wondered what can one expect from the person who pardoned people who were to perpetrate a massacre of her fellow country people, mainly students, at the main hall of the University of Panama.

Cubadebate: Solicita abogado panameño extradición de Posada Carriles y otros terroristas

Cuba Protests U.S. "Double Standards" on Terrorism

Rally in homage to victims of state terrorism, presided over by President Raúl Castro. Credit:Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 7, 2011 (IPS) - Cuba marked the 35th anniversary of the bombing of a Cubana airlines jet, in which 73 people were killed, with demonstrations against terrorism and a demand for the release of five government agents in prison in the United States.

Cubana flight 455 was carrying 57 Cubans - including the country's entire Olympic fencing team - 11 people from Guyana and five from North Korea when it exploded just after taking off from Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976.

Starting last year, the date is commemorated as the national Day of the Victims of State Terrorism.

"My entire life has been marked by that terrorist act," said Camilo Rojo, the grandson of one of the Cubana flight 455 victims, at the end of a vigil held Wednesday night by hundreds of young people in the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Plaza across the street from the United States Interests Section in Havana.

Factories, educational institutions, hospitals and other buildings served as the scenario for political rallies and meetings throughout the day Thursday to protest and commemorate the terrorist attack and the hostile U.S. policy towards Cuba, including U.S. support for fervently anti-Castro Cuban exile groups as well as dissident organisations inside Cuba.

The bombing of the Cubana jet was carried out by a former CIA agent, Luis Posada Carriles.

The day after the anniversary of the bombing, the first of the Cuban Five, a group of Cuban agents convicted of spying and given lengthy jail terms in the U.S., was released from a U.S. prison.

René González was released early Friday after serving 13 years of his 15-year sentence. However, he will have to stay in the state of Florida for three more years of supervised probation, which the Cuban authorities consider a political reprisal.

René and Fernando González (no relation), Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino were arrested Sep. 12, 1998 in the U.S. and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage.

But in this country the Cuban Five are hailed as heroes in the fight against terrorism, because they had infiltrated and were monitoring violent anti-Castro Cuban exile groups in Miami, Florida.

González's wife Olga Salanueva says the requirement that her husband remain in Florida for three years is additional punishment and poses a risk to his life, because "we have evidence that there are terrorist organisations" in the southern part of the state, as she said in an interview published on the Cubadebate web site.

The proof of that are "the thousands of people killed and maimed in our country in violent attacks, innocent victims like the (fencing team) on the plane from Barbados and Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo (killed by a bomb in a hotel lobby bar in Havana in 1997). So how much more danger will an agent identified as one of those who was monitoring them and who has been publicly declared an anti-terrorism fighter face?" she said.

In a July 1998 interview, Posada Carriles admitted to The New York Times that he had sent operatives to Cuba to plant bombs in hotels and restaurants to hurt the country's fast-growing tourism industry. With regard to di Celmo, a businessman, he said "That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop."

In the United States, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five concurred with the fears expressed by Salanueva and warned that the risks cannot be underestimated. The group recalled statements to the press by Florida lawmaker Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who called René González "an enemy of America…who "has American blood on his hands."

The National Committee said in a statement that "These utterly false charges are a clear incitement to violence, and demonstrate all too clearly the necessity of allowing René to return immediately to Cuba."

According to the Cuban government, in the space of just 18 months in 1962 and 1963, more than 5,700 terrorist attacks were carried out against Cuba, around 700 of which targeted industrial installations. The government of Raúl Castro says Washington's "policy of state terrorism" has cost this country 3,478 lives and left 2,099 people permanently disabled.

A jury in Miami, Florida found the Cuban Five guilty on all charges in 2001 and handed them sentences ranging from 15 years to two life sentences.

By contrast, Posada Carriles was acquitted in April by a U.S. federal court in El Paso, Texas, where he was charged with lying to immigration officials, obstruction of justice and immigration fraud.

The Cuban foreign ministry said at the time that the acquittal was a "farce" and that it demonstrated that the U.S. continued to protect a known terrorist.

In a full-page editorial Thursday, Granma, the Cuban state newspaper, called the U.S. government's continued inclusion of Cuba on its list of states that sponsor terrorism "disgraceful" and an attempt to justify "its criminal policy of attacks" in the eyes of public opinion.

Analysts point out that on a visit to Cuba in March this year, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) said the U.S. claim that Cuba promotes terrorism "is obviously uncertain," and called for this country to be removed from that list.

Granma also says the treatment of the Cuban Five is "evidence of the double standards of U.S. policy concerning the so-called war on terror."

With respect to Cuba's cooperation in fighting terrorism, Granma points to a 1973 agreement signed with the United States to combat air and maritime piracy, as well as the time that Cuban intelligence warned the U.S. of an assassination attempt against then president Ronald Reagan.

In May 1998, the Cuban government also provided the administration of Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and the FBI with abundant documentary and testimonial information on activities by "terrorists on U.S. soil with ramifications in Central America," the Granma editorial says.

"However, no terrorist was arrested, and there was no sign of action," it says, adding that just three months later came the arrest of the five Cuban agents, who were "the main source of that valuable information, and who prevented" further attacks.

On several occasions since the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, the Cuban government has invited Washington to engage in talks on bilateral cooperation in problems including terrorism. The latest proposal was set forth in late September by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez. Cuba has received no response to any of these initiatives, according to Granma.