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From: mart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: CubaNews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; People Voice
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Sent: Friday, November 24, 2000 5:04 PM
Subject: [CubaNews] Fw: NYT '98 interview with assassin Posada Carriles
Forward from mart.
Please distribute widely.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Clancy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: November 24, 2000 12:55 AM
Subject: NYT '98 interview with assassin Posada Carriles
from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
subject: NYT '98 interview with assassin Posada Carriles
Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: The 1998 NYT Interview with Posada Carriles
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 14:41:06 -0500
Good reference material, kw
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 12:15 PM
Subject: Key Cuba Foe Claims Exiles' Backing
Karen,
I search my archives for the NYT article based on an interview
conducted with Posada in'98. As it is quite germane to the current
situation in Panama, I re-posted to the the listserve I manage.
--Cris
July 12, 1998
Key Cuba Foe Claims Exiles' Backing
--------------------------------------------------------
In This Article
* The Recluse
* The Money
* The Bombings
Related Article
* Authorities Knew of Bombing Campaign, Says Cuban Exile
>
> Issues in Depth
> * A Bomber's Tale
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> By ANN LOUISE BARDACH and LARRY ROHTER
[M] IAMI -- A Cuban exile who has waged a campaign of
bombings and assassination attempts aimed at
toppling Fidel Castro says that his efforts were
supported financially for more than a decade by the
Cuban-American leaders of one of America's most
influential lobbying groups.
------------------
The exile, Luis Posada Carriles, A BOMBER'S TALE
said he organized a wave of bombings
in Cuba last year at hotels, Taking Aim at
restaurants and discothques, Castro, killing an Italian tourist
and
alarming the Cuban Government.
Posada was schooled in demolition and guerrilla warfare
by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960's.
In a series of tape-recorded interviews at a walled
Caribbean compound, Posada said the hotel bombings and
other operations had been supported by leaders of the
Cuban-American National Foundation. Its founder and
head, Jorge Mas Canosa, who died last year, was embraced
at the White House by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton.
A powerful force in both Florida and national elections,
and a prodigious campaign donor, Mas played a decisive
role in persuading Clinton to change his mind and follow
a course of sanctions and isolation against Castro's
Cuba.
Although the tax-exempt foundation has declared that it
seeks to bring down Cuba's Communist Government solely
through peaceful means, Posada said leaders of the
foundation discreetly financed his operations. Mas
personally supervised the flow of money and logistical
support, he said.
"Jorge controlled everything," Posada said. "Whenever I
needed money, he said to give me $5,000, give me
$10,000, give me $15,000, and they sent it to me."
Over the years, Posada estimated, Mas sent him more than
$200,000. "He never said, 'This is from the
foundation,' " Posada recalled. Rather, he said with a
chuckle, the money arrived with the message, "This is
for the church."
Foundation leaders did not respond to repeated telephone
calls and letters requesting an interview to discuss
their relationship with Posada. But in a brief statement
faxed to The New York Times, the group denied a role in
his operations, saying "any allegation, implication, or
suggestion that members of the Cuban American National
Foundation have financed any alleged 'acts of violence'
against the Castro regime are totally and patently
false."
THE RECLUSE
Talking on His Terms, After Years of Silence
Posada, 70, has long refused to talk to journalists;
his autobiography, published in 1994, provided only
a sketchy account of his dealings with the foundation's
leaders.
But in two days of interviews, he talked openly for the
first time about those relationships and how they
figured in a fight to which he has devoted his life, a
fight that has left him far from his declared goal of
toppling the hemisphere's last Communist state.
His motives for agreeing to the interviews are not easy
to pin down. Posada, who has survived several attempts
on his life, told a friend recently that he was afraid
he would not live long enough to tell his story.
For the first time, Posada also described his role in
some of the great cold war events in which Cuban exiles
were key players. He was trained for the Bay of Pigs at
a camp in Guatemala, but did not participate in the
landing on Cuban beaches after the Kennedy
Administration withheld air support from the first wave
of rebels, whose attack quickly foundered.
It was Cuban exiles like Posada who were recruited by
the C.I.A. for the subsequent attempts on Castro's life.
Jailed for one of the most infamous anti-Cuban attacks,
the 1976 bombing of a civilian Cubana airliner, he
eventually escaped from a Venezuelan prison to join the
centerpiece of the Reagan White House's anti-Communist
crusade in the Western Hemisphere: Lieut. Col. Oliver L.
North's clandestine effort to supply arms to Nicaraguan
contras.
Posada denied any role in the Cubana bombing, which
killed 73 people, many of them teen-age members of
Cuba's national fencing team.
He agreed through an intermediary to meet with The New
York Times, provided his current residence and alias,
> and the location of the interviews, were not divulged.
>
> Some of what he said about his past can be verified
> through recently declassified Government documents, as
> well as interviews with former foundation members and
> American officials.
>
> But he made several claims that rest solely on his word,
including an assertion that he has agents inside the
Cuban military and that American law enforcement
authorities maintained an attitude of benign neglect
toward him for most of his career, allowing him to
remain free and active.
Posada said all payments from the exile leaders to him
were made in cash, and he said he did not know whether
the money came from personal, business or foundation
accounts. He said that the money was used for his living
expenses and for operations and that Mas told him he did
not want to know the details of his activities.
In the interviews he was generally expansive on broad
questions of philosophy but evasive on specifics. He
spoke in Spanish and English, with difficulty, his
speech distorted by the severe damage done to the nerves
of his tongue in a 1990 attempt on his life.
Posada said he was angered by recent newspaper accounts
of his activities and eager near the end of his life to
put his version of events on record, perhaps
reinvigorating a movement he sees as lacking energy and
direction since Mas's death.
The exiles' foundation, created in 1981, has sought to
portray itself as the responsible voice of the Cuban
exile community, dedicated to weakening the Castro
regime through politics rather than force. Thanks to
that approach and millions in campaign donations, the
foundation became one of Washington's most effective
lobbying organizations and a principal architect of
American policy toward Cuba.
Any evidence that the foundation or its leaders were
dispensing money to Republicans and Democrats while
underwriting bombings could weaken the group's claim to
legitimacy. That kind of activity could also violate the
Logan Act, which makes illegal any "conspiracy to kill,
kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a
foreign country."
Posada's remarks hinted that the foundation's public
advocacy of purely nonviolent opposition to Castro was a
carefully crafted fiction. Asked if he functioned as the
military wing to the foundation's political wing, much
as the Irish Republican Army does for Sinn Fein, he
replied, "It looks like that," and laughed.
THE MONEY
Assertions and Denials on Sources of Support
[I] n the interviews and in his autobiography, "The
Roads of the Warrior," Posada said he had received
financial support from Mas and Feliciano Foyo, treasurer
of the group, as well as Alberto Hernndez, who
succeeded Mas as chairman.
Dr. Hernndez and Foyo did not respond to repeated
requests for comment, and it was unclear whether they
were aware of how Posada might have used any money
they provided. In his autobiography, Posada said foundation
leaders
helped pay his medical and living expenses and paid for his
transportation from Venezuela to Central
America after his 1985 jailbreak.
At times, Posada said, cash was delivered from Miami by
fellow exiles, including Gaspar Jimnez, who was jailed
in Mexico in the 1976 killing of a Cuban diplomat there.
Jimnez is now an employee of the medical clinic that
Dr. Hernndez operates in Miami, according to employees
at the office.
Jimnez did not respond to requests for comment.
When the bombs began exploding last year at Cuban
hotels, the Government there asserted that the attacks
had been organized and paid for by exiles operating out
of Miami, a claim it bolstered with the videotape of an
operative confessing to carrying out some of the
bombings.
More recently, reports in The Miami Herald and the
state-controlled Cuban press tied the operation to
Posada. However, he told The New York Times that
American authorities had made no effort to question him
about the case. He attributed that lack of action in
part to his longstanding relationship with American law
enforcement and intelligence agencies.
"As you can see," he said, "the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.
don't bother me, and I am neutral with them. Whenever I
can help them, I do."
Posada gave conflicting accounts of his contacts with
American authorities. Initially he spoke of enduring
ties with United States intelligence agencies and of
close friendship with at least two current F.B.I.
officials, including, he said, an important official in
the Washington office.
"I know a very high-up person there," he said.
Later he asked that those comments be omitted from any
article and said it had been years since he had had
these close dealings.
An American Government official said the C.I.A. has not
had a relationship with Posada "in decades," and the
F.B.I. also denied his assertions. "The F.B.I. does not
now have nor have we ever had a longstanding
relationship with Posada," said John F. Lewis, Jr. who
as assistant director in charge of the national security
division supervises all counterintelligence and
counterterrorism work for the agency.
Declassified documents unearthed in Washington by the
National Security Archives support Posada's suggestion
that the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. had detailed knowledge of
his operations against Cuba from the early 1960's to the
mid-1970's.
G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel to the 1978 House Select
Committee on Assassinations, said he had reviewed many
of the F.B.I.'s classified files about anti-Castro
Cubans from 1978 and had noted many instances in which
the bureau turned a blind eye to possible violations of
the law. As he put it, "When I read some of those
things, and I'm an old Federal prosecutor, I thought,
'Why isn't someone being indicted for this?' "
On one point Posada was direct and unrepentant: he still
intends to try to kill Castro, and he believes violence
is the best method for ending Communism in Cuba.
"It is the only way to create an uprising there," Posada
said. "Castro will never change, never. There are
several ways to make a revolution, and I have been
working on some."
Within militant Cuban exile circles, Posada is a
legendary figure, celebrated for his tenacity and
dedication to the anti-Castro cause. He has at various
times also worked for Venezuelan, Salvadoran and
Guatemalan intelligence or security agencies because, he
explained, he wanted "to fight against the Communists,
the people who helped Cuba."
But the Cuban Government regards him as a terrorist and
a "monstrous criminal" responsible for numerous acts of
violence against official installations and personnel,
on the island and off, and has called on the United
States to curb his activities.
Posada proudly admitted authorship of the hotel bomb
attacks last year. He described them as acts of war
intended to cripple a totalitarian regime by depriving
it of foreign tourism and investment.
"We didn't want to hurt anybody," he said. "We just
wanted to make a big scandal so that the tourists don't
come anymore. We don't want any more foreign
investment."
The bombs were also intended, Posada said, to sow doubts
abroad about the stability of the regime, to make Cuba
think he had operatives in the military and to encourage
internal opposition. "People are not afraid anymore," he
said. "They talk openly in the street. But they need
something to start the fire, and that's my goal."
THE BOMBINGS
A Mastermind Reveals Some Key Secrets
[F] or several months the attacks did indeed discourage
tourism. With a rueful chuckle, Posada described the
Italian tourist's death as a freak accident, but he
declared that he had a clear conscience, saying, "I
sleep like a baby."
"It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop," he
added. "That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at
the wrong time."
In Havana last September, authorities arrested a
25-year-old Salvadoran, Ral Ernesto Cruz Len, and
accused him of carrying out a half-dozen of the hotel
attacks. Posada said Cruz Len, whom he described as a
mercenary, had been working for him, but said "maybe a
dozen" others reporting to him remained at large.
The hotel bombings were organized from El Salvador and
Guatemala, Posada said. Explosives were obtained through
his contacts there, and subordinates in turn recruited
couriers like Cruz Len to take the explosives into Cuba
and detonate them in carefully selected targets.
"Everything is compartmentalized," Posada said. "I know
everybody, but they don't know me."
"This was an inside operation in Cuba," he added,
explaining that he was now trying to think of another
way to disrupt the Cuban economy and demonstrate to the
Cuban people that Castro's security apparatus is not
all-powerful and all-knowing. "Very soon there will be
exciting news," he predicted.
Posada said he had several ongoing operations, including
one that resulted in Cuba's capture of three of his
colleagues in early June. "Castro is keeping this a
secret," he said. "I don't understand why."
In response to several questions about operational
details that he clearly did not want to answer, he
jokingly said, "I take the Fifth Amendment."
While agreeing to allow the interviews to be taped, he
declined to be photographed, saying he did not want to
provide Cuban agents with any information that would
help them hunt him down. "The reason that I last so long
is that nobody knows how I am," he explained. "Not
having pictures of my pretty face has kept me alive a
long time."
In Guatemala in 1990, he was attacked and gravely
wounded in what he describes as an assassination attempt
mounted by his enemies at Cuban intelligence. He was hit
with a dozen bullets, one of which shattered his jaw and
nearly severed his tongue, requiring several rounds of
reconstructive surgery.
He said that during his long recuperation in El
Salvador, some of his expenses were paid by Dr.
Hernndez, the current chairman of the Cuban-American
foundation, whom he described as "a great Cuban patriot
and a dear friend." Just last year, he said, a Houston
surgeon whom he also described as a friend flew to El
Salvador and performed further surgery on him.
Posada detailed instances of support from foundation
leaders throughout his career. Mas, he said, helped
organize his escape from a Venezuelan prison in 1985,
and then helped settle him in El Salvador, where he
joined the White House-directed operation that led to
the Iran-contra scandal.
"All the money that I received when I escaped from the
jail," he said, "it was not that much, but it was
through Jorge."
Posada said Mas was also very much aware that he was
behind the hotel bombing campaign last year. But the two
men had a longstanding agreement, he said, never to
discuss the details of any operation that Posada was
involved in.
"He never met operators, never," Posada said. "You ask
for money from him, and he said, 'I don't want to know
anything.' " Any discussion was "not specific, because
he was intelligent enough to know who knows how to do
the things and who doesn't know."
Mas, he added, "was afraid of the telephone."
"You don't talk like that on the telephone."
Asked when he had last visited the United States, he
answered with a laugh and a question of his own:
"Officially or unofficially?" A State Department
official said Posada was reported to have visited Miami
in the summer of 1996.
Posada acknowledged that he has at least four passports,
all in different names. He regards himself as a
Venezuelan citizen, but he has a Salvadoran passport
bearing the name Ramn Medina Rodrguez, the nom de
guerre he assumed during the Iran-contra affair, and a
Guatemalan passport issued in the name of Juan Jos
Rivas Lopez.
He also reluctantly admitted to having an American
passport. But he would not discuss how he had obtained
it or disclose the name in it, saying only that he
occasionally uses it to visit the United States
"unofficially," and had once used it to gain refuge in
the American Embassy when he was caught in the middle of a
>revolution in the West African country of Sierra Leone.
"I have a lot of passports," he said with a laugh. "No
problem."
He added, "If I want to go to Miami, I have different
ways to go. But I don't go. You can't control Customs
people. They can do anything."
"Then," he said, "Your friends can't help you."
[Image]
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