PRESIDENT Fidel Castro has revealed the complicated intrigue established between high-level US officials and the terrorist anti-Cuban mafia based in that country.

In his fourth extraordinary address on the subject since Monday, April 11, the Cuban leader unraveled the ties between high-level political figures in the U.S. and terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, who is currently seeking asylum from Washington.

Those criticized by Fidel included John Bolton, Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, who from their positions at the top of the US government have been characterized for their aggressiveness toward the Cuban Revolution.

The Cuban president also questioned the effective functioning of Washington’s immense security apparatus – made up of 15 intelligence agencies and 180,000 employees – if a character like Posada Carriles was able to enter the U.S. at will.

Together with Gaspar Jiménez, Pedro Remón and Guillermo Novo, Posada Carriles plotted to assassinate Fidel during the 10th Ibero-American Summit in Panama (at the end of 2000).

Arrested thanks to their exposure by Fidel Castro himself, the shady quartet was convicted by a Panamanian court and subsequently pardoned in August of 2004 by the president of Panama at the time, Mireya Moscoso, whose mandate was about to end.

Subsequent evidence indicates that the arbitrary pardon was granted at the urging of high-level US figures and Miami-based terrorist groups of Cuban origin.

Posada Carriles disappeared from public view until a few weeks ago, when he reappeared in Miami in order to ask for asylum from the US authorities.

"The death contractor," as the Cuban president has called him, also is responsible for countless terrorist acts against Cuba, including the sabotage of a passenger airline over Barbados in October of 1976 that left 73 people dead.

Fidel affirmed that by giving asylum to the Cuban-born terrorist, the U.S. would put itself in a weak position in its supposed combat against that scourge in the world.

"These are crazy, absurd things, capricious acts of all kinds, which are putting the US government in a very delicate moral situation and weakens its prestige," the Cuban leader stated during his speech.

"We are observing uncertainty in the White House," Fidel said, clearly alluding to the situation created after Cuba exposed Posada Carriles’ presence in Miami for one month to date.

"In that way," he added, "the political cost for Washington will be less, because what moves us is not a spirit of vengeance; rather, we want justice to be done."

"Our arguments are irrefutable, and we will continue observing and informing on the development of this process, which will only bring a loss of prestige to the United States," he commented.

On returning to the issue of whether Posada Carriles traveled to the United States with the support of other Cuban-born terrorists, he recalled that according to a recent Mexican newspaper, at some point during the journey, a shrimping boat on which he and other individuals were traveling ran aground, and then entered port in the Islas Mujeres, Mexico. (PL)