BY JANE FRANKLIN (Special for Granma International)

                   THE Cuban American National Foundation is well-represented on the
                   GOP’s list of presidential electors from Florida by CANF’s treasurer,
                   Feliciano M. Foyo, who happens to be a good friend of Florida
                   Governor Jeb Bush. Foyo has another friend named Luis Posada
                   Carriles, one of the most notorious terrorists among Cuban expatriates.
                   In an autobiography published in Honduras in 1994, Posada names
                   Feliciano Foyo as one of his financial backers. What does it mean to be
                   one of Posada’s financiers?

                   Posada, along with three other well-known terrorists, was detained by
                   Panamanian authorities November 17 for an alleged plan to assassinate
                   President Fidel Castro while the Cuban leader addressed thousands of
                   students at the University of Panama. If the plastic explosive discovered
                   in Panama had been used, hundreds of people could have been killed or
                   injured. But Posada does not seem bothered by "collateral damage."

                   Posada has previously aimed to kill Castro in several countries, including
                   Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru. A sales
                   representative for Firestone Tire and Rubber in Cuba, Posada started
                   working for the CIA at least by 1960. Found out and forced to flee, for
                   years he led raids carried out by Alpha 66, a terrorist organization that
                   continues raids to this day–with impunity.

                   In June 1976, while George H. W. Bush (the elder) was head of the
                   CIA, a CIA operative, Cuban expatriate Orlando Bosch, founded and led
                   the Commanders of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU).
                   Posada was one of those "commanders." As revealed later in FBI and
                   CIA documents, CORU was soon involved in more than 50 bombings
                   and, quite likely, political assassinations. Venezuelans and U.S.
                   authorities reported that a network of terrorists carried out a "vast"
                   number of attacks in seven countries against Cuba and against countries
                   and individuals considered friendly to Cuba. This reign of terror
                   culminated in October 1976 when a Cubana passenger plane was blown
                   up after it took off from Barbados headed for Cuba, killing all 73 people
                   aboard, including 57 Cubans.

                   With overwhelming evidence against them, Posada, Bosch and two
                   Venezuelans were arrested and held in Venezuela. Military courts in
                   Venezuela acquitted them, not a surprising development since the CIA in
                   1967 had transferred Posada to Venezuela, using him as a leader of
                   terrorist activities against Cuba in Latin America and the Caribbean. In
                   the Interior Ministry, he ran the Intelligence and Prevention Services
                   Division (DISIP), which persecuted, interrogated and tortured
                   Venezuelan citizens. Awaiting retrial, in 1985 Posada walked out of the
                   prison.

                   According to Posada himself, his guards were bribed with money from
                   Miami. One of the couriers of such financing was Gaspar Jiménez
                   Escobedo, one of the terrorists now held in Panama. From Venezuela,
                   Cuban expatriate Félix Rodríguez, another notorious terrorist, took
                   Posada to El Salvador where Rodríguez was working with Col. Oliver
                   North in supplying Contras against the Sandinistas government of
                   Nicaragua. The exposure of that operation led to the Iran-Contra
                   hearings of 1987. At those hearings before Congress, Rodríguez was
                   asked about "Ramón Medina." He replied that Medina was an alias in El
                   Salvador for Posada, a "good friend of mine," an "honorable man." He
                   testified that he brought Posada to El Salvador from Venezuela, claiming
                   that Posada "deserved to be free." Not another question was asked
                   about Posada. Instead Rodríguez was complimented on his role by Rep.
                   Bill McCollum (R-Fl), one of his questioners. Rep. Peter Rodino (D-NJ)
                   also told him that we all appreciate his fighting against communism.

                   Two years later, in a speech on the Senate floor, Senator Tom Harkin
                   (D-Iowa) said the American people "deserve a full accounting of [then
                   Vice President] Bush and the vice president’s office and its knowledge
                   of Luis Posada’s role in the secret contra supply operation." In his
                   testimony before Congress, Rodríguez had bragged about meeting with
                   Vice President Bush (he showed Bush a picture of himself with captive
                   Che Guevara in the hours before Che was executed). Senator Harkin
                   wondered "why Bush never bothered to use his good offices to
                   investigate charges of Posada’s links with the supply operation and Félix
                   Rodríguez even after the press reported them in late 1986."

                   After El Salvador, Posada spent time in terrorist activities in Guatemala,
                   Honduras and El Salvador. Money from Miami, said Posada, was used
                   to finance the 1997 bombings aimed at the tourist industry in
                   Havana—bombings that killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo, and
                   injured several people. Posada admitted paying Salvadorans to go to
                   Cuba to plant those bombs. After Posada and three of his cohorts were
                   detained in Panama, Justino di Celmo, father of the dead tourist,
                   appeared on Cuban television to appeal to Panamanian President Mireya
                   Moscoso not to release Luis Posada. The families of the 57 Cubans
                   killed in the 1976 explosion of the passenger jet are pleading for justice.
                   Time will tell if Posada’s financiers can pay his way out of this one.
                   Jane Franklin is the author of Cuba and the United States: A Chronological
                   History.