BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)

                   IT’S incredible: five Cubans are still locked up in U.S. prisons for
                   having counteracted the plans of Miami terrorist gangs... while in
                   Panama there are plans for the possible release of the hemisphere’s
                   worst terrorist and his accomplices! And all this in the middle of the
                   so-called War against Terrorism.

                   Luis Posada Carriles, who attempted to blow up an auditorium full of
                   students in Panama in order to assassinate the Cuban president, has
                   a very long history of terrorist crimes, including the explosion of a
                   Cubana airplane in full flight.

                   But these days, the Miami media and mafia circles are celebrating the
                   proclamation of Posada Carriles’ "innocence" of the charges against
                   him in Panama and the announcement his lawyer – a former public
                   prosecutor well known for his involvement with that country’s drug
                   barons – that the terrorist may soon be released.

                   After telling the Miami press that the Panamanian prosecutor’s office
                   "did not have enough proof" to try Posada Carriles and his
                   accomplices for intent to murder — despite the considerable amount
                   of evidence provided by Cuba — defense lawyer Rogelio Cruz dared
                   to predict that the four terrorists would be released on bail "before
                   May." Knowing that for Posada Carriles to be released on bail is one
                   more trick for him to flee the country, Cruz’s statement is equivalent
                   to announcing that the hemisphere’s number one terrorist and his
                   helpers are about to board a plane.

                   It’s not difficult to identify the origins of Posada Carriles’ legal "luck."

                   Who stands to benefit the most if there is no trial or extradition
                   —Cuba and Venezuela requested the latter —and Posada Carriles
                   disappears as quickly as possible?

                   Posada Carriles, mentor and head of the most fanatical Miami
                   terrorist groups for the last 40 years, along with his alter ego
                   Orlando Bosch, has been a CIA operative since his recruitment on the
                   eve of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and at least until he became
                   boss of the Venezuelan secret police. And he continued collaborating
                   with the CIA during the whole of the time he was helping the
                   Nicaraguan Contras to traffic drugs to buy weapons.

                   That man carries such weight with the CIA and various of its former
                   heads, including George Bush Sr., that he couldn’t be left in the hands
                   of Panamanian justice. In 1985, when he was imprisoned in
                   Venezuela for the serious crime of having blown up a Cuban
                   passenger plane in full flight and causing the death of 73 people, the
                   Miami mafia decided to buy his freedom at any price.

                   It was Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, one of his accomplices jailed in
                   Panama, who took the bribe money for the prison guards to
                   Caracas. Jiménez was also imprisoned in Mexico, linked to the
                   murder of July 23, 1976, of D’Artagnan Díaz Díaz, a Cuban fishing
                   technician in that country.

                   Once free, Posada Carriles fled to El Salvador, where he began a new
                   stage in his political and criminal career. Ramón Medina was just one
                   of the names he assumed there.

                   ’THE FBI AND THE CIA DON’T BOTHER ME AND I’M NEUTRAL
                   WITH THEM’

                   Posada Carriles stayed in Central America for many years, planning
                   and inspiring innumerable attacks on the Cuban Revolution. He
                   himself confessed to various of those in public, such as in an
                   interview with The New York Times in which he admitted to having
                   organized the campaign of attacks on various Cuban tourism
                   locations in 1997, using Central American mercenaries.

                   In the same 1998 interview, he explained that the Cuban American
                   National Foundation (CANF) had financed that criminal operation.

                   Nevertheless, Posada Carriles told The New York Times that the
                   U.S. authorities had not made the slightest effort to question him
                   about those terrorist acts. He attributed this incredible tolerance to
                   his former links with U.S. intelligence agencies.

                   "The FBI and the CIA don’t bother me and I’m neutral with them. I
                   help them whenever I can," he declared.

                   The impunity granted to Posada Carriles by U.S. authorities can be
                   compared with the incredible privileges accorded to his long-time pal
                   Orlando "Dr. Death" Bosch.

                   Bosch’s participation has been demonstrated in the monstrous
                   Cubana airplane crime plus more than 50 other attacks on U.S.
                   territory and seven other countries; he was implicated in the
                   assassinations of former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier and human
                   rights activist Ronnie Moffit; he collaborated criminally with the
                   Argentine and Chilean fascist juntas; and he’s suspected of being
                   linked to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But despite all
                   that, Bosch was not only allowed to live in the United States but... he
                   was also given a presidential pardon by George Bush Sr.!

                   The former president, father of the present White House incumbent,
                   witnessed various episodes of the covert war against Cuba when he
                   was CIA director and also as president. This is clearly demonstrated
                   by the relationship he maintained with Cuban Félix Rodríguez,
                   confirmed terrorist and Posada Carriles’ boss at the time when both
                   weapons and drug were being trafficked through the Salvadoran
                   airbase in Ilopango. That same operation is what provoked the
                   Iran-Contra scandal.

                   FAITHFUL DEFENDERS OF A PROFESSIONAL TERRORIST

                   The anti-Cuba mafia, faithful defenders of 40 years of terrorism,
                   have collected huge sums of money, through institutions such as
                   Radio Mambí and its pro-terrorist "fundraising marathons." They have
                   also used other ways to raise funds, secretly boosted by Jorge Mas
                   Santos’ troops and his CANF.

                   Thus they have managed to openly collect vast sums of money in
                   order to attempt a bribery operation similar to the one in Venezuela,
                   and to present an elaborate defense, using whatever means
                   necessary, of a professional terrorist who has publicly confessed to
                   most of his terrorist crimes!

                   And let’s not forget about his three accomplices, including Gaspar
                   Jiménez and another "celebrated" terrorist, Guillermo Novo,
                   sentenced and later "absolved" of the murder of Orlando Letelier. In
                   1964, Novo fired a bazooka at the United Nations building in New
                   York, as Ernesto Che Guevara was inside speaking to the General
                   Assembly. Luckily, the projectile fell into the river, 200 meters from
                   the building.

                   And the five heroic Cubans who risked their lives infiltrating the most
                   fanatical terrorist circles, to counteract their plans, are now in jail in
                   five different U.S. prisons, because of the criminal tolerance of the
                   U.S. legal system.

                   Will Panama’s legal system dare to release the terrorist responsible
                   for the deaths of 73 Cubana passengers in 1976, a man who is an
                   acknowledged drug trafficker and who also admitted planning the
                   1997 criminal attacks in Havana and terror campaigns?

                   Will Panama’s legal system dare to become an accomplice of one
                   who, along with his partner — the murderous pediatrician Orlando
                   Bosch — undoubtedly deserves the horrible and detestable title of the
                   hemisphere’s number one terrorist?