BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD, —Special for Granma International—

                   VERY tall and strong, with white hair and moustache, he was a dominant
                   figure among the small group of Miami mafia representatives who
                   appeared in the car park of the Panama court where the preliminary
                   hearing of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and his accomplices
                   was taking place. And before the television cameras, he was the noisiest
                   "showman" in the gang, presenting himself as an exemplary defender of
                   human rights, freedom and democracy.

                   "And what’s your name?" asked reporters.

                   "Reinol Rodríguez", he answered, trusting that with the passing of time, they’d have
                   forgotten his past¼ and his name would not attract the attention of anyone in
                   Panama.

                   Sure enough, throughout the preliminary hearing analyzing the case of the terrorist
                   group who tried to blow up the University of Panama’s lecture theater, no one
                   realized that Reinol Rodríguez, seated for three days on the benches
                   reserved for friends and relatives of the accused, freely conversing with
                   them on various occasions, was identified as a terrorist leader in the FBI’s
                   declassified documents presented to the judge and used to incriminate
                   Posada and his hitmen.

                   In order to fulfill the demands of an agreement between the Panamanian
                   and U.S. judicial authorities on the exchange of police information, after
                   Posada, Gaspar Jiménez, Pedro Remón and Guillermo Novo were
                   charged, the U.S. embassy was forced to hand over a number of
                   "declassified" documents that, in reality, are just a small percentage of the
                   archives relating to these individuals.

                   IDENTIFIED BY THE FBI AS CORU CHIEF

                   Amongst these documents appears a secret one declassified by the FBI:
                   19 pages long, Ref No. 2-471, dated August 16, 1978, an unidentified
                   federal police agent presents an extensive description of the United
                   Revolutionary Organizations Coordinating Committee (CORU).

                   In the report, the expert explains how CORU was founded on June 11,
                   1976 in the Dominican Republic, fusing together five Cuban-American
                   groups under the direction of well-known journalist Orlando Bosch from
                   Miami – of course, it does not mention that CIA boss, George Bush Snr.
                   ordered this murderous organization to be created.

                   In the same document, in the midst of various descriptions of CORU’s
                   terrorist activities, appear a variety of notorious figures, such as Frank
                   Castro, who took over as the group’s acting leader whilst Orlando Bosch
                   was imprisoned in Venezuela for blowing up a Cubana airplane; Tony
                   Catalayud, a terrorist recently accused of being involved in a massive
                   fraud in Miami; Gaspar Jiménez, murderer of D’Artaignan Díaz Díaz in
                   Mexico and Posada’s accomplice in Panama, and Guillermo Novo Sampoll,
                   founder of the Omega-7 terrorist group and CORU leader, also detained in
                   Panama.

                   On page 11 of the document, the name Reinol Rodríguez appears for the
                   first time, linked to Frank Castro by an informant known as MM T-3.

                   On page 13, the same MM T-3 revealed that on April 18, 1978 a meeting
                   of CORU leaders was due to take place in Sarasota, Florida; eight
                   individuals were due to attend, including Frank Castro and Reinol
                   Rodríguez¼ "CORU leader, San Juan, Puerto Rico".

                   Two pages on, MM T-3 states that the very same Reinol Rodríguez
                   created the Latin American Anti-Communist Army (ELAC) and as well as
                   being CORU head for Puerto Rico, he was also chief of the Organizations
                   Group in the same country and had "strong affiliations" in Chicago and
                   New York.

                   The informer specifies how Rodríguez said that CORU is currently
                   discussing the possibilities of attacks on Cuban consulates outside the
                   United States, possibly using revolvers equipped with silencers instead of
                   bombs.

                   Reinol Rodríguez left Puerto Rico in 1979 to take up residence in Miami.
                   There he joined the military department of the Martí Insurrectional
                   Movement (MIM), the organization responsible for creating camps in
                   Cuba and Nicaragua training unpatriotic Cubans and former Somoza
                   supporters.

                   MUÑIZ VARELA MURDER SUSPECT

                   Although the purpose of the documents was to show the true face of the
                   Miami mafia’s representative in Panama — as in the case of his
                   "colleagues" Posada, Jiménez, Remón and Novo — the reports did nothing
                   more than whet the appetite¼ Reinol´s Rodríguez’ terrorist history is
                   much more extensive.

                   As CORU chief and member of ELAC, the Organizations Group and MIM,
                   it is undeniable that Rodríguez has directed, organized and carried out
                   dozens of possible terrorist actions that the FBI has not only been unable
                   to ignore but, to a large extent, tolerate.

                   Just one example: in the FBI archives lie documents – not circulated –
                   revealing that Reinol Rodríguez has always been on the list of suspects for
                   the murder of Carlos Muñiz Varela on April 28, 1979. At the time, Muñiz
                   managed the Agencia de Viajes Varadero, in the Puerto Rican capital, a
                   travel company specializing in organized trips to Cuba with the aim of
                   bringing Cuban immigrants and the Cuban authorities closer together.

                   According to the FBI, Reinol and his cousin Roger Rodríguez were
                   investigated as possible participants in the crime. On July 6, 1979 Reinol
                   Rodríguez was the victim of an assassination attempt in the vicinity of his
                   Miami home.

                   DYNAMITE: THE ONLY WAY

                   In November 1979, "defender of democracy" Reinol Rodríguez visited
                   Puerto Rico and was interviewed by fascist weekly La Cronica.

                   In the customary manner that Batista-loving henchmen use to express
                   themselves he told the journalist: "I’m telling you that if one of our
                   comrades falls into the hands of the communists, you won’t have to wait
                   for the payback, we’ll quintuple it¼ What I’m saying is that for every one
                   of ours who falls, we’ll get five Castro agents, whether they’re known or
                   unknown. And that’s it. The order is five for one, there’s no discussion.

                   This call to violence has led many to compare Rodríguez to another
                   disguised individual who later appears in photographs accompanying an
                   interview by Gloria Gil (another suspect) entitled: "We won’t allow talks
                   to progress – Dynamite: the only way that we’re going to talk, affirms
                   Zeta, military chief of the Omega 7 command".

                   It was already known that Julio Labatud Escarra, millionaire of Cuban
                   origin and member of La Cronica’s executive committee, and Waldo
                   Pimental Amestoy were implicated in the planning and financing of Carlos
                   Muñiz Varela’s murder, together with José "Pepe" Canosa, who personally
                   put up the money for the job.

                   AND HERE COMES PEDRO REMÓN!

                   But it was also revealed, several months ago, that murderer Pedro Remón
                   – currently (also!) incarcerated in Panama with Posada Carriles — was
                   another member of the conspiracy.

                   Remón was not only named in a confidential FBI report as the murderer
                   of Cuban diplomat Félix García Rodríguez and Cuban-American citizen
                   Eulalio José Negrin, acting as the Omega-7 terrorist group’s hitman, but
                   his dossier has also been officially requested by the senatorial commission
                   in Puerto Rico currently investigating Carlos Muñiz Varela’s murder.

                   According to a declassified FBI report dated October 1993 and published
                   on the Internet, Remón was first linked to terrorist activities when he was
                   arrested in December 1980, on the Canada-U.S. border, just hours after a
                   bomb exploded at the Cuban consulate in Montreal. Accompanying him
                   was Saúl Sánchez Rizo from Miami, who recently faced a deportation trial
                   ordered by the U.S. immigration authorities.

                   Jailed much later for refusing to confess to his crimes, Remón afterwards
                   relocated to Miami, taking advantage of the authorities’ tolerance towards
                   Cuban-American terrorists. In 2002, he reappeared in the public spotlight
                   in Panama, at the time of the failed assassination attempt of the Cuban
                   president that, had it succeeded, would have cost thousands of lives.

                   Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, the Commission for Truth and Justice was
                   created, comprising of relatives and friends of victims of political
                   assassinations promoted by U.S. and Puerto Rican governments
                   institutions such as the police, the FBI, the CIA and U.S. War Navy
                   intelligence.

                   Relatives and friends of Muñiz Varela and several experts on the case are
                   convinced that a kind of trilogy of murders took place following the
                   political process triggered by talks taking place between the Cuban
                   government and representatives of the Cuban immigrant community at
                   the end of the 1970’s. These were: Carlos Muñiz Varela in April 1979 in
                   Puerto Rico; Eulalio José Negrin in New Jersey, November 1979; and
                   Félix García Rodríguez in New York, 1980. The first two were members of
                   that community and active participants in the process that had been
                   initiated. The latter was a member of the Cuban delegation to the UN in
                   New York.

                   The young Puerto Rican’s assassination is attributed to the Zero
                   Command organization; the murders of Eulalio José Negrin and Félix
                   García Rodríguez to Omega-7. Many are convinced that both
                   organizations were, in fact, one and the same. The case of Carlos contains
                   elements suggesting that at least two of those involved in his assassination
                   came from the United States. At the time, Rodríguez and Remón were
                   living in U.S. territory.

                   Over the passing years, the FBI’s attitude has of course been one of total
                   inertia towards the case.

                   Why should Reinol Rodríguez be forever enjoying Pan American impunity
                   for having committed his crimes under CIA protection? One day, justice
                   and truth will out, and he will answer to the families of CORU victims for
                   his actions.