BY PATRICIA MUÑOZ RIOS, (Taken from La Jornada)

THE Posada Carriles case shows that the Vicente Fox government opted for the patronage of the Cuban contras and that the troubled passage of triangular relations between Mexico, the United States and Cuba is not an isolated fact; rather, it is a PAN strategy to subordinate Mexican foreign policy to the George W. Bush administration.

During a forum held at Casa Lamm, Carlos Fazio, who writes on Latin American issues; John Saxe Fernández, a writer specializing in Mexico-U.S. relations; researcher and anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas; and writer Angel Guerra, all of them contributors to La Jornada, discussed the issue of Posada Carriles, his links with the policy of terror carried out by the US government, and his relations in Mexico.

One point that all agreed on was the idea that the US government has maintained a "hypocritical" posture on the subject of terrorism, given that while it has protected, supported and financed those have brought terror to various countries, such as Luis Posada Carriles himself, the administration took advantage of the September 11, 2001 attacks to impose a global state terrorism, attack Iraq with impunity and impose the Northern Command to uphold its power in Latin America.

They commented that the Mexican government has not provided a sufficiently truthful explanation about Posada’s connections in our country; for example, how was it that he entered and exited our territory without any authority learning of his presence or of the activities that he has engaged in here, in spite of the fact that he has perpetrated all types of terrorist acts in Latin America.

Posada Carriles’ Mexican history is not incidental, according to Carlos Fazio, who explained that it is extremely strange that this individual, who has been a terrorist hitman for the CIA and has a thick "terrorist" file, was recently in Mexico; entered through Chetumal, traveled to Cancun and then to Isla Mujeres, where he passed himself off as a tourist; and then, tried to leave on the Santrina boat and, after a maritime incident, opted to leave the country through Matamoros, Tamaulipas, all without having been detected by the Mexican government’s intelligence services.

"Doubt hangs over the government of Vicente Fox, and it is not unwarranted, given that from the outset -- not to mention his presidential campaign -- Fox has received help with resources from the Cuban mafia in Miami in exchange for – as was later proven – a drastic change in bilateral relations with Fidel Castro’s government," Fazio affirmed. He added that all of this coincides with a 2005 PAN-announced "sponsorship" program for 75 Cuban dissidents, the same individuals considered to be mercenaries by the Havana authorities.

In that sense, Gilberto López y Rivas, a researcher with the National Institute of Anthropology and History, stated that "the United States has elevated terrorism to the level of a global state policy, more harmful and dangerous for humanity, because it is being carried out by a specialized and diversified apparatus of subversion, and with the support of the largest war machine in the world. The CIA, since its founding in 1947, has been the main agency used by the US government to carry out dirty war tasks that cannot be characterized as anything other than terrorism," he emphasized.

Along the same lines, during the forum John Saxe Fernandez gave a preview of his forthcoming book Terror e imperio (Terror and Empire), a whole investigation into how the United States has repeatedly utilized circumstances similar to those of September 11 to attack various countries; is using wars to grant multi-million dollar contracts to the large corporations, increasing its war budget and militarizing its foreign policy.