Cuban Exile, Accused Terrorist Faces Extradition

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FARAI CHIDEYA, host:

This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.

To many Cubans, Luis Posada Carriles is what Osama bin Laden is to most Americans--a terrorist of the highest order. That's why the Bush administration finds itself in a precarious position in its proclaimed war against terrorism. Posada is a former CIA operative. He faces accusations that he orchestrated a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Cubana Airlines Flight 455, which originated in Venezuela, had just lifted off from Barbados when it exploded in midair. Now Venezuela wants Posada extradited from the United States. Posada was arrested here on Tuesday by US immigration officials.

With us on the line from Havana is Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Thanks for joining us, Peter.

Mr. PETER KORNBLUH (George Washington University); It's a pleasure to talk to you from Havana, Cuba.

CHIDEYA: So before we talk about Posada, how are Cubans reacting to his arrest and the talk of extradition?

Mr. KORNBLUH: You know, one would have expected that the Cubans would have been delighted with his arrest, but they're very angry that with his arrest, the Bush administration has made it clear that they don't plan to extradite him to Venezuela.

CHIDEYA: He sounds like a character out of a spy novel--he worked with the CIA. How closely allied is he with the US government vs. how much he was? Is the US government ready to cut all ties to him?

Mr. KORNBLUH: Well, we know from the declassified documents that my project at the National Security Archive has been able to obtain and post on our Web site that Luis Posada had a long relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency. I have said, and will say again, that he is essentially one of the foremost Frankensteins created by the CIA. They recruited him in the early 1960s, they trained him in demolitions and sabotage, they gave him equipment which included, by the way, explosives, and they let him go out into the world with these talents and to wreak havoc, as he has. So he is a dangerous man. And the United States has this long association with him, which, you know, even makes it more difficult for the Cubans or, frankly, anybody else to be confident that he could be handled judicially in the United States with any fairness.

CHIDEYA: What do you think the ramifications are for the US if the US chooses to release him to another country that will let him go, given that the US is so stringent in declaring that other countries must support the US war on terrorism?

Mr. KORNBLUH: You know, President Bush has repeatedly said that any country that harbors a terrorist is essentially supporting terrorism. And that was what the United States was doing for the last six or seven weeks when Posada was clearly in Florida, and US Homeland Security and the FBI was not making any attempt to find him. But now really the credibility of George Bush's campaign on international terrorism is at stake. And the question is what they're going to do with him. And if they send him to a country where he is going to be released and to continue his own campaign of violence, then obviously we have, in the face of the world, undermined the credibility of our efforts to wage a war against international terrorism.

CHIDEYA: Peter Kornbluh directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archives at George Washington University. He joined us from Cuba's capital, Havana. Thanks so much.

Mr. KORNBLUH: Thank you so much.

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