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Panama doesn't want Posada Carriles back
Panama News Briefs
Panama doesn’t want to see Posada Carriles again
by Eric
Jackson, partly from other media
Should
this reporter feel some sense of solidarity with Luis Posada Carriles? We were,
after all, “partners” on the same pardon list issued by Mireya Moscoso, on her way
out of office.
Notwithstanding
that, however, there will be cheering at The Panama News office the day that
Mireya is led away in handcuffs, and Posada Carriles gets no sympathy from that
quarter either.
The
right-wing Cuban activist was planning an assassination of Fidel Castro that
would have taken the lives of hundreds of Panamanians, including people at the
Seguro Social hospital near the university auditorium that he would have
leveled with enough plastic explosives to flatten two city blocks. Bad as that
was, it was far from the worst of his crimes. Recall that the guy is an escapee
from a Venezuelan prison --- he was convicted there of putting a bomb on a
civilian airliner back in October of 1976, resulting in an explosion that took
the lives of all 73 human beings aboard the aircraft. It’s no fun being on the
same list with a guy like that.
And
Panama’s Ministry of Foreign Relations says that it doesn’t want Mr. Posada
back here.
Why
is that even suggested? Because after his pardon by Mireya Moscoso, he went
underground for some months, then slipped into the United States from Mexico.
Despite his pleas that he ought to be allowed to stay in that country because
he was a hit man for the CIA, Posada is about to be kicked out of the USA.
Were
the Bush administration any sort of ordinary government, Posada would be handed
over to Venezuelan authorities, who would make him serve the rest of his
30-year prison sentence. But the United States and Venezuela don’t get along
these days, and were Posada sent to Cuba or Barbados (the latter the country
over whose territory the explosion went off) he’d face a death penalty. So the
Bush administration is looking for someone to harbor this criminal. Ironically,
the government that ordered the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantamo and held
international laws against that sort of things “quaint” and of no consequence
has cited the International Convention Against Torture as the reason why Posada
can’t be sent to Venezuela or Cuba.
It’s
a hard sell. Mexico says that they’ll hand him over to Venezuela if he is found
in their territory. El Salvador might let him in, but the right-wing government
there is under strong political challenge by the former FMLN guerrillas and
sheltering Posada could be the extra burden that breaks the thread of ARENA
rule. The Honduran government and Posada Carriles may deserve each other, but
in any case Honduras has announced that they won’t accept him. Mass murderers
with rightist credentials play a prominent role in Guatemalan affairs, but the
Guatemala has rejected Posada as well. Costa Rica and Canada have also turned
down requests to take the man.
Colombia?
Paraguay? The Central African Republic? Uzbekistan? Myanmar? There must be some
place that will accept this --- freedom fighter? no, that doesn’t seem
to be the word --- individual.
But this country isn’t one of them.
