HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL

Por Carlos Wotzkow

La corte suprema de Suiza ya respondío a mi primera carta. Tomando en consideración esa respuesta se deviva esta nueva versión enviada ahora a las organizaciones debajo señaladas.

Autor

The Suprem Court of Switzerland already respond to my first letter. Taking in consideration that answer I tuned the attached version and I already sent it to the organizations indicated at the end of the text.

Author

Human Rights for all

Dear Sirs,

I address you with the utmost respect, to plead for your immediate intervention in a case of extreme urgency. I know, because I have been observing your organization’s records in favor of human rights, that you all are very busy with the prisoners of Guantánamo, and I do not want to distract you with the fact that there are more than 300 other prisoners of conscience that are rotting in Castro’s dungeons thanks to world apathy. I want nevertheless, to speak about a prisoner, only one, who is detained in the United States of America.

I refer to one that could also be considered a prisoner of conscience, Mr. Luís Posada Carriles, and who more than 20 American congressmen (all Democrats) want to send into the hands of Mr. Hugo Chávez. Significantly, you can see that those who now want to deport the Cuban Posada Carriles to Venezuela, are the North American politicians who have done more for collecting money and sympathies for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and The “Macheteros” of Puerto Rico. Two terrorist groups always supported by congressmen like Donald M. Payne and José E. Serrano.

But it turns out that the case of Mr. Posada Carriles (suspected [only suspected] of being involved in the downing of a Cuban airliner) is even more unjust that these of the Taliban in Guantánamo, and it is to this that I want to call your attention, since this Cuban was sent handcuffed and by force to a court thanks to the ill-disposed intervention of the Venezuelan president at that time Carlos Andrés Pérez. And I say ill-disposed, because the article 23 of the Code of Criminal Indictment of Venezuela (CEC) stated that the competent of the court is determined by the territory where the punishable act has been committed.

Likewise, and always adjusting to the Venezuelan legal system of that time, we will see that the case of the Cuban plane happened 29 years ago and that the Venezuelan law (Article 108 of the Penal Code) has a statue of limitations for these type of crimes of 15 years and only when the crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail. This without considering that Posada Carriles, is 77 years old he can not be imprisoned in a penitentiary center, by virtue of the article 245 of the Organic Procedural Code (COP) that indicates: “it is not possible to decree the deprivation of liberty to persons older than seventy years”.

Today, the government of the United States has arrested without bail Mr. Luís Posada Carriles. In spite of having family in Miami, they have isolated Mr. Posada Carriles in a center of detention next to El Paso, Texas. Luís Posada Carriles is an old combatant against Castro’s regime, about whom much has been written, but believes me; most of it is not true. Luís Posada Carriles is a symbol for several generations of Cubans, above all, for those that have always strived to break free from Fidel Castro's tyranny.

They want to try Mr. Luís Posada Carriles for a third time for a crime that he was acquitted of twice in Venezuela which is now under the oppressive leadership of Hugo Chávez. A country, that established more or less one year ago, a judicial agreement with Cuba. An agreement in which Castro has the last word. Can you imagine how Fidel Castro will judge Mr. Luís Posada Carriles? Do you remember how casually Castro ordered the summary execution of 3 black Cubans who did not constitute any threat to his power?

I do not believe that I have to mention all terrorist acts committed by Castro (the "good" dictator who is favored by the hypocritical European left wingers) since the 1940s. His intervention as a university student in the so called "Bogotazo" (Bogotá, Colombia, 1948) is recorded in the history of that country for the murder of the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaytán. A Colombian who was presenting himself as a candidate for the presidency of Colombia and who in the polls was appearing as a sure winner.

On May of this year, Castro headed in Havana an "antiterrorist" meeting that rather was trying to distract the attention of the Cubans. The objective of such a costly “antiterrorist congress” was to accuse again Mr. Posada Carriles and blame the United States for his existence. The irony of Castro's attitude he himself has organized, financed and carried out hundreds of terrorist acts, not only since his arrival to power in Cuba in 1959, but also when he was fighting against the dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The war developed in Cuba for the power and directed by Castro, was marked during the 50s by constant campaigns of bombings and fires against civil targets, including shops, theaters, cinemas, buses, airliners, etc. Hundreds of Cubans lost their lives in these terrorist acts planned by Castro. An example of what I mean was the first case of an aircraft hijacked in the history of aviation. On November 1958, a Cuban airliner (Flight 495) crashed at 21:00, with 17 people on board, on the northern coast of Cuba. A terrorist act perpetrated by a group of four members of the movement “July 26th” and following instructions from Fidel Castro.

As soon as he seized power in Cuba in 1959, the Castro government turned into the protector of a great many terrorists from North America and other countries. Dozens of the so called “Black Panthers” accused of terrorism in their countries of origin reside today in Cuba. The best example is that of Assata Shakur, whose real name is Joanne Chesimard and who is wanted by the FBI. Chesimard killed in cold blood a police officer in New Jersey and escaped to Cuba in 1979, where she lives as if she is a heroine.

Another North American refugee terrorist in Cuba is a Charlie Hill, who lives protected by the Cuban authorities after having hijacked a TWA plane. In whole, and according to the reports of the FBI, there are more than 70 criminals wanted by the United States justice system, who have found refuge in Castro's Cuba. The majority of them for hijacking airplanes, murder, use of explosives, tax offences and political murders.

Among the perpetrators of multiple murders and the bombers supported by Castro we must not forget the members of the organization named “Los Macheteros” (the same ones that assaulted the Congress of the United States killing the security guard and wounding others) and that in the 1970s, attacked a West Fargo truck and stole more than 1 million dollars. Some of them still remain protected by the Cuban government.

If the Latin Americans and the Europeans have lost their memory, we, the Cubans, have not. During the years after the Cuban revolution, the political assassinations, the kidnappings and the bombs became constant threats in countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Argentina, Uruguay, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Many other nations were a target of the destabilizing campaigns directed from Havana during the sixties, seventies until middle of the eighties.

Castro developed hundreds of campaigns of terrorism against the people of Angola when it supported the MPLA against the UNITA. Cuba maintained a force of 50,000 troops annually for 14 years in this country from 1977. There, they devoted themselves to destroying villages and to exterminating populations. The use of the chemical weapon (in the pure style of Sadam Hussein) by the Cuban troops has been widely documented by a Dutch specialist who investigated the matter for the UN.

Castro has given and continues giving logistic support, refuge, and training, not only to the Latin-American terrorists (Tupamaros, Montoneros, M-19, Zapatistas, and a long etcetera), but also to the Palestinians of Al Fatha and to the Spanish ETA. The latter organization has more than 20 killers enjoying the hospitality of the Cuban dictator and even an office at the America’s department of the Central Committee of Cuba. I do not need to say that ETA has committed more than 1000 murders of innocent people (including several children).

Another case known of organized terrorism by Castro and that affected deeply the Cuban community in exile, was the shooting down of two light aircraft belonging to the organization Brothers' s to the Rescue. This is an association of exiled pilots that was devoted to rescuing rafters in the Straits of Florida. All the intelligence agents in Castro's service that contributed to the downing of those two civilian planes in international waters, and the death of four pilots (3 of them North American citizens) are treated as heroes in Cuba.

However, the most recent and abominable of Castro's acts of terrorism was the sinking of the Tugboat named “13 de Marzo”. In that ship, there were 72 people trying to escape from his tyranny. A Cuban Coast Guard ship, and another 3 tugboats without previous warning, charged against them at full power in open seas. Women and children together with men were swept away into the dark waters by powerful water canons after the tugboat was rammed several times in the attempt to capsize it. The result of this criminal and premeditated action was 41 deaths of which 10 were children.

I must confess the friends who have warned me to be cautious in the defense of Mr. Posada Carriles have not been few. All of them deserve my highest consideration. I admit that I could be adventurer naive in all those things that are still not clear in the history of this compatriot. But it is not a question of defending here a name, but of the presumption of innocence to which any human being has right. Let's suppose that Mr. Luís Posada Carriles was guilty of each and every of the acts that he is accused of. Would he have a fair trial in the hands of a political puppet of a criminal such as Fidel Castro?

If the whole point is about judging this Cuban, you might well (and should) intercede before the courts of the United States in order to request that Mr. Luís Posada Carriles be tried in this country, since it was there where he has been detained. To allow that to be tried in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela would facilitate the construction of a gallows with judges pronouncing sentence from Havana. The years of this aged man are counted and his future must not be decided by a real terrorist posing as Robin Hood, unfortunately, still he enjoys the admiration of the European leftists.

It is sad to see that nobody, not even your organization (and I apologize if I appear to be unjust due to an incorrect statement) has asked for the indictment of Castro, a Cuban mass murder. On the contrary, it seems as if his crimes are enjoying the coldest complacency.

With my highest regards,
Carlos Wotzkow

Mr. Jakob Kellenberger; President International Committee of the Red Cross
19 Avenue de la Paix, CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Mrs. Irene Khan; Genral Secretary Amnesty International
1 Easton Street, London, WC1X 0DW England
Mrs. Marsha J. Evans; President and CEO American Red Cross, National Headquarters
2025 E Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20006 USA

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