September 23, 2004

President Bush boasts of his toughness on terrorism. So why, then, did his administration allow three men into the United States who were, until recently, behind bars after being convicted of plotting bombings and assassinations of a foreign leader and innocent civilians? Perhaps the reason is because the targets were President Fidel Castro and Panamanian civilians.

Even though the administration denies any role in the pardon, the fact remains that it is politically fortuitous to Bush.

On Aug. 26, the outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso inexplicably pardoned Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon and Luis Posada Carriles. The first three felons were welcomed to Miami by anti-Castro groups, arriving via private jet immediately upon their release. Whether the fourth, Posada, will join them is not yet clear. He is currently in hiding in Honduras.

All four men have nefarious histories.

Luis Posada Carriles escaped from a Venezuelan jail where he had faced charges of planning the 1976 bombing of a commercial Cuban airliner that killed more than 73 people.

Jimenez helped kidnap Cuba's consul to Mexico in 1977 and killed a consular official, according to U.S. law enforcement records cited in the Washington Post.

Remon received a 10-year sentence in 1986 for conspiring to kill Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations in 1980.

The Panamanian government also accuses them of engineering the 1997 bombing of six Havana hotels that killed one Italian tourist and injured 11 other people. Carriles admitted to plotting those bombings.

In 2000, all four allegedly plotted to assassinate Castro when he was in Panama, a plan that threatened the lives of thousands of civilians at the event. They were caught with 33 pounds of explosives and jailed.
By letting such men into the United States, the Bush administration is exposing its double standard.

How can it claim any moral right for our international fight against terrorists when it allows convicted bombers and assassins into our country?

This decision appears to be another desperate attempt by the Bush administration to capture votes from the Cuban community in Florida.

But if the president were serious about fighting terrorism, he would not be welcoming known criminals onto U.S. soil.

Ana Perez is the Cuba program director at Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org), a human-rights group based in San Francisco. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.