U.S. Diverts Plane Because of Journalist

Barack Obama seems to be no improvement over George Bush when it comes to the “No Fly” list.

Just ask Hernando Calvo Ospina.

The Colombian journalist, who is living in exile in France, was flying on an Air France plane from Paris to Mexico City Saturday night, April 18, when the captain announced that the plane had to make a detour to Martinique because there was a passenger on board whom the United States considers a security risk.

That turned out to be Calvo Ospina, who has written favorably about Cuba, has denounced the rightwing Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe, and has been critical of the U.S. role in Latin America.

He’s also writing a book about the CIA.

Evidently, his political and journalistic leanings have not endeared him to U.S. intelligence, which put him on the “No Fly” list.

He was questioned in Martinique, and you can read his account here.

According to Calvo Ospina, they asked him: “Are you a Catholic?”

He said no, and that he wasn’t a Muslim, either, or a terrorist.

They asked him why he was planning on going to Nicaragua, and he said he was on assignment for Le Monde Diplomatique.

He says they also asked him if he knew how to handle firearms.

And he said, “My only weapon is my writing, especially to denounce the American government, whom I consider terrorist.”

He says one of his questioners then responded: “That weapon sometimes is worse than rifles and bombs.”

After several hours, and after they had photocopied his papers, they let him go on to Managua.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had not heard of the incident but discounted it. “If it’s not bound for the United States, we’re not going to receive that manifest information to see whether someone is on the No Fly list or not,” she said.

“I still think it was a dream bordering on a nightmare,” writes Calvo Ospina. “How far will the U.S. authorities’ paranoia go? And why do Air France and the French authorities continue to keep silent about it?”