Toward a New U.S.-Latin America Foreign Policy

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LASC: Toward a New U.S.-Latin America Foreign Policy

The Latin America Solidarity CoalitionCoordinating Committee has adopted the following talking points for useby local activists to educate their communities and influence opinionmakers and elected officials. With a new administration installed inWashington, DC it is time for progressive activists to demand a newforeign policy toward Latin American and the Caribbean.

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) is an association ofnational and local US-based grassroots Latin America and Caribbeansolidarity groups, many of which have long histories of working withgrassroots organizations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.LASCs mission is to define common goals and shared strategies forthese groups. LASCs work circles around several hemisphere-wide issuesas well as country-specific topics.

We operate and structure our work from a solidarity model: weoperate on the principle of self-determination; it is not up to us todetermine what our partners in the Global South should or should notdo. Nor is it up to us to determine the strategies and methodologiesthey use. We determine our strategies based on the needs of ourpartners in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Visit our web page at www.lasolidarity.orgto learn more.

1. Close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperationalso known as the School of the Americas
2. Close the International Law Enforcement Academy in San Salvador
3. Stop funding Plan Colombia and cut off all military aid to thatcountry
4. Stop funding the Merida Initiative and the militarization of theUS/Mexico border
5. Close the National Endowment for Democracy and return USAID to itsoriginal foreign aid mission
6. Return President Aristide to Haiti, advocate freedom for allpolitical prisoners and support the end of the UN occupation
7. End belligerence toward Venezuela and other Latin American countrieswhose citizens have elected left leaning governments over the pastdecade
8. End the embargo against Cuba and normalize relations with our islandneighbor
9. Stop initiating Free Trade agreements that benefit onlycorporations while destroying local agriculture and forcing LatinAmericans to leave their homeland to work in the US
10. Publicly state support for the legitimate elected government ofBolivia, condemn the separatist violence and take no actions to furtherinflame the crisis there
11. Extradite the terrorist Luis Posada Carrilles to Venezuela, asrequired by extradition treaty, to stand trial for the fatal bombing ofa Cubana Airlines flight that killed 73 people. Free the five Cubananti-terrorist agents falsely convicted of espionage for infiltratingCuban exile terrorist groups in Miami whose repeated attacks havekilled over 3,000 Cubans and foreigners in Cuba.

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1. Close the Western Hemisphere Institute for SecurityCooperation also known as the School of the Americas

The School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institutefor Security Cooperation) is an example of the conventional thinkingthat military repression is a solution to social and politicalproblems. The existence of the SOA/ WHINSEC is part of a larger failurein U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America. It is a symbol ofoppression and U.S. domination for most Latin Americans. Graduates ofthe school have a long history of human rights violations. From theatrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s to recentviolations in Colombia, graduates consistently appear in reports onhuman rights abuses in Latin America.

SOA/ WHINSEC training has resulted in civilian massacres,assassinations, disappearances, death threats and has led to bothattempted and successful coups of democratically elected governments inthe hemisphere. Closing the SOA/ WHINSEC, whatever its name, woulddemonstrate that the United States is willing to make a clean breakfrom the tragic history of the school and its graduates. Argentina,Bolivia, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Venezuela all denounced the school forits connection to human rights abuses throughout the Americas and vowedto cut its ties to the SOA/WHINSEC.

The issue of investigating and closing the notorious SOA/ WHINSEC isone that is widely supported well beyond the Latin America Solidaritymovement. Last year a vote to prohibit funding for the school wasdefeated by a small margin of six votes. The AFL-CIO, AFSCME, theUnited Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers, the InternationalBrotherhood of Electrical Workers, the NAACP, the United MethodistChurch, the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ and over100 U.S. Catholic Bishops all advocate the institutes closure.

Despite efforts to evade criticism by renaming the school andimplementing cosmetic changes, the SOA/ WHINSEC continues to be linkedto human rights and drug trafficking crimes throughout Latin America. Anumber of Colombian military officials, over half of whom took classesor even taught at the school, were recently arrested for aiding drugcartels,. This included two instructors of 2004 classes at WHINSEC. Inthree recent cases, known human rights abusers have been admitted tothe school, despite documented instances of serious crimes.

For more information: www.soaw.org.

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2. Close the International Law Enforcement Academy in SanSalvador

In recent years, US military aid to Latin America had increaseddramatically. Secretive training of Latin American military and policepersonnel that used to just take place at the notorious School of theAmericas (SOA), in Fort Benning, Georgiaincluding torture andexecution techniquesis now decentralized. The 2008 US federal budgetincludes $16.5 million to fund an International Law Enforcement Academy(ILEA) in El Salvador, with satellite operations in Peru. Each academywill train an average of 1,500 police officers, judges, prosecutors,and other law enforcement officials throughout Latin America per yearin counterterrorism techniques.

According to ILEA directors, the facility in El Salvador is designedto make Latin America safe for foreign investment by providingregional security and economic stability and combating crime. Mostinstructors come from US agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency(DEA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the FBI. Most ofthe schools expenses are paid with US tax payers dollars.

Salvadorans refer to the ILEA as a new SOA for police. Suspicionsare exacerbated by comparable policies of secrecy. As with SOA, theILEA list of attendees and graduates is classified, as is coursecontent. Suspicions are further aggravated by the US-mandated immunityclause that exempts ILEA personnel from crimes against humanity.

Although lack of transparency makes it impossible to know thecontent of courses, the conduct of the Salvadoran policewho compose 25percent of the academys graduateshas shown an alarming turn for theworse since the ILEA was inaugurated. In early May 2007, theArchbishops Legal Aid and Human Rights Defense Office (Tutela Legal)released a report implicating the Salvadoran National Police (PNC) ineight death squadstyle assassinations in 2006 alone.

The PNC has played an active role in a crackdown against civilliberties, aimed at curbing both crime and social protest. Theprovisions in free trade agreements like CAFTA have been highlycontentious, and President Antonio Sacas administration passed ananti-terror law in September 2006, modeled on the USA PATRIOT Act, thathas been used to arrest everyone from anti-water privatizationactivists to street vendors.

US run Latin America police training programs were shut down in the1970s after Congressional investigations revealed serious human rightsabuses. The next president should close the ILEA and end currenttraining programs.

For more information: www.cispes.org.

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3. Stop funding Plan Colombia and cut off all military aid tothat country

The United States has spent more than $5 billion via Plan Colombiasince 2000, primarily in training, equipment and intelligence for theColombian Armed Forces, in what was promoted as a plan to reduce inhalf the cultivation of coca leaves, a primary ingredient of cocaine,by 2005. Yet the most recent data released by the State Department showthat more land in Colombia was cultivated with coca in 2006388,000acresthan when the effort began in 2000.

Plan Colombia supports a Colombian military that has an atrocioushuman rights record and has been linked to drug-trafficking. Many unitsof the Colombian Army have been credibly reported to collaborate withparamilitary death squads declared by the US State Department asterrorist organizations.

The armed conflict in Colombia, which has raged for nearly 50 years,is rooted in economic disparity and has led to the internaldisplacement of 3.8 million people and the deaths of tens of thousands.Many of those murdered by right wing paramilitaries, with ties to thegovernment and military, have been peace activists, union organizers(2,000 over 15 years), and teachers. Afro-Colombian and Indigenouscommunities have been especially affected. The U.S-Colombia Free TradeAgreement (FTA) that is currently being discussed would consolidate andincrease existing inequality and poverty, which are at the root of thecurrent conflict. The FTA would devastate Colombias small and mediumfarmers, who cannot compete with subsidized U.S. corporateagribusinesses.

They face a situation similar to the 2 million farmers who weredisplaced from their lands in Mexico under NAFTA. Colombias Ministryof Agriculture projects that income for farmers could drop by as muchas fifty percent once tariffs are fully eliminated. Farmers are likelyto be forced off their land or to turn to coca production as a sourceof income. Coca production in turn leads to increased drug traffickingand its increase causes further destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

We urge the next US administration to oppose the U.S. Colombia FTAand to immediately end all U.S. aid to the Colombian military. Neitherthe FTA nor the military package that is Plan Colombia will lead to amore secure society for the people of Colombia.

For more information: www.forusa.org/programs/tflac/tflac.htmland www.colombiasolidarity.organd www.witnessforpeace.org.

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4. Stop funding the Merida Initiative and the militarization ofthe US/Mexico border

The Merida initiative is a multi-year aid package to Mexico andCentral America that seeks to further militarize the region under theguise of the U.S.s War on Drugs/ War on Terror. Congress approvedPresident George W. Bushs request for $400 million for Mexico and $62million for Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica,Belize, Panamá, the Dominican Republic and Haiti in the FY08Supplemental after stripping the already vague human rights conditions.

The FY09 budget proposal includes $450 million for Mexico and $100million for Central America. The budget is destined for helicopters andsurveillance aircraft, increased US participation in policing,communications surveillance technologies, and non-intrusiveinspection equipment, ion scanners and canine units for Mexicancustoms, the new federal police and military to interdict traffickeddrugs, arms, cash and persons.

The Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, and themilitarization of the US/Mexico Border follow the failed strategy oftrying to combat social and political problems with military means.

Grassroots groups in Mexico and Central America call foranti-poverty and crime-prevention programs and charge that the MeridaInitiative and the border militarization ignore the root problems thatcontinue to compel regional involvement in drug trafficking and causepeople to have to leave their homeland - poverty and unemployment.Mexican police and military personnel are consistently involved inhuman rights violations in an attempt to silence civil dissent. In 2006security forces responded to civil society protest in Oaxaca withhundreds of arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, and over 20assassinations. The Salvadoran government criminalizes protest tacticscommonly used by social movements. The US Ambassador to El Salvador hasexpressed explicit support for police crackdowns, condoning the use ofpolice force in protecting US trade interests.

The separation between police and military in El Salvador andGuatemala, the top two Central American recipients of Merida Initiativeaid, has declined dramatically. There has also been a resurgence ofdeath squad-style murders, some linked to the police, in both Guatemalaand El Salvador. The Merida Initiatives onesided focus onstrengthening repressive institutions would further erode human rightsby supporting repression of the rights to free speech and protest.

For more information: www.cispes.organd www.ciponline.org/.

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5. Close the National Endowment for Democracy and return USAIDto its original foreign aid mission

Founded by Congress and funded by taxes, the National Endowment forDemocracy (NED) carries out foreign policy as a private institution,independently of any elected body. The NED is not subject to meaningfulpublic oversight. The core institutes of the NED also receive fundingfrom US Agency for International Development and the State Departmentin addition to NED allocations.

By further subcontracting allocations, funding can get laundered sothat it is almost impossible to track. As one of the founders of theNED, Allen Weinstein said, A lot of what we [NED] do today was donecovertly 25 years ago by the CIA.

NED, and increasingly USAID, focus their funding on right-wingopposition groups in countries which are rejecting the WashingtonConsensus of free trade and structural adjustment policies that haveserved Latin America so poorly over the last 30 years. Theirmanipulation of democratic electoral processes would be illegal in theUnited States and have caused a suspicion of all civil society groupsin some countries.

The NED coordinates campaigns of misinformation in order tomanipulate foreign elections. If that fails, the NED will even act tooverthrow elected governmentslike it did in Haiti and like it istrying to do in Venezuela and Bolivia. USAID once demonstrated thegood side of US foreign policy with its development grants aimed atpoverty reduction, infrastructure improvement, and construction ofschools and hospitals. Its mission has shifted dramatically under theBush administration in the direction of election manipulation under theguise of democracy building. The next administration should increaseforeign development aid while removing neoliberal conditions. USAIDsmission should be restored to development and poverty reduction.

The NED mission, on the other hand, is limited to the manipulationof democratic processes and has no place within the foreign policyinstruments of a country that professes to be democratic and to supportthe growth of democracy world-wide.

For more information visit www.respect4democracy.org.

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6. Return President Aristide to Haiti, advocate freedom for allpolitical prisoners and support the end of the UN occupation

Haitis lethal combination of poverty, weak governance and foreigninterference leaves the country without the ability to enforce its lawsor effectively execute disaster planning and response. United Statesgovernment policies played an important role in reducing Haiti to itscurrent state.

The US imposed a development assistance embargo on Haitisgovernment in 2001 because the US Government disagreed with thecountrys economic policies: a progressive social agenda that gaveschools, markets, health care, infrastructure, and hope to Haitispoor. That embargo succeeded in bringing the government to its knees.

The US-supported coup détat in 2004 dismantled government programsand reversed a decades progress in establishing democracy and the ruleof law. The U.S. and other powerful countries limit the current Haitiangovernments ability to function by forcing the country to pay $1million a week to the World Bank and other poverty-fightinginstitutions, mostly to repay loans given to Haitis past dictators.They have imposed the Structural Adjustment Policies that haveundermined Haitian food production for the last 20 years U.S. troopsoriginally enforced the 2004 coup détat, then were replaced by UnitedNations Peacekeeping Mission - the only such mission in UN historydeployed without an actual peace agreement - took their place. MINUSTAHpresides over an occupation that favors US government interests incollaboration with the wealthy elite of Haiti.

A program of repression against Fanmi Lavalas, the political partyfounded by Aristide and supported by a strong majority of Haitians whenthey have the opportunity to vote democratically, is underway,evidenced by over 1,000 political prisoners still in jail, and in thekidnapping of human rights advocate Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

MINUSTAH is charged with keeping the peace, but has been involved ina number of well-documented atrocities. MINUSTAH operates with anannual budget of $500 million. That is more than Haitis entire annualbudget under Aristide. MINUSTAH expenditures strengthen US hegemonyover Haitis affairs, bolster military/security forces, and financemonetary schemes and corruption that aim to destroy resistance to theoccupation. The next US administration should take the followingactions concerning Haiti:

  • Respect Haitis sovereignty and the peoples right to selfdetermination.
  • Allow the return of President Aristide to Haiti.
  • Advocate freedom for all political prisoners.
  • Support the end of the UN occupation.
  • Support international debt relief for the hemispheres poorestcountry without structural adjustment conditions.

For more information: www.haitisolidarity.netand www.haitiaction.net/.

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7. End belligerence toward Venezuela and other LatinAmerican countries whose citizens have elected left leaning governmentsover the past decade

It was the Bush administration that began the rhetorical conflictwith Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, which he endured for two yearsbefore beginning to respond in his own inimitable style, according tothe anti-Chavez journalist Teodoro Petkoff. Rapid US recognition of theshort-lived coup government of 2002 further soured relations betweenthe Venezuelan government and the Bush administration.

The US has an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in itsembassies in Venezuela and Bolivia to direct US spending to oppositiongroups in the two countries. OTIs have only been used in the past inpost-conflict countries for a maximum of two years. The OTI inVenezuela has been operating for over six years. The Bushadministration shift of US Agency for International Development (USAID)grants from its traditional mission of development to grants fordemocracy building electoral manipulation projects has raiseddistrust of USAID throughout Latin America.

The choice of US ambassadors by the Bush administration, especiallyin Bolivia and Nicaragua where the former, who has been expelled, wasinvolved in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and the latter with theUS-backed contra war, have been seen as provocative. The highlypoliticized use by the US of report cards on such issues ascooperation in the so-called drug war and human trafficking are seen inLatin America as illegitimate and disrespectful.

The next US administration needs to normalize relations withVenezuela and Bolivia recognizing the importance of their oil and gasreserves. The administration needs to craft its public statements andits programs to show respect for its neighbors in the hemisphere ratherthan arrogance and belligerency.

The US should support efforts in Venezuela, Bolivia, and other LatinAmerican countries to use their natural resource wealth to reducepoverty, increase health care and education, and to implement measuresthat increase democratic participation. The next administration shouldclose the Offices of Transition Initiatives, return USAID to itsdevelopment mission, and stop interfering in other countries electoralprocesses in ways that we would not allow in our own. These guidelineswill gain the US not only the friendship of Venezuela and Bolivia, butwill go a long way to restore the respect for the United States thatthe Bush administration has spent eight years destroying.

For more information: http://www.vensolidarity.organd www.venezuelanalysis.com.

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8. End the embargo against Cuba and normalize relations withour island neighbor

A near total embargo of Cuba began in 1962 and has been tightenedrepeatedly since. This prevents US citizens from traveling to Cubaexcept when licensed for unusual purposes. In 2000 the US Congresspassed the Trade Sanctions Reform Act, which allows agriculturalcommercial sales and sales of medicines, but the latter requires suchbureaucratic paper work that such sales are not attempted.

Although this embargo was said not to hurt the people, and althoughwe have no such embargo against China, Vietnam, or other communistnations, the 11 million Cuban citizens have suffered from the lack ofmany medicines and medical equipment. Two devastating hurricanes struckCuba in 2008. Humanitarian considerations alone demand an end to theembargo now so that the Cuban people can rapidly rebuild their homes,schools, and hospitals. The embargo has failed to drive a wedge betweenthe government of Cuba and its people. US propaganda appears to bewrong in portraying a population trying to change their government. Theeconomy is improving, and the renowned health care and educationsystems are functioning well. Even many of the Cuban-Americans in Miamiare now in favor of ending the embargo.

The UN votes each year overwhelmingly to end the embargo, with onlythe US and 1 to 2 other nations opposed. US-based, non-profitorganizations are calling for an end to it. IFCO/Pastors for Peace inJuly 2008 completed its 19th Friend shipment with 100 US citizens and50 tons of medical supplies defying the law to travel to Cubaunlicensed. This marked 19 years of civil disobedience, deliveringlife-saving items to the Ecumenical (Churches) Council of Cuba. UStravel to Cuba is severely restricted. US businesses are losing out oninvestment opportunities (the US Chamber of Commerce is opposed to theembargo). And, the US govt. has failed completely in its efforts tobring about regime change. Most of the citizens of Cuba appear not towant such change.

For more information: www.ifconews.organd www.cubasolidarity.com.

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9. Stop initiating Free Trade agreements that benefit onlycorporations while destroying local agriculture and forcing LatinAmericans to leave their homeland to work in the US

Hundreds of thousands of people have been marching in Asia, LatinAmerica, and elsewhere against neoliberalism by which they meancorporate globalization. Their definitionand that of nearly 2,000US-based Latin America solidarity groupsincludes free trade, NAFTA,Fast Track, the World Trade Organization and the newly, secretlydeveloping SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of Mexico, Canadaand the US).

Why is the resistance to "free trade" so strong?

  1. Vastly increasing poverty around the world and the stillincreasinggaps between have and have not nations. Trickledown economics didnot work!
  2. People forced to migrate from their homelands in search ofwork: Much of this is caused by NAFTA and similar FTAs. Why? Over onemillion small corn farmers in Mexico have failed. Their corn, withouttariff protection, could not compete with still subsidized Americancorn. Over one million small businesses in Mexico have failed becauseof the competition of such US corporations as the 700 Wal-Marts inMexico, Taco Bells, etc. And, the maquilladoras or sweatshops in Mexico(which have resulted in lower wages for Mexican workers and damaged theenvironment) are increasingly losing out to Chinese and other cheaperlabor areas.
  3. Undemocratic structures and processes: During the negotiationsfor DR-CAFTA, Congress and members of civil society were left on thesidelines. There should be public debate over substantive trade issuesin the U.S. and in the other countries that are partners to agreements.
  4. Decreasing national sovereignty for the nations of LatinAmerica which have signed trade agreements: There must be space fornational governments to pursue development strategies that supportsustainable, locally determined economic, social and environmentalpriorities.
  5. And now the food crisis and starvation: The foodself-sufficiency of Latin American nations is disappearing due to FTArules requiring lowering of tariff barriers to subsidized US foodcrops. And food prices have not come down as promised but rather haverisen. Most people cannot afford fast-rising food prices.

In Latin America what our media call leftist presidents haverecently been elected in Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay,Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. They are formingtrade alliances that leave out the United States.

In the US many groups and coalitions (including the Alliance forResponsible Trade, Public Citizen, and the Stop CAFTA Coalition) areworking for the renegotiation of NAFTA, defeat of the Colombia FTA andthe monitoring of DR-CAFTA. They are working in coalition with groupsin Latin America to change world trade policy from free trade to fairtrade.

For more information: www.stopcafta.comand www.citizenstrade.org.

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 10. Publicly state support for the legitimate electedgovernment of Bolivia, condemn the separatist violence and take noactions to further inflame the crisis there

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and the greatestrecipient of USAID funds. The recent violence in Bolivia and thecontinued campaign for autonomy in Bolivias media lunaprefectures, led by right-wing governors and large landowners, havetheir roots in over 500 years of racism and exploitation of theindigenous population of the country. More 60 years of civil struggleto right those historic wrongs most recently toppled three Boliviangovernments in succession before the election of Bolivias firstindigenous president, Evo Morales in Dec. 2005.

Morales efforts to write a new constitution guaranteeing civil,economic and cultural rights to all Bolivians, and to insure thatBolivias natural gas wealth benefits the entire population, have beenmet with strong, and at times violent, opposition from Boliviaslargely European-descended economic elite. Morales won an Aug. 19, 2008recall election with 67.76% of the vote, an increase in percentage andnumber of votes over his 2005 margin.

The strong ratification of the Morales government policies provokeda civil rebellion led by right-wing separatists in the Bolivias medialuna provinces. At least 30 peasants and indigenous people weremurdered and hundreds millions of dollars of economic damage was donewhen an important international gas pipeline was sabotaged. Boliviaexpelled US Ambassador Philip Goldberg over the appearance that he wascollaborating with separatist leaders. The Bush administration declaredBolivias ambassador to the US persona non grata and precipitouslybooted out his entire family including a daughter in college.

The United States should publicly endorse and support the resolutionof 12 heads of state of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)that held an emergency summit in Santiago, Chile, on Sept. 15 anddemanded respect for legitimate democracy in Bolivia. The US shouldnormalize relations with Bolivia, stop using USAID grants for so-calleddemocracy building which has meant intervention in Boliviassovereign affairs, and stop manipulating so-called drug warcertification for political ends.

For more information: http://boliviarising.blogspot.com.

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11. Extradite the terrorist Luis Posada Carrilles toVenezuela, as required by extradition treaty, to stand trial for thefatal bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight that killed 73 people. Freethe five Cuban anti-terrorist agents falsely convicted of espionage forinfiltrating Cuban exile terrorist groups in Miami whose repeatedattacks have killed over 3,000 Cubans and foreigners in Cuba.

The Cuban Five, Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzales, Antonio Guerrero,Geraldo Hernandez, and Ramon Labanino, have spent 10 years in USprisons. Their crime is attempting to prevent acts of terrorism byright-wing Miami terrorist groups.

Those terrorist groups, led by Orlando Bosch and Luis PosadaCarriles, carried out hundreds of terrorist actions, hand-in-hand withthe CIA. A Cubana airliner was blown up in 1976, killing 73 civilians,Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and US activist Ronnie Moffat werekilled in a car bombing in Washington, DC in 1976, and Italian touristwas murdered in 1997 during a series of hotel bombings in Havana.

Posada, an SOA graduate, was involved in a series of bombings inMiami. In the 1960s and 70s, as part of the Venezuelan secret police,he was behind the murder and torture of scores of activists. In the1980s, he worked with the Nicaraguan contras and Salvadoran deathsquads. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, after beingconvicted for the airliner bombing. Arrested in 2000 in Panama forattempting to bomb Fidel Castro there in 1980, he was freed by theirout-going president in 2004. In 2005 he illegally entered the US, andremains free in Miami, even though wanted for extradition by bothVenezuela and Panama.

Cuba sent the Cuban 5 to Miami in the 1990s to infiltrate anti-Cubanterrorist networks in Miami. They collected evidence of ongoingterrorist plots against Cuba, and then informed Cuban and USauthorities. Instead of arresting the terrorists, in 1998 the FBIarrested the five, the very people working to prevent terrorism.Outrageous charges leveled against the five included conspiracy tocommit espionage and murder.

Their trial took place in Miami amid many irregularities and ananti-Cuban witch-hunt. They were convicted and collectively sentencedto four life terms and 75 years. The five were placed in the hole andhave been separated into five different prisons to break them. Theywere denied family visits for years at a time.

The U.N. found their convictions arbitrary and in violation ofinternational law. An 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturnedtheir convictions in 2005, but the full court later reversed thedecision. Their case is now on appeal to the Supreme Court.

The next president should free the Cuban Five and extradite LuisPosada Carriles to Venezuela as required by the bilateral Venezuela-USextradition treaty.

For more information: www.freethefive.organd www.freethecuban5.com.


The Latin America Solidarity Coalition CoordinatingCommittee:

Alliance for Global Justice
INTERCONNECT
Taskforce on the Americas
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
Venezuela Solidarity Network
SOA Watch
Mexico Solidarity Network
Nicaragua Network
U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities
Haiti Action Committee
Campaign for Labor Rights
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA)
No War On Cuba Movement
National Immigrant Solidarity Network

Latin America Solidarity Coalition
1247 E St., SE
Washington, DC 20003
www.lasolidarity.org
info[AT]lasolidarity.org

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