Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Castro sets up anti-U.S. rally in Havana

Castro sets up anti-U.S. rally in Havana
Likely Posada deportation to third nation one grievance
By David Cázares
Havana Bureau
January 24, 2006

HAVANA · The daily routine in Cuba's capital city is expected to halt this morning as thousands of people converge on a plaza near the U.S. Interests Section to protest against the United States.

Officials began preparing for the state-led rally on Monday by bringing buses from other cities to transport protesters, posting notices in Havana neighborhoods and placing loudspeakers opposite the Malecón, the city's seaside wall.

In a televised address on Sunday, President Fidel Castro called for the march to denounce the U.S. for its repeated meddling in Cuba's affairs.

Castro wants to take the U.S. to task for what he calls its failed plans to isolate and economically suffocate Cuba. He is particularly irked that Michael Parmly, the new chief of the U.S. Interests Section, has used a recently installed electronic sign to display messages quoting from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Castro said the U.S. has committed human rights violations of its own.

"How many people have they assassinated in Guantanamo?" Castro asked, an apparent reference to reports of hunger strikes and suicides among suspected Afghan and Iraqi enemy combatants held at the U.S. Naval Station in Cuba.

"They've maintained racial discrimination for almost 200 years," he said, referring to the treatment of blacks and the poor in the United States. "And now they want to use Martin Luther King and his words."

The march was planned to coincide with the expected release of Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile, from federal custody in El Paso, Texas, where he is being held on charges he entered the country illegally.

Posada Carriles is the suspected mastermind behind a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in flight from Venezuela to Cuba. Seventy-three people died in the attack. Castro has accused the United States of harboring a terrorist for not deporting Posada Carrile to either country for prosecution. Federal officials said he could be sent to a third country.

Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. mission in Cuba under former President Carter, said it's understandable that Cuban officials want to make the protest more than about Posada, given the Bush Administration's "policy of bringing down Castro and supervising a transitional process in Cuba."

"The Cubans would do better to laugh it off," Smith said. "It is an utterly stupid and ineffectual policy. I supposed it is a lot more fun, however, to organize demonstrations, so that's what they'll do."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to determine whether Posada Carriles should be removed to a third country.

"ICE is moving forward to carry out Mr. Posada's removal from the United States," said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez in a statement. "An immigration judge granted Mr. Posada deferral of removal to Cuba and Venezuela based on the Convention Against Torture [CAT]; however, that doesn't impede ICE from removing Mr. Posada to a third country. As is required by regulation, ICE is in the process of conducting a routine custody review."

Posada Carriles' attorney, Matthew Archambeault, said his client , 77, wants to live out the rest of his life in the United States and poses no threat.

"He's never committed any acts in the United States," Archambeault said.

His release would be unpopular in Cuba.

Yamires Perez, 34, a laboratory worker in Havana, said people in Cuba want to see Posada and all his alleged co-conspirators punished.

"Everyone here knows that he's an assassin and we can't understand why they haven't brought him to justice," she said.

Staff Writer Madeline Baró Diaz contributed to this report.


David Cázares can be reached at dpcazares01@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-aposada24jan24,0,6676824.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba
 

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