5.19.2005
Unwanted Ally Makes Dilemma for Bush (SMH.com.au)
By Mark Coultan
Herald Correspondent in New York and agencies
May 19, 2005
Like many former Latin American allies of the US, Luis Posada Carriles has become an international embarrassment.
The man who spent 45 years trying to overthrow Fidel Castro, and who was once on the CIA's payroll, sneaked into the US six weeks ago across the Mexican border and caught a Greyhound bus to the place where he was considered a hero - the South Florida of virulently anti-Castro Cubans.
But US authorities arrested the Cuban exile, who is wanted in Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people nearly 30 years ago.
In Cuba, President Fidel Castro led 1 million protesters past the US diplomatic mission in Havana demanding Carriles's arrest and extradition to Venezuela.
Carriles, 77, a former US Army soldier and Bay of Pigs veteran, is seeking asylum, creating a political and moral dilemma for the US. Potentially it could be the most emotional issue in US-Cuban relations since the Elian Gonzalez affair five years ago, when a six-year-old castaway was at the centre of a tug-of-war between the two countries.
The problem for the US is that there is more publicly available evidence that Carriles is a terrorist than on most of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
(More ... Unwanted ally makes dilemma for Bush - World - smh.com.au) ¶ 13:17
Herald Correspondent in New York and agencies
May 19, 2005
Like many former Latin American allies of the US, Luis Posada Carriles has become an international embarrassment.
The man who spent 45 years trying to overthrow Fidel Castro, and who was once on the CIA's payroll, sneaked into the US six weeks ago across the Mexican border and caught a Greyhound bus to the place where he was considered a hero - the South Florida of virulently anti-Castro Cubans.
But US authorities arrested the Cuban exile, who is wanted in Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people nearly 30 years ago.
In Cuba, President Fidel Castro led 1 million protesters past the US diplomatic mission in Havana demanding Carriles's arrest and extradition to Venezuela.
Carriles, 77, a former US Army soldier and Bay of Pigs veteran, is seeking asylum, creating a political and moral dilemma for the US. Potentially it could be the most emotional issue in US-Cuban relations since the Elian Gonzalez affair five years ago, when a six-year-old castaway was at the centre of a tug-of-war between the two countries.
The problem for the US is that there is more publicly available evidence that Carriles is a terrorist than on most of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
(More ... Unwanted ally makes dilemma for Bush - World - smh.com.au) ¶ 13:17
