We will do everything in our
power to have Posada Carriles extradited
• Affirms Vice President José Vicente Rangel

BY LOURDES PEREZ NAVARRO – Granma daily staff writer –

"I do not want my country to go through an experience like that being suffered by the Iraqi people, to whom I respectfully bow for the dignity and courage with which they are facing the invader. But in the face of any similar adventure – which we do not want – I am sure that the 25 million Venezuelans would respond with the same dignity and courage as the Iraqis, the Cubans and all of the free peoples in the world," affirmed José Vicente Rangel, vice president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, speaking during the evening session of the International Conference against Terrorism, for Truth and Justice.

Bearing a message of greetings from President Hugo Chávez to the event’s participants, Rangel denounced the acts of sabotage, interference, and financing of opposition movements being used by the United States to destabilize that South American country.

"They are getting more and more desperate," he emphasized, "they have already lost the streets, the armed forces, the oil industry and international support. Their remaining alternative is the one they are currently working on: assassination."

He noted that the empire is desperately seeking a way out, because it is being defeated on all fronts. The social programs known as "missions" currently being carried out by the Bolivarian government – with the contribution of the Cuban government – have brought results never seen before in the country, including economic growth (7.9% -- the largest in the world) and a 33% improvement in the standard of living of millions of inhabitants.

That is why it is essential to move from Bolivarian democracy to socialist democracy, he affirmed. "We want to pass from Bolivarianism – while remaining Bolivarians – to 21st century socialism, and we will work towards that with our own resources, in a sovereign way," he said.

Rangel noted attempts to distort and slander the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela, "but we assume it without any complex whatsoever, because it is crystal-clear, transparent, unclouded with meanness and human miseries."

DECLASSIFIED VENEZUELAN DOCUMENTS PROVIDE INFORMATION ON TERRORISM

The Venezuelan vice president mentioned declassified documents from previous administrations that have been recently declassified by Venezuelan intelligence and security agencies.

One of these, dated September 18, 1975, bears witness to the existence in Venezuela of Abdala, an organization comprised of Cuban-Americans and individuals from the U.S. established in Miami, whose goal was to carry out anti-Cuba activities and possible acts of terrorism to change the course of Venezuela. Its members include the names of notorious terrorists: Orlando Bosch, Salvador Romani, Rolando Bienvenido Pita Arcia, Reinaldo Pico Ramón, Lauriano Fernando Batista and Luis Posada Carriles – alias Bambi –, a DISIP captain, who was provided with equipment by the CIA to establish a private investigation office for informing the United States.

A document dated November 2, 1976 reports contacts in Chile, beginning 1975, between Bosch, Novo and the fascist gangs Patria y Libertad to assassinate Letelier.

Other declassified documents corroborate how Venezuela was a base for operations against Cuba, preceded by the anti-communist stance of the Rómulo Betancourt government (1959). This led to the denationalization of intelligence and security organizations, and the entry into them of a group of Cubans associated with terrorist activity and actions against the Cuban government; Mono Navarrete appears there, as does Rivas Vázquez (who ended up being DISIP director) and Posada Carriles (the counterintelligence chief of that agency).

Rangel stated that the tragic image of the disappeared emerged in Venezuela during the 1970s (under the mandate of Raúl Leon), and then extended to other countries in the region, where the Southern Cone dictators – in an anti-democratic climate in which citizens’ rights were not acknowledged – gave rise to Operation Condor. Posada Carriles is an expression of that climate, which led to the sabotage of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976.

Now Posada Carriles is under arrest, and Venezuela is demanding his extradition, given that the legal action was not proscribed, it was interrupted when the terrorist escaped from prison in that country. "We have the law on our side," the vice president affirmed, "and we have a treaty since 1922 to support us; Venezuela will guarantee due process for this individual, according to the principles enshrined in the Constitution."

"We will do everything in our power to ensure that Posada Carriles is extradited," he said, "and we will wage a battle at every moment, with all of our arguments, because we are prepared to unmask the W. Bush cynical anti-terrorist doctrine."

THE MEANING OF OUR STRUGGLE

"Let us give consistency, strength and meaning to our struggle; let us announce to the world that a new continental anti-terrorist front has been born that will go out into the streets to demand justice," proposed Nicolás Maduro, president of the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

He declared that now is the time to raise the banner of anti-terrorism, of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and to snatch away from imperialism the standard of the ill-named anti-terrorist campaign, which it raises as a justification to commit crimes like those of Iraq.