Cuban exile's asylum plea poses U.S. dilemma
• Assisting ‘admitted’ terrorist could undercut credibility "It's like saying bin Laden is living in Hialeah

By Ruth Morris
(Sun Sentinel, May 7, 2005)

Luis Posada Carriles lays low in Miami, painting and reading while waiting for the U.S. government to process his asylum plea. But there's a hitch. Venezuelan and Cuban authorities charge he masterminded a terrorist plot that blew a midsize airliner out of the sky nearly 30 years ago. Venezuela filed a formal request for Posada's extradition Thursday, a tough challenge for the Bush administration's war on terror. Posada apparently slipped in from Mexico undetected last month. What's more, analysts said, a successful asylum claim would undercut U.S. credibility as it roots out terror suspects overseas.

"His presence poses a really important test for the U.S. government. He has admitted to terrorist acts and we're engaged in a war on terrorism. And the president has made it very clear that to harbor a terrorist is to condone terrorism," said Philip Peters, a political analyst with the Lexington Institute, a non-profit research group in Arlington, Va.

Posada, 77, is venerated as a patriot by some and loathed as an assassin by others in the Cuban-American community. Some leaders say the longer he remains in South Florida, the more volatile the situation could become.

"This is Elián redux," said Pedro Freyre, a Miami attorney and Cubanactivist, referring to the political fervor surrounding former refugee Elián González's case. "It lends itself to all kinds of mischief. This administration has made one of its linchpins `zero tolerance' of terrorism and here is someone accused of the single major act of terrorism against the Castro government in 42 years."

Already the case has highlighted divisions in the Cuban exile community, where left-leaning activists charge the Bush administration is applying uneven standards. They have contrasted Posada's freedom with the unexpected deportation last month of Cuban spy suspect Emilio Juan Aboy, 44, who was never convicted on criminal charges.

Investigators arrested Aboy in 2002 on suspicion the deep-sea diver had been sent to gather intelligence at the Miami headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command. Rather than charge him with a crime, however, they channeled him into deportation proceedings for lying to immigration agents.

Authorities deported Aboy to Havana on April 19, a month after he stopped eating to protest his detention.

Aboy's deportation "points to a double standard by the Bush administration regarding its anti-terrorism campaign," said Andrés Gómez, a Cuban activist based in Miami. "It could lead you to think that for Bush there are good terrorists and bad terrorists."

Others questioned how Posada, with his well-publicized past, was able to slip into the United States in the first place. The Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of new agents to the Mexican border to crack down on illegal crossings, even as U.S. officials concede the border area is porous and difficult to manage.

"It's like saying bin Laden is living in Hialeah," said Max Lesnik, leader of the Alianza Martiana, which opposes the embargo and favors a dialogue between the U.S. and Cuba. "It's time that they went looking for him."