Two days ago, in El Paso, Texas, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the expeditious decision by Judge William L. Abbott not to deport terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela or Cuba, arguing that he was at risk of being tortured in either nation, and resorting in a manipulative way to the exemptions provided for by the International Convention Against Torture.

Yesterday in Florida, in an attempt to prolong a kidnapping, federal prosecutors announced their petition to the Court of Appeals in Atlanta for a full review of the August ruling by a panel of three experienced judges to overturn the trial in Miami of five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters for failing to be a "fair and impartial" proceedings, and to organize another trial in a new venue.

Both of these news items reflect in all of their magnitude the cynicism and shamelessness that accompany the conduct of the U.S. administration and the falsity and hypocrisy of its supposed anti-terrorist crusade.

For two months, the White House concealed the presence on U.S. soil of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and up until today, it is still remaining mute as to how he arrived in that country.

His arrest, unavoidable in face of the forcefulness of Cuba’s denunciations, was carried out as delicately and benevolently as possible. His stay in an immigration detention center has not lacked preferential treatment. Government spokespeople have repeatedly resorted to verbal outrage in order to avoid describing the terrorist as such.

The arrest in Miami seven years ago of the five young Cuban anti-terrorist fighters was not lacking in violence and violation of their rights. Their destination was 17 long months in punishment cells and a judicial process plagued with manipulation, partiality and the revengeful hatred of the anti-Cuban mafia and its slanders. Their long and absurd sentences were the fruit of revenge and lies.

While in the case of the Five, federal prosecutors presented false charges, terrified witnesses and manipulated evidence, prosecutors’ conduct during the El Paso proceedings have been no less shameful: without a single argument or a single witness presented to refute the maneuvering by the defense, like a premeditated agreement to protect the terrorist.

The government that has unleashed wars and sent its soldiers to die in the name of its battle against terrorism is the same one that is currently protecting one of the most notorious terrorists of our times, the mastermind of the horrendous sabotage of a Cuban airliner with 73 passengers on board, and the person responsible for many other deaths of Cuban citizens and those of other nations.

Washington is defending one of its peons in the criminal war against our people, in the support to Latin American dictatorships in earlier decades, in the sinister operations of the dirty war in Central America and in the assassinations of political figures and heads of state opposed to imperialism’s hegemonic interests.

How cynical to resort to the argument of torture in the case of Posada Carriles, when he himself is accused in Venezuela of having savagely tortured many citizens of that country during his years as a DISIP officer.

Cynical, as well, because the country that is being internationally accused of practicing torture is not Venezuela or Cuba, but precisely the United States, which has made that degrading treatment a common practice in Afghanistan, Iraq and the illegally occupied Guantánamo Naval Base.

In addition, Cuba has not applied for the extradition of the terrorist, in spite of the fact that it has every right to do so. It is Venezuela that has made a petition to extradite a criminal that has pending debts with that country’s justice system, and has offered all of the necessary guarantees to put Posada Carriles on trial.

The U.S. government has kept a shameful silence on this petition, in a clear demonstration of its complicity with the terrorist.

It remains to be seen what third nation offers to take in a criminal of that sort and does Washington the favor of getting rid of that hot potato, as can be perceived by Judge Abbott’s decision.

Cuba will not stop fighting until Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and other terrorists like them are convicted of their crimes.

Cuba will continue to support the legitimate extradition application presented by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.