Conghaileach
16th July 2002, 20:01
SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL
Can new justice tell patriotism from terror?
By Wayne S. Smith
July 13, 2002
Writing on these same pages some weeks ago ("Who is a Terrorist?" Sun-
Sentinel, May 31), I reminded readers that according to President
Bush's own definition, anyone who harbors a terrorist or supports a
terrorist is a terrorist. But where, I asked, did that leave his own
father and brother Jeb and some of his closest political allies
in Florida, all of whom in one way or another had supported, among
other exile terrorists, Orlando Bosch, linked by the Justice Department
to over 30 acts of sabotage and violence, including the downing of a
Cubana airliner in 1976 with the loss of over 73 innocent lives? Should
father, brother and a number of close political allies all be
considered terrorists?
The question now poses itself again even more poignantly, for Gov. Jeb
Bush has just appointed Raoul Cantero to serve as a justice on the
Florida Supreme Court. The objection to Cantero is not that he is
former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista's grandson. That is irrelevant.
Nor is it that he defended Orlando Bosch in court. Of course not.
Everyone has the right to a defense attorney. That is one of
the strengths of our system.
But Cantero did far more than act as defense attorney. Back in 1988
and 1989, he was an advocate and supporter of Orlando Bosch, appearing
at meetings in his honor and indicating his enthusiastic support for
Bosch in interviews on Miami radio. Bosch, he said, was "a patriot."
Do Floridians really want a justice on their Supreme Court who cannot
distinguish an act of patriotism from an act of terrorism?
Of course, Cantero is not alone. It is not surprising that Bush
appointed him, for the governor himself was, and still is, part of the
Orlando Bosch claque. Along with a gaggle of South Florida city
commissioners, state legislators and other community leaders, including
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and then Sen. Connie Mack, Jeb Bush
lobbied for Bosch's release from INS custody. He even met with hunger-
striking Bosch supporters. Acceding to this pressure, in 1989, the
first President Bush freed Bosch and allowed him to live unrepentant in
Miami.
Nor have Bosch's supporters ever recanted, disavowing their support for
Bosch and repudiating his tactics. Not Ros-Lehtinen, not Gov. Bush, and
most certainly not Raoul Cantero, the new Supreme Court justice. One
must assume, therefore, that they continue to support him.
And what of Bosch himself? Has he mellowed at all? No, far from it. In
a signed opinion piece which appeared in the June 16 edition of Diario
de las Americas, he described the efforts of dissidents in Cuba to call
for a referendum, i.e, the so-called Varela Project, as a "sacrilege,"
and denounced the dissidents themselves, from Oswaldo Paya and
Elizardo Sanchez to Vladimiro Roca, as a group of "naïve pacificists."
Their sins, he made clear, were their willingness to co-exist with the
Castro government and their rejection of violence as a tactic.
Clearly, Bosch remains as committed to violence as ever. In a
democracy, he says, violence is "invalid and a crime." But in the Cuban
context, he says, "The banner of pacificism cannot be waved." In other
words, violence is the only path. Reading his statements of June 16,
one has the sense that were it within his power, he'd be back to
blowing up passenger planes.
But where does this leave us, then, in terms of the credibility of our
war on terrorism? President Bush had said that one cannot pick and
choose one's terrorist friends. But that is precisely what has happened
in the state of Florida. The governor, his newly appointed Supreme
Court justice, the congresswoman from Miami and various other state and
local officials continue to support Orlando Bosch, an arch-terrorist.
And, as I pointed out on May 21, he is not the only one. And all
this, apparently, with the approval of President Bush.
This simply takes us back to the concept of one man's terrorist being
another's freedom fighter. Other nations may look at this and ask
themselves why they should take seriously our commitment against
terrorism.
Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for International
Policy in Washington, D.C. and a former U.S. diplomat with service in
Argentina, Brazil and the Soviet Union in addition to Cuba.
Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
===========
SUN-SENTINEL of Fort Lauderdale
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
MAY 31, 2002
EDITORIALS & OPINION COMMENTARY
WAYNE S. SMITH:
Who is a terrorist?
President Bush's speech in Miami on May 20 was new evidence that
he is determined at all costs to win the votes of the hard-line exiles.
Whatever policies and actions they want, he will try to give them.
But that has serious implications for the credibility of his war
on terrorism. He describes for us, for example, a Manichaean world in
which there are the good guys and the bad guys,the "terrorists." And as
he has said over and over again, anyone who supports a terrorist,
anyone who harbors a terrorist, is a terrorist.
But if we go by that definition, there may be terrorists right
in the Bush family. In 1989, for example, the first President Bush went
against the advice of his own Justice Department and canceled the
deportation of arch-terrorist Orlando Bosch. Shortly thereafter, he set
him free. Bosch was a Cuban exile who had been convicted in the U.S. of
terrorist activities and spent four years in prison. Released in 1972,
he then violated parole and fled to Latin America, ending up eventually
in Venezuela, where in 1976 he was imprisoned for masterminding the
bombing of a Cuban airliner with the loss of 73 lives, including
virtually the entire Cuban fencing team.
The hard-line exiles in Miami loved it. In 1983, the Miami City
Commission declared a "Dr. Orlando Bosch Day," apparently to honor him
for his acts of terrorism.
Released from Venezuelan prison under strange circumstances in
1987, Bosch returned to Miami in 1988 without benefit of a visa and was
almost immediately arrested for his earlier parole violation. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service began proceedings to deport him.
As the associate attorney general put it in 1989: "For 30 years, Bosch
has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist
violence."
This was not an idle statement.The Justice Department had information
linking Bosch to more than 30 acts of sabotage and violence in the
United States, Puerto Rico, Panama and Venezuela. As the
associate attorney general pointed out: "The security of this nation is
affected by its ability to urge credibly other nations to refuse aid
and shelter to terrorists . We could not shelter Dr. Bosch and maintain
that credibility."
The logic was unassailable, but , unfortunately, the case was
not decided on the base of logic. Miami congresswoman Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and the usual bevy of hard-line Cuban exiles weren't going
to have it. They lobbied unrelentingly for Bosch's release. Among those
in the forefront of the lobbying effort was Jeb Bush, then managing
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's election campaign. In the face of all this
pressure, coming even from his own son,the first President Bush decided
it was politically expedient to harbor a terrorist. Bosch was released
and still lives freely and unrepentant in Miami.
And the case of Orlando Bosch is not an isolated one.
Ros-Lehitnen has also urged the release of Valentine Hernandez, whose
principal crimes were the murder of other exiles -- exiles who dared to
advocate a dialogue with the Castro government. But Ros-Lehtinen thinks
he should go free. And neither she nor Gov. Bush, by the way, have ever
backed away from their support of Orlando Bosch.
And then there is the case of Luis Posada Carriles, who along with
Bosch master-minded the 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner. He,
too, spent time in a Venezuelan prison, but escaped in 1985 and turned
up in Central America working in OliverNorth's secret Contra operation,
along with Felix Rodriguez, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal
with close ties to then Vice President Bush.
In 1998, Posada Carriles acknowledged in an interview with The New York
Times that he had directed the bombing of a number of hotels in
Havana the previous year which had resulted in the death of an Italian
tourist. Though Posada Carriles confessed his culpability, no charges
were ever filed against him in the U.S. Today, he is in prison in
Panama, accused of involvement in a recent assassination plot against
Fidel Castro.
These elements in Florida who have helped to harbor terrorists
are President George W. Bush's closest political allies in the state.
Indeed, some months ago, he nominated Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's chief of
staff, Mauricio Tamargo, for an important position in the federal
government. And Otto Reich, one of the hardest of the hard-line
Cuban-Americans and a close associate of the Cuban American National
Foundation, has been appointed assistant secretary of state for Latin
Americans affairs. Roger Noriega, formerly of Sen. Jesse Helm's staff,
is now our ambassador to the OAS. In short, those who have condoned
terrorism now seem to be running our Latin American policy.
President Bush's admonition should be rephrased, now to read:
"Anyone who has harbored a terrorist we don't like, is a terrorist. But
anyone who harbors terrorists we do like is OK. In fact, we may have a
place for them in our administration!"
----------------
Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for International
Policy in Washington, D.C. and former chief of the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana.
Can new justice tell patriotism from terror?
By Wayne S. Smith
July 13, 2002
Writing on these same pages some weeks ago ("Who is a Terrorist?" Sun-
Sentinel, May 31), I reminded readers that according to President
Bush's own definition, anyone who harbors a terrorist or supports a
terrorist is a terrorist. But where, I asked, did that leave his own
father and brother Jeb and some of his closest political allies
in Florida, all of whom in one way or another had supported, among
other exile terrorists, Orlando Bosch, linked by the Justice Department
to over 30 acts of sabotage and violence, including the downing of a
Cubana airliner in 1976 with the loss of over 73 innocent lives? Should
father, brother and a number of close political allies all be
considered terrorists?
The question now poses itself again even more poignantly, for Gov. Jeb
Bush has just appointed Raoul Cantero to serve as a justice on the
Florida Supreme Court. The objection to Cantero is not that he is
former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista's grandson. That is irrelevant.
Nor is it that he defended Orlando Bosch in court. Of course not.
Everyone has the right to a defense attorney. That is one of
the strengths of our system.
But Cantero did far more than act as defense attorney. Back in 1988
and 1989, he was an advocate and supporter of Orlando Bosch, appearing
at meetings in his honor and indicating his enthusiastic support for
Bosch in interviews on Miami radio. Bosch, he said, was "a patriot."
Do Floridians really want a justice on their Supreme Court who cannot
distinguish an act of patriotism from an act of terrorism?
Of course, Cantero is not alone. It is not surprising that Bush
appointed him, for the governor himself was, and still is, part of the
Orlando Bosch claque. Along with a gaggle of South Florida city
commissioners, state legislators and other community leaders, including
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and then Sen. Connie Mack, Jeb Bush
lobbied for Bosch's release from INS custody. He even met with hunger-
striking Bosch supporters. Acceding to this pressure, in 1989, the
first President Bush freed Bosch and allowed him to live unrepentant in
Miami.
Nor have Bosch's supporters ever recanted, disavowing their support for
Bosch and repudiating his tactics. Not Ros-Lehtinen, not Gov. Bush, and
most certainly not Raoul Cantero, the new Supreme Court justice. One
must assume, therefore, that they continue to support him.
And what of Bosch himself? Has he mellowed at all? No, far from it. In
a signed opinion piece which appeared in the June 16 edition of Diario
de las Americas, he described the efforts of dissidents in Cuba to call
for a referendum, i.e, the so-called Varela Project, as a "sacrilege,"
and denounced the dissidents themselves, from Oswaldo Paya and
Elizardo Sanchez to Vladimiro Roca, as a group of "naïve pacificists."
Their sins, he made clear, were their willingness to co-exist with the
Castro government and their rejection of violence as a tactic.
Clearly, Bosch remains as committed to violence as ever. In a
democracy, he says, violence is "invalid and a crime." But in the Cuban
context, he says, "The banner of pacificism cannot be waved." In other
words, violence is the only path. Reading his statements of June 16,
one has the sense that were it within his power, he'd be back to
blowing up passenger planes.
But where does this leave us, then, in terms of the credibility of our
war on terrorism? President Bush had said that one cannot pick and
choose one's terrorist friends. But that is precisely what has happened
in the state of Florida. The governor, his newly appointed Supreme
Court justice, the congresswoman from Miami and various other state and
local officials continue to support Orlando Bosch, an arch-terrorist.
And, as I pointed out on May 21, he is not the only one. And all
this, apparently, with the approval of President Bush.
This simply takes us back to the concept of one man's terrorist being
another's freedom fighter. Other nations may look at this and ask
themselves why they should take seriously our commitment against
terrorism.
Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for International
Policy in Washington, D.C. and a former U.S. diplomat with service in
Argentina, Brazil and the Soviet Union in addition to Cuba.
Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
===========
SUN-SENTINEL of Fort Lauderdale
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
MAY 31, 2002
EDITORIALS & OPINION COMMENTARY
WAYNE S. SMITH:
Who is a terrorist?
President Bush's speech in Miami on May 20 was new evidence that
he is determined at all costs to win the votes of the hard-line exiles.
Whatever policies and actions they want, he will try to give them.
But that has serious implications for the credibility of his war
on terrorism. He describes for us, for example, a Manichaean world in
which there are the good guys and the bad guys,the "terrorists." And as
he has said over and over again, anyone who supports a terrorist,
anyone who harbors a terrorist, is a terrorist.
But if we go by that definition, there may be terrorists right
in the Bush family. In 1989, for example, the first President Bush went
against the advice of his own Justice Department and canceled the
deportation of arch-terrorist Orlando Bosch. Shortly thereafter, he set
him free. Bosch was a Cuban exile who had been convicted in the U.S. of
terrorist activities and spent four years in prison. Released in 1972,
he then violated parole and fled to Latin America, ending up eventually
in Venezuela, where in 1976 he was imprisoned for masterminding the
bombing of a Cuban airliner with the loss of 73 lives, including
virtually the entire Cuban fencing team.
The hard-line exiles in Miami loved it. In 1983, the Miami City
Commission declared a "Dr. Orlando Bosch Day," apparently to honor him
for his acts of terrorism.
Released from Venezuelan prison under strange circumstances in
1987, Bosch returned to Miami in 1988 without benefit of a visa and was
almost immediately arrested for his earlier parole violation. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service began proceedings to deport him.
As the associate attorney general put it in 1989: "For 30 years, Bosch
has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist
violence."
This was not an idle statement.The Justice Department had information
linking Bosch to more than 30 acts of sabotage and violence in the
United States, Puerto Rico, Panama and Venezuela. As the
associate attorney general pointed out: "The security of this nation is
affected by its ability to urge credibly other nations to refuse aid
and shelter to terrorists . We could not shelter Dr. Bosch and maintain
that credibility."
The logic was unassailable, but , unfortunately, the case was
not decided on the base of logic. Miami congresswoman Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and the usual bevy of hard-line Cuban exiles weren't going
to have it. They lobbied unrelentingly for Bosch's release. Among those
in the forefront of the lobbying effort was Jeb Bush, then managing
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's election campaign. In the face of all this
pressure, coming even from his own son,the first President Bush decided
it was politically expedient to harbor a terrorist. Bosch was released
and still lives freely and unrepentant in Miami.
And the case of Orlando Bosch is not an isolated one.
Ros-Lehitnen has also urged the release of Valentine Hernandez, whose
principal crimes were the murder of other exiles -- exiles who dared to
advocate a dialogue with the Castro government. But Ros-Lehtinen thinks
he should go free. And neither she nor Gov. Bush, by the way, have ever
backed away from their support of Orlando Bosch.
And then there is the case of Luis Posada Carriles, who along with
Bosch master-minded the 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner. He,
too, spent time in a Venezuelan prison, but escaped in 1985 and turned
up in Central America working in OliverNorth's secret Contra operation,
along with Felix Rodriguez, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal
with close ties to then Vice President Bush.
In 1998, Posada Carriles acknowledged in an interview with The New York
Times that he had directed the bombing of a number of hotels in
Havana the previous year which had resulted in the death of an Italian
tourist. Though Posada Carriles confessed his culpability, no charges
were ever filed against him in the U.S. Today, he is in prison in
Panama, accused of involvement in a recent assassination plot against
Fidel Castro.
These elements in Florida who have helped to harbor terrorists
are President George W. Bush's closest political allies in the state.
Indeed, some months ago, he nominated Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's chief of
staff, Mauricio Tamargo, for an important position in the federal
government. And Otto Reich, one of the hardest of the hard-line
Cuban-Americans and a close associate of the Cuban American National
Foundation, has been appointed assistant secretary of state for Latin
Americans affairs. Roger Noriega, formerly of Sen. Jesse Helm's staff,
is now our ambassador to the OAS. In short, those who have condoned
terrorism now seem to be running our Latin American policy.
President Bush's admonition should be rephrased, now to read:
"Anyone who has harbored a terrorist we don't like, is a terrorist. But
anyone who harbors terrorists we do like is OK. In fact, we may have a
place for them in our administration!"
----------------
Wayne S. Smith is a senior fellow at the Center for International
Policy in Washington, D.C. and former chief of the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana.