BY SHIRLEY PEÑA
MIAMI - The November 16 Miami Herald featured a front-page story documenting a two month investigation into the 11 terrorist bombing attacks directed against Cuba this past summer. The bombings, aimed at hotels and other tourist spots, began in April and ended in September with the arrest of Salvadoran citizen Raúl Ernesto Cruz León. The Herald report by Juan Tamayo concluded that financing for the five-month bombing campaign, which caused property damage, several injuries, and the death of an Italian tourist, came from Cuban- American right-wingers in Miami.

The article states that while "many Cuban exiles in Miami .. doubt Cuba's allegations against Cruz León," the findings of the Herald "largely supported the Cuban police version that the bombs were the work of Salvadorans and Cubans abroad and not, as rumored in Havana, the work of opponents inside the island." It further describes the terrorist attacks as carried out by a "gang of four criminals" from El Salvador with "extremely close" connections to Salvadoran "army officers who were highly influential."

The political initiative for the attacks reportedly came from right-wing Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, a longtime supporter of Washington's war against the Cuban revolution. According to the Herald, Posada sent appeals to the Miami "exile" community, where he collected $15,000. Posada, who was charged in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in which 73 people died, is known to have taken up residence in El Salvador following his escape from a Venezuelan prison. He also played a role in the secret contra supply line organized by former U.S. Army Col. Oliver North during the CIA-organized war against the Nicaraguan revolution.

The involvement of this well-known counterrevolutionary was confirmed in conversations the Herald had with a number of "wealthy Cuban-American businessmen" who admitted providing financial backing for this terrorist campaign against Cuba. The Herald reported, "The exile sources declined to identify the donors, saying that the cash probably violated U.S. neutrality laws that prohibit plotting armed operations against another nation."

Cruz León, the Salvadoran mercenary who confessed and was charged with six of the bombing attacks, said that he was offered $4,500 for each blast he set. He told Cuban authorities that his pay came from the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) based in Miami, Florida.

Recently the ties of another Florida "businessman," Jose Antonio Llama, to Cuban right-wing terror has been revealed. Llama, who sits on the executive board of the CANF, was recently implicated in a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. He owns the 46-foot yacht that was used to transport four Cuban-American rightists whose stated aim was the assassination of Castro. The Herald reported that Llama's lawyer said he would advise his client to take advantage of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Meanwhile, a federal court here recently heard arguments supporting a lawsuit by the families of three of the four members of the rightist group Brothers to the Rescue, who were shot down following their February 1996 violation of Cuban airspace. The families are attempting to collect $79.9 million in damages from the Republic of Cuba.

In an attempt to prove that the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft never entered Cuban airspace, the attorneys for the rightists used a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator and Air Force fighter pilot as their expert witness. The November 14 Herald described this witness, Charles Leonard, "holding a model of a MiG jet in one hand and a Cessna model that it dwarfed in another" as he declared, "At no time were these aircraft in Cuban territorial airspace." Leonard also claimed the downing of the two Brothers to the Rescue planes was "premeditated."

James Lawrence, the judge in the case, ruled that the Cuban government was in "default" for not being present at the trial. The December 1 Herald reported that the most likely source for the funds, if the court rules for the families, will be the $148 million in Cuban assets, frozen by the U.S. government following Cuba's nationalization of former U.S. holdings.

The funds are only available if there is administrative approval from the U.S. president. Last year President William Clinton did just that - dipping into the illegally held Cuban funds and distributing $1.2 million to the four families of the downed Brothers to the Rescue pilots. The lawsuit falls under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, which permits court actions against governments found to have sponsored "extrajudicial killings" of U.S. citizens.

Shirley Peña is a member of the International Association of Machinists Local 368.  
 
 
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