The Cuban leader rejected the attempt to single out the Basque pro-independence group ETA for condemnation as "terrorist" in a resolution adopted at the conclusion of the summit. He focused attention on Israel's bloody repression of the Palestinian people and the U.S. government's terrorism, particularly its responsibility for the tens of thousands of deaths in El Salvador's civil conflict in the 1980s.

The opening of the summit, which ended with language rarely heard in diplomatic circles, was preceded by a few hours with the arrest of CIA-trained terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and several other rightists by Panamanian police.

The arrests took place shortly after Castro, who had just arrived in Panama City to attend the summit, held a press conference exposing the presence in Panama of individuals who had been involved in numerous operations to assassinate him. Three days later, the police announced they had found large amounts of explosives and other criminal evidence at the home of one of the arrested men.

Posada Carriles has a decades-long history of involvement in U.S.-organized and financed counterrevolutionary actions in the Caribbean and Central America, and has admitted responsibility for organizing numerous terrorist attacks against the Cuban revolution. He was one of the Cuban-American counterrevolutionaries involved in a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados that killed all 73 people aboard.

Concerned that the individuals arrested might be released, the Cuban government has demanded they be brought to justice. "The government of the Republic of Cuba expects the government of Panama to adopt measures to help prevent [them] from escaping justice," stated Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque here November 20. He was speaking at a nationally televised "Roundtable" program where he presented detailed information, gathered by Cuban intelligence, of how Posada Carriles and other counterrevolutionaries based in Miami and Central America had traveled to Panama to carry out an attack "conceived and financed by the Cuban American National Foundation."

The full text of Pérez Roque's statement was published in the Havana daily Granma under the headline "Cuba demands justice." Many working people here have expressed this deeply felt sentiment. The events in Panama have been a major topic of discussion in Havana and front-page news in Latin America and Spain as well as the Spanish-language press in the United States. They have been virtually blacked out in the major English-language media so far, however.  
 
Cuba rejects anti-ETA statement
At the final session of the summit, the government leaders approved a specific resolution introduced by Salvadoran president Flores in support of Spanish imperialism's campaign to condemn "ETA terrorism," referring to Basque Homeland and Freedom, an organization that seeks Basque independence from the Spanish state and has claimed responsibility for assassinating a number of Spanish government officials and others.

The resolution, which received strong support from the governments of Portugal and Mexico especially, stated, "We express our firm condemnation of terrorism and reject the actions of the terrorist group ETA committed in Spain, while wishing to register our support to and solidarity with the people and government of Spain."

The vote was 20 in favor, with one abstention--Cuba. Commentators noted that this was a break from the "tradition" at Ibero-American summits of unanimous resolutions.

"We know the crimes committed in Spain," said Castro in explaining Cuba's refusal to vote for the resolution. "We condemn those crimes, like those committed anywhere else, like those committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians, the assassination of many of their leaders."

He noted that the resolution "does not mention state-sponsored terrorism, and Cuba has had more victims of U.S. state-sponsored terrorism than anyone."

The Cuban leader pointed to the hypocrisy of the Flores government in submitting the resolution, given that El Salvador is "where the leading terrorist [Posada Carriles] resides, and against whom nothing has been done, and who is now under arrest."

While President José María Aznar and King Juan Carlos of Spain attended the summit, they chose not to play a visible role in pushing the "antiterrorism" resolution, leaving that to the Salvadoran regime. In a "private visit" to Madrid about a week prior to the summit, Salvadoran president Flores held discussions with Spanish officials and opposition Socialist Party figures, with "ETA terrorism" being one of the main topics.

Josep Piqué, Spain's foreign minister, criticized Cuba for abstaining on the resolution. He warned that Cuba's stance would prevent the continuation of "a normal relationship."

In response to Castro's remarks explaining Cuba's vote, Flores took the floor accusing the Cuban government of responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of Salvadorans. "Both Russia and Cuba, like the Nicaraguan government, decided to intervene in the war in our country," he said, referring to the decade-long civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s. He singled out Castro personally for "cruel, bloody, and unacceptable responsibility for the war."

Flores became president of El Salvador in 1999 as the candidate of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), one of the main bourgeois parties there. ARENA was founded in 1981 by Roberto D'Aubuisson, who was closely tied to the death squads that waged terror against working people during the war.

"It is absolutely intolerable, Mr. Castro," Flores continued, "that you--involved in the deaths of so many Salvadorans, you who trained so many people to kill Salvadorans--accuse me of being involved in the case of Luis Posada Carriles."

The Cuban leader replied to Flores, "I have not accused you. If I needed to accuse you, I would do so calmly even if you were more powerful than the chief of the Pentagon." Recalling the crushing of a 1932 popular revolt in El Salvador, where some 30,000 were massacred by the regime, Castro added that "in the 1930s there was no Cuban revolution" to blame. He also pointed to the 1981 massacre in El Mozote, where nearly 800 people, including more than 100 children, were murdered by a U.S.-trained elite unit of the Salvadoran army.

"But we shouldn't forget who sent billions of dollars in weapons to El Salvador," the Cuban president noted. The U.S. government gave the regime "the most sophisticated weapons, dozens of helicopters, and fighter jets that fired 5,000 rounds per minute."  
 
Cuba supports revolutionary fighters
"Yes! We did support the revolutionary movement and have no regrets," the Cuban leader stated. He went on to explain how over the years Cuba had aided opponents of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, Angola's defense against invasions by the South African apartheid regime, and independence fighters in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. When the Sandinista-led workers and peasants fought and overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, "we helped them, but we were not the only ones."

"In that sense," Castro told Flores, "I accept your accusations." He concluded, "One day history will have to be written just as it happened."

Cuba's refusal to vote for the resolution condemning the Basque group--which as Castro said was aimed at "dividing Cuba from the people of Spain"--is consistent with the long-standing positions defended by revolutionary Cuba in the United Nations and other bodies.

At a UN General Assembly debate in December 1986, for example, the Cuban delegation was the only one to voice opposition to a U.S.-backed resolution condemning terrorism that omitted any mention of imperialist aggression. A Havana radio news broadcast following the vote reported that Cuba opposed "all resolutions on terrorism that do not include U.S. terrorism against Nicaragua, attempts by the CIA to assassinate Cuban leaders, Israeli crimes in occupied territories, and South African acts against Angola and the so-called Frontline countries."  
 
Arrest of right-wing terrorists
Shortly after his arrival in Panama November 17, to participate in the Ibero-American summit, the Cuban president denounced the presence of counterrevolutionary terrorists who were wan-ted for crimes against Cubans in other countries. In a meeting with Panamanian security forces held an hour and a half prior to Castro's press conference, Cuban officials gave them details on the addresses, phone numbers, descriptions, and aliases of a number of right-wing terrorists who were in place to take part in an attack on the Cuban president if the time was ripe and the situation allowed. "We asked them to act as swiftly as possible," Pérez Roque said.

In fact, given the public announcement that had already been scheduled, the Panamanian authorities had to either handcuff Posada Carriles or face public condemnation for allowing him to escape.

Less than an hour after the press conference, the Cuban foreign minister reported, Panamanian authorities arrested "the main individuals responsible for the attempted attack"--Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez, Pedro Remón Rodríguez, and Guillermo Novo. Subsequently, César Matamoros, Roberto Carrillo, and Posada's chauffeur, José Hurtado, were also arrested. Five of these are Cuban-Americans; one is Honduran and another Panamanian.

The foiled assault was only one of countless assassination plots that have been orchestrated against the Cuban leader--many of them, especially in the first years of the revolution, organized directly by the U.S. government. "At each and every one of the Ibero-American summits" since the first one in 1991, Pérez Roque said, assassination attempts have been planned.  
 
U.S.-trained terrorist
In an extensive July 12, 1998, interview with the New York Times, Posada boasted of how he was trained by the CIA to take part in the unsuccessful U.S.-organized invasion of Cuba by 1,500 Cuban-born mercenaries at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Afterward, he told the reporters, he was recruited by the CIA to carry out assassination attempts on Cuban leaders and other terrorist activities .

In the 1970s, Posada worked as chief of operations for the Venezuelan secret police, the Times reports.

Together with notorious counterrevolutionary Orlando Bosch, Posada was arrested and sentenced in Venezuela to 27 years for the 1976 midair bombing of a Cubana de Aviación airplane off the coast of Barbados. All 73 passengers and crew were killed, many of them teenage members of Cuba's fencing team.

Hundreds of thousands of angry Cubans rallied in Havana on Oct. 15, 1976, to condemn the barbaric act. Addressing the crowd, Fidel Castro held Washington accountable.

"Those responsible for these crimes," he said, "travel everywhere with impunity; they have unlimited financial resources; they use U.S. passports as naturalized citizens of that country or real or false papers from many other countries; and they use the most sophisticated methods of terror and crime.

"Who, if not the CIA, under the protection of the conditions of domination and impunity which the imperialists have established in this hemisphere, could do such things?"

After eight years in a Venezuelan jail, Posada, who enjoyed connections both in the CIA and the Venezuelan secret police, was allowed to escape in 1985. As he told the Times interviewers, he moved to El Salvador and was added to Washington's effort to supply arms to the counterrevolutionaries, or contras, in the war against the Nicaraguan revolution. Posada collaborated with Lt. Col. Oliver North, who ran the supply operation out of the White House basement in close coordination with CIA head William Casey; their headquarters was in El Salvador's Ilopango Air Force Base. The Nicaraguan workers and peasants eventually defeated the U.S.-organized counterrevolutionary effort.

According to the New York Times, Posada boasted of having "organized a wave of bombings in Cuba last year [1997] at hotels, restaurants, and discotheques." He pointed out that he had received funds from the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). U.S. authorities, "made no effort to question him about the case," the article noted.

Shortly after the publication of the Times interview, under pressure from the CANF, Posada Carriles retracted his account. The Times, however, has stood by its story and the accuracy of the interview.  
 
Protests demand extraditions
In Panama, police officials announced November 20 they had seized 50 pounds of plastic and other explosive materials. They reported that in the house of José Hurtado, one of those detained, they found a sketch of the National University auditorium, the site of Castro's last stop in Panama.

"If there is any crime involved, we will prosecute them," Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso stated November 23.

Cuba has requested the extradition of the five Cuban-born individuals detained. According to Panamanian law, Cuba has 60 days to submit evidence backing its extradition request.

In Panama City, workers and students have held demonstrations to express solidarity with Cuba and demand the counterrevolutionaries be put on trial.

The Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez has said it is considering whether to request the extradition of Posada Carriles, who is wanted for his escape from prison there. The Cuban government has stated that it will collaborate with the authorities in Panama, Venezuela, and elsewhere in ensuring that those responsible pay for their crimes.  
 
 
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