Posted on 02/19/2002 1:35:12 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
SANTIAGO, Chile - (AP) -- President Ricardo Lagos complained Monday that Cuba has not been forthcoming with information on four wanted Chilean terrorism suspects believed to have escaped to the communist island.
Chile, however, will not retaliate by voting for a resolution to condemn Cuba's human rights record when the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations meets in April, Lagos said.
''Those are completely separate things,'' the president said. ''We will decide on the vote when a resolution actually comes'' before the commission during its annual meeting in Switzerland.
The Chilean government has been trying to get a clear response from Cuba about reports that four Marxist guerrillas charged with several crimes, including the assassination of a prominent right-wing senator, were welcomed in Cuba after they staged a daring helicopter escape from a top security prison here in 1996.
One of them, Mauricio Hernández, was arrested in Brazil earlier this month as leader of a gang charged with kidnapping an advertising executive for almost two months. Authorities believe at least one of the other fugitives was also involved.
The government here says Cuba has never answered clearly whether the fugitives indeed received help there.
One answer, the Foreign Ministry said, indicated that none of them had been in Cuba -- at least not under their real names. But police here traced phone calls from Havana by one of the fugitives to relatives in Chile.
Chile joined the condemnation of Cuba by the Human Rights Commission in 1999 and 2000. It didn't have a seat in the group last year but regained it this year. Lagos has suggested that Chile may not vote against Cuba this time.
''We are not prepared to join a mere annual ritual of condemnation'' of Cuba, he said.
Joanne Chesimard: (a.k.a. Assata Shakur). Chesimard killed New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster execution-style during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike after she participated in a bank robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped in 1979. She surfaced in Cuba in the 1980s. A few years ago, a Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman described her as a "well-known civil rights activist."
Charles Hill and Michael Finney: Accused of murder and airplane hijacking. In 1971, the two were driving a car filled with guns and explosives from California to Louisiana in an operation for the militant Republic of New Afrika-a small organization that still seeks a black separatist nation within the United States. As they crossed New Mexico, they were stopped by 28-year-old state trooper Robert Rosenbloom; after a standoff, the trooper was shot dead. Nineteen days later, the three fugitives scrambled aboard a TWA plane in Albuquerque and hijacked a flight bound for Chicago. Interviewed in Havana last year by a U.S. journalist, Hill said that when he arrived in Cuba, he "was accepted by Fidel Castro's government as a soldier of the people's revolution." He was aware that the U.S. government had made frequent efforts to have him sent back.
Victor Manuel Gerena: on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List,[23] belongs to the Puerto Rico independence group FALN, also known as "Los Macheteros," who are responsible for numerous acts of terrorism in the United States, including a 1975 bombing in New York that killed four and injured 63. He is sought in connection with the armed robbery of $7 million from a security company. The Cuban government is reported to have aided Gerena and his group in preparing the robbery and allegedly funneled them $55,000 to carry out the operation. Gerena and part of the stolen loot were smuggled into Cuba by diplomats stationed at Cuba's embassy in Mexico City.[24]
Robert Vesco: In 1972, the wealthy financier fled the United States to avoid numerous racketeering charges. He lived in several countries until finding his way to Cuba in 1982. Once in Cuba, U.S. officials have indicated that Vesco enjoyed the personal protection of Fidel Castro; under his patronage, Vesco became the high financier of several of the region's dictators and the island's criminal elite. For these activities, he was indicted by a U.S. grand jury in 1984 for cocaine trafficking and, in 1989, for conspiring with the leader of a Colombian drug ring to smuggle narcotics. In 1995, Vesco fell out of favor with his Cuban hosts after he was accused of trying to market behind their backs his own a new "miracle" drug against cancer and arthritis. The U.S. government has issued repeated requests for his return to face justice.[25]
Cuba's record of sponsoring death and hardship around the world is as long as it is bloody. By the late 1980s, Cuba had worked to build up and unify at least 27 active terrorist and guerrilla groups in the Western Hemisphere that totaled about 25,000 armed and trained members. At the time, the U.S. Southern Command and the State Department estimated that a minimum of 20,000 individuals from around the world had received training in Cuba.[18] These groups-often with direct assistance from Cuba-have murdered thousands of men, women, and children, including a number of American citizens.[19] [End Excerpt]
The details outlined at the LINK above show Castro's open door policy to criminals and terrorists from around the world seeking safe haven.
Bump!
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