Héctor Pesquera on the loose in Puerto Rico

Héctor Pesquera, Puerto Rico’s new Police Chief

Héctor Pesquera, Official Mafioso Hitman Against the Cuban Five, is Chief of Police for Puerto Rico - español

Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

Puerto Rico’s governor, Luis Fortuño, has officially named Héctor Pesquera, the former head of the FBI in Miami and the mastermind of a conspiracy that led to the arrest of five Cubans who’d infiltrated terrorist groups in Florida, as the new Superintendent of the Puerto Rican police.

Puerto Rico is facing its most serious wave of crime, violence and corruption in many years.

Pesquera arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on a flight from Fort Lauderdale, and was immediately escorted by FBI agents to the Federal Building, his “alma mater,” at Chardón Street in Hato Rey, where the federal agency is headquartered.

It was at the request of the Mafioso Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart that Héctor Pesquera directed, organized and carried out the arrest of the Cuban Five, who had been sent to Florida from Cuba in order to fight the terrorist campaigns being waged against the island from that city.  The five were transformed into spies through a huge media show.

Pesquera ordered the mistreatment, solitary confinement, and rigged trial of the five Cuban patriots who remain kidnapped in US territory.

This policeman with multiple connections to Cuban American terrorist fauna, is of Puerto Rican origin, the black sheep of a family with deeply held nationalist convictions.

Sticky fingers at “Ladies in White” in Cuba

Cuban “Ladies in White” Suspect Recently Deceased Leader of Embezzling $20,000 – español

Jean-Guy Allard
Translation: Machetera

Rumors in Havana circulate at lightning speed.  Sources close to the “Ladies in White” [Damas de Blanco] reveal that upon taking charge of the mini-group and reviewing its finances, Berta Soler had the disagreeable surprise of learning that some $20,000 was missing from the organization which is openly funded by the United States.

The “Ladies” founder, Laura Pollán, died on October 14 at the Calixto Garcia Hospital, at the age of 63, victim of cardiac arrest “aggravated by diabetes, hypertension and dengue.”

The discovery of the group’s missing funds came about in a meeting where the 48 year old Soler, who’d acted as second in command until Pollán’s death, was confirmed as the new leader.  The rivalry between the two women who competed for favors from the U.S. diplomatic post in Havana (known as the U.S. Interests Section – USIS) was well known.

The missing Osama “lair” picture released and later scrubbed by ABC News

Not long after the White House announcement about its US Navy Seals operation in Abbottabad, ABC News released a set of pictures from what it claimed was the interior of Bin Laden’s home.  With ABC refusing to share the photos with other news conglomerates, both the NY Times and Wall Street Journal handled the photos gingerly, using language like: “Footage obtained by ABC News showed what the network said was a room inside the compound,” or “Footage obtained by ABC News showed what appeared to be blood on a floor inside the compound.”

Wikileaks: Five illustrative cases of prisoners at Guantánamo (+ Video)

Wikileaks: Five illustrative cases of prisoners at Guantánamo (+ Video) - español

Iroel Sánchez / Cubadebate

Translation: Machetera / Tlaxcala

New evidence of the upside down world that governs the United States is found in the Wikileaks documents which reveal information about the treatment of prisoners at the concentration camp in Guantánamo – maintained by Washington on territory it is illegally occupying against the will of the Cuban government and people.

The files say that 60% of the more than 700 prisoners were imprisoned by mistake.  Here are five cases that reflect the humanity of the USAmerican authorities at the prison opened by Bush that Obama promised to close.

• Mohamed Sadiq.  An 89 year old prisoner with senile dementia, prostate cancer and osteoarthritis.  Captured because of “suspicious documents” found on his son.  Repatriated to Afghanistan.
• Haji Faiz Mohammed.  Arrested at the age of 70, in a mosque where he had spent the night after going out in search of some medicine.  His file says that “there is no reason” for having transferred him to Guantánamo.
• Jamal al-Harith was in Guantánamo solely because he’d been arrested in a Taliban prison and it was thought that he knew something about their interrogation techniques.
• Naqib Ullah.  Captured at the age of 14, he spent a year at Guantánamo.
• Omar Khadr.  Captured at the age of 15, he has spent nine years at Guantánamo for being the son of a supposed Al Qaeda leader in Canada. Video of his interrogation:

It’s worth remembering that the country that has behaved in this arbitrary manner in the name of a war on terrorism is the same that refuses to try people such as Luis Posada Carriles, the man behind numerous terrorist actions against Cuba, as a terrorist, and who has ended up being feted in Miami.

Iroel Sánchez is a Cuban journalist, frequent Cubadebate contributor and editor of the blog La pupila insomne. Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

Orlando Bosch, history’s first passenger plane bomber, dead in Miami

A few of the victims of Orlando Bosch & Luis Posada Carriles

Terrorism and media double standards

The two things you’ll notice immediately if you do a Google news search right now for the newly deceased Orlando Bosch are that first, mainstream press articles are calling him a “militant” rather than a “terrorist” and second, there is an unusual focus on his politically motivated “acquittal” in Venezuela for his involvement, along with Luis Posada Carriles, in history’s first bombing of a passenger airliner.  The 1976 mid-air bombing of Cubana Flight 455 resulted in the deaths of all 73 passengers and crew on board.  Here’s the carefully crafted whitewashed sentence the wire services are peddling:

Prominent Cuban exile militant Orlando Bosch, who was acquitted in Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner, died Wednesday at 84…

Let’s just imagine for a moment what the general reaction might be for another obit crafted in a similar fashion:

Prominent Saudi exile militant Osama bin Laden, who the U.S. blamed for the 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, but then somehow never could locate, died Wednesday at 84…

Arturo Hernández’s zeal to convict the innocent

Luis Posada Carriles, left, Arturo Hernández, right

Posada Carriles’ Attorney Offered His Assistance to Convict Gerardo Hernández in Miami

José Pertierra, Cubadebate

Translation: Machetera

El Paso. February 14, 2010 — Prosecutors in the Luis Posada Carriles case revealed today that Posada Carriles’ defense attorney, Arturo Hernández, closely monitored and offered his help during the case against the Cuban Five in Miami in 2001.

Arturo Hernández’s brilliant career: defending money launderers, drug & arms traffickers, and terrorists

The devil in white, Luis Posada Carriles, center. Arturo Hernández in Miami Vice attire at right.

The good informant and the bad informant

By Alejandro Armengol, Cuaderno de Cuba, El Nuevo Herald

Translation: Machetera

Like a Cuban Perry Mason, the attorney Arturo Hernández, who leads the legal defense team for Luis Posada Carriles, has delivered to the court not only what according to him is sufficient proof to dismiss the three charges against his client, but also to solve the crime.

Hernández explained that one of the declassified documents possessed by federal prosecutors contains “alarming revelations” that establish that the 1997 bombings in Havana were ordered by Fidel Castro himself in order to divert attention from the visit of Pope John Paul II.  John Paul II visited Cuba in January of 1998.

Terrorist fest set for Wednesday in Washington

Advisory: Terrorists and coup-plotters from all over Latin America to meet at U.S. Capitol building in Washington - español

By Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

Almost all those scheduled to attend a meeting that will take place this Wednesday, November 17^th, in a hearing room at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C., have been linked with terrorism and in many cases coups d’etat and assassination attempts in Latin America.

Fishing with Posada Carriles – the continued banality of evil

Adolf Eichmann, left...Luis Posada Carriles, right

“Eichmann’s memory…was certainly not controlled by chronological order, but it was not simply erratic.  It was like a storehouse, filled with human-interest stories of the worst type.  When he thought back to Prague, there emerged the occasion when he was admitted to the presence of the great Heydrich, who showed himself to have a “more human side.”  A few sessions later, he mentioned a trip to Bratislava, in Slovakia, where he happened to be at the time when Heydrich was assassinated.  What he remembered was that he was there as the guest of Sano Mach, Minister of the Interior in the German-established Slovakian puppet government.  (In that strongly anti-Semitic Catholic government, Mach represented the German version of anti-Semitism; he refused to allow exceptions for baptized Jews and he was one of the persons chiefly responsible for the wholesale deportation of Slovak Jewry.)  Eichmann remembered this because it was unusual for him to receive social invitations from members of governments; it was an honor.  Mach, as Eichmann recalled, was a nice easygoing fellow who invited him to bowl with him.  Did he really have no other business in Bratislava in the middle of the war than to go bowling with the Minister of the Interior?  No, absolutely no other business; he remembered it all very well, how they bowled, and how drinks were served just before the news of the attempt on Heydrich’s life arrived.”

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem  – A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963)

And so, in 2010, we arrive at the news that Francisco Chávez Abarca, Luis Posada Carriles errand boy who was arrested in Venezuela in July, has been singing like a canary to Cuban investigators.  According to Chávez Abarca, his boss Posada, the biggest terrorist in the Western Hemisphere, checks in with the CIA before each one of his terrorist “hits” against Cuba, and also enjoyed warm relations with many former rightwing presidents of El Salvador, including Francisco Flores (1999-2004), who used to go fishing with Posada.

Francisco Chávez Abarca: a very big fish

Terrorist’s Capture a Warning of Possible Conspiracy Against Venezuelan Government - español

Translation: Machetera for Tlaxcala

teleSUR (Caracas) – Venezuela’s lawyer in the Posada Carriles case, José Pertierra, warned that the terrorist recently arrested near the International Maiquetía airport (in the northern state of Vargas), Francisco Chávez Abarca, “is not the person who detonated or placed the bomb,” but the person who recruited killers to carry out the action.  He urged authorities to investigate “who was going to meet with this individual” during his time in Caracas.

Venezuela’s attorney in the extradition case of Luis Posada Carriles, José Pertierra, warned that the presence in this Latin American country of the terrorist Francisco Chávez Abarca, who was arrested this Thursday, could respond to a planned conspiracy against the government of President Hugo Chávez and even an attempt on his life.

“I’m sure that (Chávez Abarca) didn’t come to Venezuela to get some sun on Isla de Margarita.  It’s very probable that he had a hidden, terrorist plan,” Pertierra warned in an exclusive interview with teleSUR.