Activists from the US-based groups CodePink and Juventud Bolivariana launched a "Most Wanted" campaign against Cuban-born former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "asset" Luis Posada Carriles in Miami on Jan. 12, demanding that the US government designate him a terrorist and comply with a Venezuelan request for his extradition. Since 2005 Venezuela has been seeking to bring Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, to trial in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which 73 people died. Posada is under a deportation order in the US, but since the US refused to send him either to Cuba or to Venezuela, he was conditionally released from US detention on April 19, 2006. He is now living in Miami.

The activists started the campaign by passing out anti-Posada postcards in front of the Versailles restaurant on Eighth Street in Miami's "Little Havana" neighborhood; the restaurant is known as a meeting place for rightwing Cuban Americans. Five right-wing organizations held a counterdemonstration. "We support and respect our brother patriot Luis Posada Carriles" read one sign. Some counterdemonstrators threatened the activists, who withdrew.

CodePink spokesperson Medea Benjamin said local police "didn't guarantee our safety." According to Benjamin, the US government's failure either to detain or extradite Posada "makes a joke of the war against terrorism." (El Diario-La Prensa, Jan. 13 from EFE, quotations retranslated from Spanish)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 13

See our last posts on Cuba and Posada Carriles.