US Document points Posada Carriles as likely author of Barbados’ crime

On Wednesday, the US State Department declassified a document where Luis Posada Carriles was pinpointed as the likely author of the bombing of a Cuban airplane in 1976, reported El Nuevo Herald.

According to the Miami newspaper, the memorandum written in 1976 showed the concern over the CIA links with Cuban extremist groups based in Miami. This memorandum was sent to the then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger by two high officials of the agency, after the allegations made by Fidel Castro on the allegedly involvement of US in the bombing of a Cuban airplane in Barbados in October 6^th, 1976, causing the death of 73 people.

“We have now pursued in detail with CIA (1) what we know about responsibility for the sabotage of the Cubana airliner and (2) how any actions by CIA, FBI, or Defense attaché’s might relate to the individuals or groups alleged to have responsibility,” states the report.

The memorandum, nonetheless, confirmed there were ties between the CIA and three people “supposedly” involved in the downing of the Cuban airliner, but ruled out the involvement of the agency in the terrorist act that caused 73 deaths.

According to the declassified document: "but any role that these people may have had with the demolition took place without the knowledge of the CIA."

The texts details the CIA links with "individuals allegedly involved" in sabotaging the plane — and specifically cites Hernán Ricardo Lozano, Freddy Lugo, Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Frank Castro, Orlando Garcia, Ricardo Morales Navarrete and Felix Martínez Suárez — but concludes that the CIA had only made contact in the past with Posada, Bosch and Martínez Suárez. Martínez Suárez was not involved in the bombing incident, according to the report's authors.

The document is signed by Harold H. Saunders, head of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the State Department (INR), and Harry W. Shlaudeman, assistant secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. It was declassified with a volume of other documents concerning Central America and Mexico, between 1973 and 1976.

Peter Kornbluh, researcher at the National Security Archive of George Washington University, confessed: “although internal CIA documents are not subject to regular declassification, the Obama administration could order it to clarify what happened, in the spirit of more normal relations with Cuba and to leave the past behind.”

According to Kornbluh, the document "again brings up the issue of how an international terrorist like Luis Posada Carriles can live happily ever after in Miami."

Cubasi Translation Staff