Luis Posada and Cuban Five — Double standard of justice

While the media are focused on the Jan. 8 right-wing massacre in Tucson, Ariz., the trial of Luis Posada Carriles opened only hours away in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 10. Although Posada has admitted involvement in the first midair bombing of a passenger flight, in hotel bombings and in other terrorist attacks on Cuba, he is charged with merely lying to federal officials in an immigration case.

On Oct. 6, 1976, Cubana Flight 455 exploded, killing — not six people like in Tucson — but all 73 people aboard the airplane, including the whole Cuban youth fencing team. On Sept. 4, 1997, Favio Di Celmo died when a bomb exploded in Hotel Copacabana in Havana.

Both Posada Carriles — on the CIA payroll as long ago as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961 — and Orlando Bosch, another admitted terrorist, enjoy freedom in Miami. But the Cuban Five, who monitored the anti-Cuba paramilitary operations on U.S. territory to protect lives, are unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. for long terms, including a double life plus 15 years for Gerardo Hernández. The stunning assassination attempt and killings in Tucson, Ariz., did not materialize from thin air, but rather from an aggressive and bloody imperialist U.S. history that uses terror for political and economic domination.