A Terrorist's Homecoming: Little Havana & Luis Posada Carriles

Recently acquitted of lying to immigration officials about his admitted role in a string of deadly 1997 bombings targeting Cuba's tourism industry, Luis Posada Carriles, returned victorious to the cradle of anti-Castro hysteria this week, Miami's Little Havana. There, members of the old-guard community feted him and raised money for his legal bills at the Big Five Club, a sort of Cuban social club and banquet hall. He was even congratulated by the latest in a long line of Cuban-American militant members of Congress from South Florida, David Rivera (whose life, by the way, reads like a soap opera).

Posada Carriles has been in the mercenary trade for decades as sort of an ideological mirror image to Che Guevara. He was briefly jailed after the revolution and took up arms against Castro during the Bahia de Cochinos invasion, though he didn't come under fire. Strangely enough, that invasion took place 50 years ago this week. Posada Carriles then spent the next 40 years directing anti-Castro and anti-communist activities across Latin America, including as the mastermind of the Cubana flight 455 bombing, which killed 73. He confessed as much to the excellent Cuba reporter Ann Louise Bardach, who told his story in his own words in Cuba Confidential, her wild ride through Miami's exile community and its sad history with the old man and the island they left behind.

Posada Carriles is a man who has caught plenty of lucky breaks. By his own account, he has survived a couple of assassination attempts and he's escaped justice in Venezuela and Panama. His acquittal last week in El Paso on lying to the feds focuses a glaring light on the fact that the US has never tried him for the bombings themselves. The Justice Dept. shouldn't close the case on Posada Carriles. The man who boasted to Bardach that he sleeps, "like a baby," ought to be held accountable. For the integrity of our own justice system and to show Latin America that we can take steps towards dismantling our double-standard on the rule of law, Posada Carriles shouldn't be allowed to become the elder statesman of Little Havana.