Havana – Fidel Castro directed a vast protest march past the U.S. mission Tuesday, accusing the United States of preparing to free one of the hemisphere’s worst terrorists as thousands of Cubans carried signs equating President Bush with Adolf Hitler.
The government-sponsored march coincides with a U.S. court deadline for evidence to be filed in the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative and anti-Castro militant held on immigration charges at a detention center in El Paso. His lawyers are seeking his freedom as U.S. immigration authorities seek his deportation.
The Cuban president called Posada a “repugnant character” and a terrorist as he spoke to a sea of cheering Cubans along the coastal Malecon highway.
Cuba and Venezuela accuse the Cuban-born Posada of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner and staging bombings in Havana in 1997 and 1998. The attacks killed 74 people. Castro also has accused Posada and his colleagues of plotting to assassinate him in 2000.
Another focus of Castro’s ire is a new electronic sign installed outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. The sign was activated as Castro began speaking Tuesday, relaying global news and quotes including Abraham Lincoln’s: “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”
“They already turned on the little sign – the cockroaches are brave,” Castro said before starting his speech.
Posada was arrested in May. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said that while a judge has forbidden his deportation to Venezuela or Cuba, for fear he would be tortured there, the agency is still seeking to expel him to a third country.
