May 17, 2005
Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd
Ex-DEA Agent
www.powderburns.org

© Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

For over a century, our government has made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that we have done to other people in third world countries, especially in Latin America. With the creation of the School of the Americas, a breeding ground for assassins, and the death squads, we have become the greatest human rights violators in the world.

We have become the most hated country in the world, not because we practice democracy or value our freedom. We are hated because our government denies these basic principles to these people. The hate has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and as they say, once again, "the chickens have come home to roost" with our own homegrown American made terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles.

When I was posted in Central America as a DEA agent I saw Luis Posada and Felix Rodriguez, another American terrorist, at Illopango airport base in El Salvador. Joining them was a CIA asset Venezuelan advisor Victor Rivera. They had become part of what was known as a CIA apparatus that did not have to answer to anyone. They were involved in everything from drug trafficking to kidnapping to the training of the death squads. It was at the height of the Iran-Contra investigation that I had documented these atrocities to my government. I could not understand how our government had assisted in having Posada escape from a Venezuelan prison, and then placed him at Illopango airport as a CIA asset under the new name of Ramon Medina. He was now working hand in hand with then U. S. Lt. Col. Oliver North.

When I asked about Posada's presence at Illopango, I was once again told that it was a covert operation being run by the White House. I started to learn real fast that just about every time I questioned illegal action, I would be told that it was "a covert operation being run by the White House." And as we found out later, my allegations were facts; that became especially clear when, in 1990, President Bush Sr. pardoned another American-made terrorist, Posada's partner in crime: Orlando Bosch. To the degree that the "war on terror" is a response to actual terrorism, that terrorism is retaliation: the U.S. has exported death and violence to the four corners of the Earth with individuals like Posada and Bosch.

Posada admitted to a New York Times reporter that he organized a wave of bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured others. However, he is best known as the prime suspect in the bombing of a Cuban Airlines flight in Barbados in October 1976. All 73 crewmembers and passengers including teenaged members of Cuba's national fencing team were killed.

In 2002, he was convicted of conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro in Panama. Once again, an ally of the United States was the American proxy for a pardon.

Our credibility has been eroded these past few weeks since Posada arrival on U. S. soil with a bogus American passport. According to Posada's attorney, he has filed for asylum. This should be a free ticket for any other immigrant applying for asylum. If an American made terrorist can get asylum, then it should be easy for an immigrant who is honest and hard working (and not a mass murderer) to get asylum.

The FBI and the CIA have just released their formerly Top Secret memos on Posada's involvement in terrorist crimes against humanity.

Other American-made terrorists are Mario Alarcon - Sandoval godfather of the death squads in Central America; Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban exile who murdered Che Guevara; and Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, who led the death squads in El Salvador. They all had America's blessing in the murders they committed. This will affirm that the U. S. government considers itself to be the vehicle of higher morality and truth while it continues to operate in violation of law.

Even thought I'm known as a tranquil individual at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for a country that has a double standard of terrorism. Where are the Border Patrol, Immigration, or Homeland Security when you need them? Posada entered this country illegally, and - most devastating - has admitted to bombings in which civilians were killed. The FBI claims that they aren't looking for him because they don't have an arrest warrant for him. But then we learn that Homeland Security has picked up Posada. Will he be extradited to Venezuela? I don't think so. He will probably be given a couple of million dollars, and will perhaps live on a secluded island for the remainder of his golden years. What reward for a career as a United States government assassin.

This world has become a very dangerous place to live, not just because of the evil people that control it, but also because of the individuals who do absolutely nothing to make it a better place to live.

For years I have claimed that this country has become the worst human rights violator, and Posada and his Cuban criminals are proof that we are. Let's not forget our human rights violations in Iraq, and just recently in Colombia, the assassination of Colombian Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, Luis Eduardo Guerra. Time and time again I have witnessed, as an American Diplomat in Latin America, atrocities that our government has committed. My biggest enemy was not the drug cartels but the CIA and the criminals they hired. It is because of that, that I have now remained capable of feeling deeply in my blood when an injustice is being committed.

Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd
Ex-DEA Agent
Powderburns.org
e-mail: powderburns@prodigy.net