S/PV.3080 Security Council

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. The Security Council is meeting in response to the request contained in a letter dated 27 April 1992 from the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, document $/23850. Members of the Council have received photocopies of a draft resolution submitted by Cuba. This draft resolution will be circulated in document $/23990 within the hour. I should like to draw the attention of members of the Council to documents S/23846, letter dated 24 April 1992 from the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General; and S/23890, S/23912 and §/23913, letters dated 8 and 13 May 1992, respectively, from the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council. (The President) The first speaker is the representative of Cuba, on whom I now call. Mr, ALARCON de QUESADA (Cuba) (interpretation from Spanish): At the outset, it is a pleasure for me to convey to you my delegation's gratification at seeing you presiding over the work of this organ, not only because of the friendly relations between our two countries but also because I have had the privilege of knowing you personally for a number of years and of growing to recognize your personal and professional qualities. We are certain that you will continue to discharge this important responsibility in a manner that will reflect favourably woon the Council. '(Mr. Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) My delegation requested a meeting of the Security Council to consider the terrorist activities against my country promoted, encouraged or tolerated by the Government of the United States. We also requested that, in this context, the Security Council consider some points relevant to the in-flight destruction of a Cuban civilian aircraft on 6 October 1976 near the island of Barbados. This request does not relate to matters that are not of current, immediate relevance to the date on which the Council has finally met. Moreover, we are not requesting the members of the Council to consider any matters that they themselves have not considered it wise to consider in other cases. We are aware that, in one way or another, doubts have been expressed or questions have been raised with regard to this request. Therefore, I should like to place before the Security Council some concrete facts and to make some explanations which we hope will make clear why my delegation has requested this meeting ~ and not only the meeting but also the effective action by the Council that should flow from it. With reference to the act of sabotage that occurred in October 1976, the Council is aware - and the President has made reference to this ~ that we asked for the distribution of a number of documents that we hope will enable everyone to understand why we maintain that this matter has not been closed, that it has not been appropriately and finally dealt with. What is involved is a shameful act with regard to which justice has not yet been fully done. We know that judicial proceedings were held in the territory of a brother State, Venezuela -- a process which was carried out with the effective cooperation of several Caribbean States that in one way or another were affected by this tragic incident, including of course the Republic of Cuba. (Mr. Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) First, while on the one hand two individuals were punished as having been the direct perpetrators of the act of sabotage, the later events regarding the other two persons, who had been accused of being the masterminds of the act, followed a different course, which the Council simply cannot disregard, One of them, Mr. Luis Posada Carriles, was not punished in any way. For good reasons, the Venezuelan court decided not to render any verdict concerning him, simply because at that time he was not in the custody of Venezuelan authorities, having left the prison in which he had been held. The other person, Mr. Orlando Bosch Avila, was acquitted. But, as members of the Council know - I had a document in this connection circulated - following his release from the Venezuelan prison after his acquittal, Mr. Orlando Bosch travelled to the United States. This gentleman's arrival in the United States gave rise to quite a bit of discussion and polemics, which brought to light some information regarding his long career as a terrorist. Perhaps the most relevant information for our purposes appears in the document annexed to my letter dated 8 May 1992, which has been distributed. I should like once again to draw the attention of members of the Security Council to a passage from the statement by the Acting Associate Attorney General of the United States which is contained in this document, the passage which relates to the confidential information - according to him, voluminous - in the hands of the United States Government on this person. I now read from the document: (spoke in English) “Information reflecting that the October 6, 1976 Cuban airline bombing was a CORU operation under the direction of Bosch”. (8/23890, p. 14) (Mr. Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) (spoke in Spanish) That statement does not appear in a Cuban document; it does not appear in the pages of any radical publication criticizing the Government of the United States: it appears in an official document of the Department of Justice of the United States, among the arguments on the basis of which the Department of Justice decided to deport Mr. Bosch from the United States. In the following paragraphs of this document it can be seen that the United States Government also possesses information on the activities which Mr. Bosch, while in a Venezuelan prison, had been carrying out against Venezuela or against Cuba or against other States - acts of terrorism, sabotage and violence. In another communication I noted that I have the entire text ~ it is with me now - of the Venezuelan court's verdict in August 1987. Anyone who reads this very long document will see that it repeatedly refers to information which the Venezuelan court received from authorities in Barbados, in Trinidad and Tobago, in Cuba, in Guyana ~ States which, for one reason or another, were affected by the incident. Nowhere in this document do we see any reference to the court's having received, directly or indirectly, information of any sort from authorities in the United States. This document contains a large number of pages devoted to an account - simply an account - of the information, the elements or the data received from national, Venezuelan, sources or from foreign countries - information which the court, for one reason or another, decided not to take into account. (Mr, Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) Nowhere in that long list is there reference to any data offered by the Government of the United States. Therefore, it is clear that when the court rendered its decision regarding Mr. Bosch it did not have - just as that court, its members, or anyone else except for the Government of the United States does not have today - the information referred to by the Department of Justice which the United States Government still holds as confidential. At the time Mr. Bosch was in Florida illegally, an interesting statement was made by the Regional Director for Florida of the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States, Mr. Rivkind. He said that Mr. Bosch's letter showed that he was an extremist, since in Miami, right after his acquittal, Mr. Bosch, among other things, publicly justified the act of sabotage against the Cubana airliner. Mr. Rivkind justly said that, had he known that this person was capable of such an act, he would have expelled him upon arrival on American territory. But other things happened too ~- other things which show that the United States knew ~ and knows ~ a lot more about Mr. Bosch than what is known by any court on this planet. For example, information was published by the Miami Herald announcing that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided . Mr. Bosch’s lawyers with many documents, one 1,700 pages long, many of them completely blocked out, according to the Herald. However, one of those bits of information reveals that the 1963 terrorist act in the City of Santa Clara in Cuba, in which one adult and three children were killed, had been carried out by Mr. Bosch. If one were to review the documents of the Department of Justice, if one were to go to the libraries in the United States, one would find no record of any judicial action having been taken in the United States, even after the report published in Miami that Bosch had killed one adult and (Mr, Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) three children in a terrorist act hatched in the United States. I repeat, one would find no proof or evidence of any action having been taken by the American authorities, either at that time or after 4 August 1989, when the report was published. Some may think that since the deaths of those three children occurred in 1963 it is ancient history which the Council can disregard, Mr. Bosch was finally released, despite the determination of the Department of Justice - and I should like here to digress for a moment because, unfortunately, in the translation into English of the text of my letter, which is annexed to the document, there is a strange phrase which bears no relation to the original Spanish text. In the Spanish text at the end of my letter I say in a paragraph which I entitle "Note” that, despite the arguments by the Department of Justice, Mr. Bosch not only was not deported but that by a “higher decision" he was released. I do not know for what curious reason that statement, which is very clear in Spanish, was translated into English as by decision of a "senior judicial authority”. I am not interested in linguistics, but I ao think it necessary to make clear that there was no judicial decision contradicting the Department of Justice. Quite the contrary: when the District Court of Miami rejected Mr. Bosch's motion for a writ of habeas corpus it supported the legality of the action taken by the Department of Justice and ruled that the matter of deportation was within the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch and that, in the view of the District Court judge, it was not up to the Court to act. Mr. Bosch and his attorneys have never appealed that court decision; nor did they have to, because by higher decision, despite what the Department of Justice had decided, and despite the view of the Miami District Court, Mr. Bosch was released ~ but by a higher decision of the Executive Branch, It was not the decision of any court of law. I wished to be discreet in my letter and I did not think it necessary to name the higher authority - higher than the Attorney General of the United States. I think that anyone familiar with the organization of the United States knows that the higher authority - and if I am mistaken my colleagues from the United States can correct me - is the President of the United States of America. It is no court of law. No court of law considered the appeal, because there was no appeal. And when the motion for habeas corpus was considered the court decided that the decision of the Department of Justice was correct. All of this is in official documents, We are not speaking of prehistoric matters but of very current matters, because, as I have said, the gentleman in question is in this country. He is free. But although it is a freedom subject to certain requirements, one finds public statements by that gentleman in the Miami press in this case convening a political meeting on the streets of Miami, and statements of all kinds which show that he is quite active in political life to this day. The other case is that of Mr. Luis Posada Carriles, but those who may still wish to cover up this case cannot hide behind the decision of any tribunal because the court decided the only thing that it could decide: that it could do nothing because Posada was no longer under its jurisdiction. The subsequent ups and downs in the path followed by this gentieman should be taken into account by the Council. First of all, a few weeks after Posada’s departure from the Venezuelan prison, a Venezuelan magazine interviewed him and he said that at that time that he was somewhere in Central America in the vanguard in the struggle against communism. He had left jail on 18 August 1985, approximately two years before the court rendered its judgment, and therefore without having been the object of a decision; a few weeks later he was already being interviewed from Central America where, according to him, he was very active. On 5 October 1986 an aircraft was downed over Nicaraguan territory which, according to evidence, was carrying weapons for what at that time were called the contras - an activity which, as the Council is aware, was then prohibited under United States law, which only allowed “humanitarian assistance" to the contras. The pilot of that aircraft was Hasenfus, an American, who revealed during his trial in Nicaragua that the chief - the person who guided his activities from San Salvador for the dispatch of these weapons to Nicaraqua - was Luis Posada Carriles. I have taken the trouble to bring with me today, along with a large number of other documents, a book entitled The Tower Commission Report, a volume that is actually not very useful, very carefully prepared as it was so as not to reveal an undue amount of information. Members may recall that the President of the United States appointed a Commission headed by Mr. John Tower ~ who had been a United States Senator - to look into any possible infringements of the law that might have occurred in relation to assistance to the contras during the time such assistance was prohibited by American law, as well as to look into other matters related to the issue. Curiously, this book, which says practically nothing specific and which has been so carefully prepared and worded, does make one slip, which occurs in very small print at the end, in the section on notes. There, we find information which tells us that no sooner had the incident with Mr. Hasenfus's piane occurred than Mr. Oliver North sent a memorandum to Mr. MacFarlane, who was national security adviser to the President at the time, warning him about the enormous consequences that might ensue for American policy in Central America as a result of this incident and the undesirable facts it might bring to light. Indeed, so important was this matter that Mr. North's memorandum also alerted Mr. MacFarlane to the fact that President Reagan - who was on his way to Iceland for a summit meeting - had been informed of it prior to his departure and of Mr. North's plan to hire the best attorneys in the world with a view to avoiding any relevations as a result of Mr. Hasenfus's accident in Nicaragua. This is the first time that we have any indication that Mr. Posada Carriles was not only very active in the struggle against communism - in this case it would be more accurate to say against the peoples of Central America ~ but that he also worked under the orders of a man whose offices were in the very basement of the White House. Of course, at this time, although the affair did have some repercussions in the press, an attempt was made to conceal the information and no appropriate investigation was mounted to try to determine what Mr. Posada Carriles was doing in San Salvador conducting activities under the guidance of Oliver North. As time went by the American Senate, as we all know, held a series of hearings to look into certain irregularities in the conduct of American foreign policy, particularly with regard to the contras, and in the course of those hearings Mr. Luis Posada Carriles turned up again in a way that has led many to believe that the matter went far beyond any specific activities he may have been conducting in San Salvador. Soon, Mr. Felix Rodriguez, an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) working with Posada Carriles in San Salvador, admitted to the United States Senate. that he had taken part in the operation conducted to get Mr. Posada Carriles out of his Venezuelan jail and into his new activities in Central America under the direction of the White House basement. And there was even more information: According to notes made by Oliver North and published by the United States Senate, Mr. Rodriguez was to have received a substantial sum of money from a Cuban-American character residing in Miami called Jorge Mas Canosa; at the time the former needed money to obtain Mr. Posada Carriles's release from the Venezuelan jail. According to a United Press International dispatch dated 4 September 1988, a correspondent of that news agency interviewed three Cuban exile leaders in Miami and two former assistants of Mr. Posada Carriles, all five of whom said that Mr. Mas Canosa had given the money to finance Mr. Posada Carriles's escape from jail. Furthermore, according to that American correspondent, (spoke in English) "A federal law enforcement official said he received reports alleging Mas's involvement, but declined to elaborate further." (continued in Spanish) It is interesting that in his lengthy statement before the Senate Committee, Mr. Felix Rodriguez even spoke of meetings between himself and the then Vice President George Bush and described a number of violations of American laws and norms he had committed, but there was one point, and one point only, on which he refused to give any explanation to the Senators. That point was reached when it came to provide an answer to the precise question of the notes Mr. North had kept in his diary about the $50,000 that Mas Canosa had given to him and regarding the precise relationship between that sum of money and Mr. Posada Carriles's escape from the Venezuelan jail. Hence, I can imagine that someone might say to me that, after all, those were relationships batween Mr. Posada Carriles and the possibly clandestine basement of the White House in Washington, where the laws of that country were not being strictly obeyed. A short time later, however, additional information appeared that is perhaps even more interesting than the foregoing. The United States Senate released the information that Posada Carriles not only directed an operation that was illegal from the American standpoint but that he was also in the employ of the American State Department, which, we must assume, as a branch of the Government, does work within clearer parameters. According to Mr. Robert Owen, at the time Mr. Posada Carriles was working under his direction as well. Mr. Robert Owen was then the Director of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO), a programme authorized by the American Congress to deliver humanitarian - not military ~ assistance to the contras. According to Mr. Owen's testimony before the United States Senate, Luis Posada Carriles was the Support Director for the NHAO programme in San Salvador. Further, in a memorandum dated 28 March 1986 and submitted to the congressional hearings, Mr. Owen submitted to Mr. North a proposal that we must acknowledge, notwithstanding other grounds for criticism, to have been a wise one. The proposal was signed by Owen and Posada Carriles and sent by them to Mr. North at the White House. Thus, Posada Carriles was working for the White House on illegal programmes and for the State Department on legal programmes and receiving two salaries. I imagine that that proposal was to merge the two programmes, something everyone assumed had been done from the beginning. So that when the State Department's spokesmen now allege that they do not know where Mr. Posada Carriles is at the moment - and I will return to this later - they certainly did know his whereabouts a few years ago, when he happened to be an employee of that same State Department and was even sending proposals to the White House itself. This was a practical proposal because, if Posada Carriles was working both for the White House, on illegal programmes, and for the State Department, on legal programmes, he would, I imagine, have been receiving two salaries. But the proposal was to merge the two programmes - which everyone had assumed to be the case from the start. I hope that when the State Department spokesmen claim not to know where Mr. Posada is now - a matter to which I shall return - they will at least acknowledge that they did indeed know his whereabouts a few years ago: he was apparently an official in their own Department, and his proposals reached even the White House. Subsequently, Mr. Luis Posada Carriles crops up again, in an interview with a Miami weekly publication, Tropic, which is a supplement to the Miami Herald. We are not speaking of prehistory here: the supplement was published on 10 November 1991, only a few months ago. Mr. Posada describes his life in great detail; he speaks of many of the matters to which I have referred this afternoon, and he has interesting things to say about his present situation. The journalist describes that situation: this man is not living in hiding in the depths of some cave. He lives in an undisclosed location, in a house the journalist described as very well protected, even well armed. Mr, Posada speaks of his support staff and his security staff, who protect him at home, and whenever he goes out into the city where he lives. He speaks also of having had several very costly plastic-surgery operations. In short, he does not give the impression of an abandoned, lost soul in some corner of the planet. He goes further, explaining something that is known from other public sources: he is ~ wonder of wonders - an artist, a painter on top of everything else. The CIA has created poets; it seems also to have created painters. Posada Carriles, long-time explosives expert and assassin, is now a painter. | The interview gives the impression that he has a good opinion of his own work; yet he seems to mass-produce paintings which, he Says, are sent to Miami, where they are exhibited publicly and sold - at a higher price, he acknowledges, than they are worth in terms of their artistic merit. And the money goes to him. So Miami imports paintings by a terrorist and sends him the money from the sale of those paintings. These are not postcard-size daubings, and they are not turned out in small numbers: they are mass-produced. The interviewer speaks of the most recent show in Miami, where Posada exhibited 160 works for which he received $20,000 - by his own admission an excessive sun, Are Posada Carriles's whereabouts such a secret? Is he one of those old murderers, one of those Nazis who suddenly turn up after decades of hiding? I do not recall hearing of a single such Nazi who painted, exhibited his paintings and received the proceeds from their sale ~ with every step the subject of public announcements and public comment, and with the authorities of the country where the paintings were exhibited and sold and from which the proceeds were exported disclaiming any knowledge of his whereabouts. In this case, perhaps, they were not exported any great distance: Mr. Posada might even be in Miami. Perhaps they do not know, but obviously it would not be very hard to find out if they wanted to. Tf one looks at this case objectively, I think one must cenciude that the United States possessed and still possesses information and evidence concerning the act of sabotage perpetrated against the Cubana airliner in 1976, information it has never made public but has kept secret ~ despite its legal and ethical obligations; despite the fact that the International Civil Aviation Organization called on all States to act with vigour and resolve in this matter so that the quilty might be duly punished; and despite the fact that the Venezuelan authorities requested all in a position to do so to provide any useful information. President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela, who addressed the General Assembly, conveying with firmness, dignity and clarity the repudiation by the people and the Gevernment of Venezuela of this act of sabotage, called on us and others to help by providing any information we had. Specifically, at a press conference held in this very building in November 1976 President Perez stated, inter alia: "I cannot make any specific statement on the possible responsibility of any United States Government agency with respect to Cuban terrorism, but I think it is the duty of the United States to dispel ali the doubts that are continuously expressed in the international and the United States press concerning the participation of official agencies in connivance with those terrorist groups". I do not consider that the Security Council would be acting consistently if it were to allow the United States to continue doing what it has been doing for the past 15 years: to cooperate in covering up these facts by obstructing or preventing justice and thus to protect and benefit the guilty parties. The United States has helped Luis Posada to evade justice, and it continues to do SO. He was helped by important figures in the United States Administration, as was shown before the Senate, when he escaped from prison. He was helped to find a safe place to live, and was given a job: in this country, with its millions of unemployed, a foreign terrorist obtained not one job, but two, his salaries paid by American taxpayers. At this very moment, he is being allowed to exhibit his paintings, to publicize his exhibitions in Miami, to appear in the place where the exhibitions are being held, and to receive the proceeds from the sale of his art. Can one really say with any degree of seriousness that the Government of the United States has nothing to do with this matter or with the responsibilities of Mr. Bosch and Mr. Posada Carriles? There is even more, There is one further reason that might lead anyone to believe that, over the past 15 years, the United States should have deemed it necessary to make some clarification, having failed to provide the information to the Venezuelan court. In the document of the Venezuelan court, there is one point to which I should like to refer. That document contains a statement made by Mr. Dennis Elliot Ramdwar, Deputy Police Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago. Mr. Ramdwar went to Caracas and took part in the judicial proceedings as a witness. Among other things, he submitted the results of the investigation conducted by the authorities of Trindidad and Tobago with regard to this crime. As Mr. Ramdwar explained, orally and in writing, when he interviewed one of the two individuals accused of sabotage by the court, Mr. Hernan Ricardo, on 21 October 1976, gave a statement to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Commissioner, who had alerted him before witnesses that anything he said could be used against him during the legal proceedings; not only did he say it, but he also handed it over in writing afterwards. He was asked whether anyone had given them guidance or directed them to place the bombs in the Cuban airliner, to which Mr. Ricardo said yes and added - which I shail cite from the testimony of Mr. Ramdwar - that he had been a CIA agent and working for Luis Posada Carriles. Mr. Ramdwar explained afterwards that Mr. Hernan Ricardo had explained to him the structure of the CORU terrorist group and that Mr. Bosch was the leader of that group. Elsewhere in his testimony the police official from Trinidad and Tobago explained that, according to the accused, all that they had done had been immediately communicated to their immediate chief, Mr. Posada, and their ultimate superior, Mr. Bosch, To the reason I gave earlier as to why the United States should have deemed it necessary to give information to the Venezuelan court, we must add that the United States knew that those who had been accused of committing the crime had accused the Central Intelligence Agency before the Trinidad and Tobago authorities. One of them, Mr. Ricardo, had specifically declared himself to be a CIA agent and had named his boss within the CIA hierarchy as Mr. Luis Posada Carriles. It is difficult to understand why not even that was able to motivate American authorities to provide an explanation or an excuse, unless we consider that, from the very outset, they had decided to pursue a cover-up that has been maintained ever since. By adopting this attitude, the United States encourages the repetition of such crimes. It merely perpetuates the policy of aggression it has followed against Cuba for many years, a policy that is currently being stepped up. I should now like to offer some examples of why it is important to understand this case in the light of current events, I question the impunity with which someone connected to the United States was able to commit a crime 15 years ago. Anyone interested can find proof of the fact that, in the United States of America, terrorist activities are promoted and organized against Cuba. On 14 October 1990, to give but one example, we captured in Cuba an expedition from the United States. The members of that expedition were all residents of the Miami area in Florida and declared at their trial that the person who trained and directed them was Mr. Rolando Nieves, a resident of 2881 N.W. Sth Street in Miami, postal code 33125. These persons acknowledged that they had been trained there, that they had boats, explosives and weapons, and that this was something which they did quite freely. This information is public, of course, because everyone in Miami knows about it. It was also made known to United States authorities. On 23 July 1991, The New Herald in Miami published an article with a revealing title: “Notice of Violence During Games in Cuba". It interviewed one gentleman, Eduardo Macaya, who, among other things, made threats against foreigners and tourists travelling to Cuba that were very reminiscent of the threats and language used by Mr. Bosch in the 1970s, which later culminated in the crime committed against the Cuban airliner. He said: “Tourists and anyone doing business with the Cuban Government are heretofore considered military objectives. Crimes against them will not be considered acts of terrorism because the country is in a state of war. It would be terrorism if we attacked in the United States those who said they would travel to Cuba. But once they are in Cuba, they have entered a war zone.” That was published in Miami on 23 July 1991. Despite the best anti-terrorist efforts of the present American Administration, and despite its desire to fight these acts, we know that these statements were not followed up. One might say that these are mere threats published in a newspaper. But let us look at certain details. On 4 January 1991, a terrorist group based in Florida made an announcement, published in the Diario de Las Americas in Miami on that day, to the effect that there would be an attack against Cuba. It did so not in secret but at a press conference held at 11 a.m. on that day in the headquarters of that terrorist group, tolerated by the American authorities in broad daylight. These headquarters are located 408 S.W. 22nd Avenue in the city of Miami. Among other things, they explained what they did with the ship after the attack: the ship was anchored at a marina in Homestead, Florida. They did not hide it under the sea; they did not have to do anything strange or exceptional: these are activities which they carry out with total impunity on United States territory. The same group, Alpha-66, at a later date - 30 August 1991 - held a public meeting in Miami, a kind of general assembly of all its members. At that meeting, among other things they announced that they had 100 well-trainea men, and that military training was continuing. This was stated by a Mr. Aldo Lopez, who was identified at that meeting as one of the military chiefs of Alpha-66. Mr. Lopez explained to all those who might be interested in joining in these activities that training was continuing for persons between 15 and 50 years of age at a camp called “Rumbo Norte”. Mr, Lopez, who, according to the Diario de las Americas, had served in the United States Army for six years, added a very interesting phrase. He assured everyone that “the problems with the authorities of the county had been solved". So there seem to have been some problems with the local authorities: but it was publicly announced in Miami that the problems had been solved and that the training and preparation for terrorist activities against Cuba could continue. One month later - on 20 September 1991 - another announcement by the same group was published. In this one it asked publicly and openly for financial contributions or other types of material assistance to enable it to continue its terrorist operations. Anyone in the Council who is fascinated by this idea can send assistance to Post Office Box 42067, Miami, Florida 33142. Announcements such as that one, and many others, appear daily in the United States press. One article published in Miami is entitled "Terrorists At Large In Miami" ~ the Spanish title contains a “Cubanism", which indicates that the author of the article is possibly a Cuban. What the title really means is that these people do what they please, whenever they please and however they please. But, unfortunately, there is even more. On 29 December 1991, another terrorist commando group landed in Cuba and was captured. On 10 January 1992, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Cuba sent an official note to the United States Interests Section in Havana. Among other things, it contained the name, address and telephone number of each member of that terrorist commando group and the names of those persons who had directed them from the United States, as well as the locations of the camps which, according to them, had been used for this action; one of them had its headquarters on 40th Street and 37th Avenue in Miami, and another at a farm in Homestead. That note was sent on 10 January 1992. On 23 January 1992 - 13 days later - the same person mentioned in our note as the head of the group recognized publicly, with all details, in the English and Spanish press in Miami, that he had been the head of that operation, that he had directed it, and he announced that he would continue to engage in such activities. On the same date - 23 January 1992 ~ the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Cuba sent another note to the Government of the United States drawing its attention te the fact that Mr, Antonio de la Cuesta - the person who, according to persons who had infiltrated into Cuba, had been the head of the infiltration - had now announced that publicly in Miami. We expressed our opinion that the United States should do something about this clear violation not only of international law but of United States law as well. (Mr, Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) Later, on 24 and 31 January 1992, we sent notes to the United States Government reiterating our position and providing that Government with all the information in the hands of our authorities concerning this criminal act. We are speaking of the end of January 1992 - the time when the Security Council was meeting at the level of Heads of State and, among other things, was stating that it was going to eliminate terrorism everywhere in the world. More or less at the same time, a gentleman in Miami was openly prociaiming himself to be the organizer in the United States of terrorist activities against Cuba. Cuba brought this to the attention of the United States. One might have thought that this man would be incarcerated or that judicial proceedings would be initiated against him with the same kind of energy and vigour manifested in the Security Council so often since January. But I regret to have to say that if anyone believes that that was done, he is guilty of naivete. On 8 April 1992, very close to the date on which the Security Council saw fit to meet, "Radio Reloj", a radio station in Miami, transmitted an interview with this same gentleman, who again spoke about new attacks against Cuba carried out in April - not April of the last century, but April of this year - after the Security Council had said that it was going to eliminate terrorism throughout the world. After this, statements by Mr. Antonio de la Cuesta appeared in English and in Spanish in the Miami press, in which he gave details on his most recent attack against Cuba and said that he would continue to carry out such attacks, that he had not the slightest intention of believing this foolishness about any so-called official United States position against terrorism. (Mr, Alarcon 4d e uba) I do not wish to tax the patience of persons as busy as the members of the Council are. I believe that the elements I have set before the Council should prompt this body to act consistently, as it should feel compelled to do in accordance with the commitments the Council entered into, without any obligation to do so, at the level of Heads of State and on later occasions. My delegation has submitted a draft resolution which the President was good enough to mention at the beginning of this meeting. If one takes into account the history of the crimes and the human and material damage that this policy against my people has caused, this draft resolution cannot be considered in any way excessive. We are not condemning anyone: we are condemning an act of sabotage against a civilian aircraft. I hope that members of the Council will be in a position to do this. We are asking the United States to present the information and evidence which it possesses. We are not slandering it when we say that the United States possesses this, because the Department of Justice has said so. What I have just said relates to the case of sabotage and the question of Mr. Bosch. With regard to Mr. Posada, I can only address the United States Government, because that was the last Government to give him, not one, but two known jobs at the same time, (Mr, Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) With regard to the continuing terrorist activities against Cuba, I am not even asking the Council to condemn them. I am asking it to urge the United States to take measures so that they will not continue - measures, furthermore, which it is dutybound to take under both international and American law, which I assume our colleagues from that country know, My delegation is doing its duty in bringing this matter before the Council, and it hopes that the Council will be in a position to do its duty as well,

I thank the representative of Cuba for his kind words addressed to me. Mr. PERKINS (United States of America): As I begin my statement, my first in this Council, I frankly cannot help but wonder why we are here. By meeting today to consider events that occurred 15 years ago and to discuss obviously baseless allegations that were invented to serve transparent political objectives, we lose our most valuable commodity: time. And time is running out in areas of the world that urgently need our attention and our action. But i also realize that one of the fundamental principles of this Organization is that all countries, members or non-members of the Security Council, have the right to be heard. Let no one here think that my Government is insensitive to the sorrow of those whose relatives or friends died in the cowardly in-flight bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion passenger aircraft near Barbados on 6 October 1976. My Government, and indeed all men and women of good will, condemn this dastardly, senseless act. But Cuba's attempt to portray the United States as a supporter of international terrorism and a harborer of terrorists is absurd. So much so, in fact, that I regret that Cuba would misuse the (Mr. Perkins, United States) valuable time of the Security Council to make these baseless allegations against the United States. But inasmuch as Cuba has done so, I would ask the Council’s indulgence to refer briefly to the fatuous assertions that. my Government is hiding Luis Posada Carriles and that it has supported Orlando Bosch's terrorist activities. To the best of our knowledge Luis Posada Carriles is not in the United States; we believe he is somewhere in Latin America. As for Orlando Bosch, the facts belie the canard that my Government has supported his illegal activities. The opposite is true. In 1968 Bosch was tried and convicted in United States courts of firing a large-gauge rifle at a Polish freighter in the port of Miami. At the same time he was tried and convicted of sending cables to the leaders of Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom in which he threatened to destroy those countries' planes and ships. He received a 10-year sentence for those crimes. He was paroled in 1972 and then fled the United States in violation of the terms of his parole. Therefore, is it rational to assert that a man who is tried and convicted in the United States, is imprisoned in the United States, and who then feels compelled to flee the United States, is being supported by the United States? I should like to take this opportunity to restate the position of my Government with regard to Cuba. The United States supports peaceful democratic change in Cuba. We have repeatedly stated that we have no aggressive intentions towards Cuba. President Bush said last July at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations that "the United States poses no threat to Cuba". (Mr. Perkins, United States) My Government neither supports nor condones preparations in the United States for the violent overthrow of the Government of Cuba, nor efforts from the United States to foment violence in Cuba. Any suggestions that the United States Government sponsors such activities are untruthful and unacceptable, The Government of the United States will uphold the law with regard to those who attempt to violate its statutes. United States legislation, including the Neutrality Act, expressly forbids the participation in any military or naval expedition or enterprise to be carried out against a foreign nation from United States territory. Finally, I should like to touch briefly on the issue of United States economic policy measures towards Cuba raised in Ambassador Alarcon de Quesada's letter to the Security Council. The position cf my Government on this question is weil known and need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that we categorically reject any assertion that those measures are inconsistent with international law. Every Government is possessed of the right to choose with whom it wishes to have relations. We have chosen to have neither full diplomatic nor commercial relations with Cuba. We made this choice because of the lack of democracy in Cuba, and because of its Government's flagrant abuse of human rights. I do wish to note that United States policy does allow for humanitarian donations of goods and medicine to be made to non-governmental entities in Cuba. My delegation has today conveyed to the President of the Council a brief statement - and we have asked that it be circulated as a document of the Security Council - that refers to Cuban allegations in greater detail. I have nothing further to add to that statement.

I call on the representative of Cuba. Mr. ALARCON de QUESADA (Cuba) (interpretation from Spanish): First of all I apologize for having had to indicate in this manner my wish to speak again. I shall be very brief. I wish first to say that, with regard to the final part of the statement of our colleague from the United States, it is surprising that, having begun by complaining about our drawing the Council’s attention to something which should not be before it - and I do not know if this was part of his set of instructions from Washington - he then deemed it necessary to refer to another matter which is not before the Council for consideration. I am not going to go into a discussion of the economic biockade against Cuba; that was not the reason behind our request to the Council. On that subject, the new Permanent Representative of the United States will have the opportunity to give the explanations he wishes before the General Assembly, where the item is already on the agenda and will soon be taken up. With regard to the complaint I have brought before the Council regarding a matter which happened 15 years ago, the records will speak for themselves and indicate that I have mentioned events that occurred much more recently than 15 weeks ago. In fact, these events have continued to occur as recently as 15 days ago, and even in the past 15 minutes, before the Council started this meeting. But what is more important is that for 15 years the United States has not allowed justice to be done with regard to that case. What is the American side suggesting? Is it suggesting that we forget an act of sabotage because those who were travelling in the aircraft were dark-skinned; that we ignore sabotage against an aircraft because it had been (Mr, Alarcon de Ovesada, Cuba) leased by a third-world country? What is it suggesting? Is it suggesting that we resort ~ or you resort - to the same moral duplicity of proclaiming themselves as the great warriors against terrorism and also spend 15 years hiding From the world what they know about two terrorists and about a criminal activity of such magnitude? (Mr, Alarcon de Quesada, Cuba) I think that, even though 15 years have elapsed, the way remains open for the United States at last to cooperate and abide by the norms of international la¥W, and not to continue to react in the all-too-familiar classic American manner: “Read my lips".

There are no further speakers inscribed on my list. The Security Council has thus concluded the consideration of the item on its agenda. Th ting r 1 m.