Free world, unlike Cuba, shouldn't confuse the criminal and the political
BY JACKIE BUENO SOUSA
jsousa@MiamiHerald.com
Politics doesn't always have to be complicated.
It certainly wasn't for the 12 federal jurors who in 2003 considered the
fate of a Cuban hijacker who commandeered a commercial airplane with
fake grenades, eventually landing in Key West. It took jurors here a
mere 67 minutes to reach a verdict.
Their conclusion? It was air piracy, pure and simple. No need to confuse
it with claims of political dissidence or tinge it with politically
motivated justifications.
We could use that kind of clarity today as Cuba releases dozens of
prisoners to Spain, many of whom were jailed for little more than
peaceful opposition to the Cuban government. Some of those being
released, however, include a motley crew of hijackers and at least one
would-be assassin who plotted to kill Fidel Castro.
There is, for example, Arturo Suárez Ramos, who in 1987 attempted to
hijack a passenger plane in Havana. When a fellow hijacker detonated a
grenade, 13 people were injured. Then there's Ramón Fidel Basulto
García, who was among seven men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry in
1994 while armed with a pistol, a machete and a hammer.
Cuba considers such actions as counterrevolutionary, by extension
turning the perpetrators into political figures. It's not surprising,
given the ease with which Cuba politicizes just about any action. But
that's Cuba's problem; no need to make it ours.
Yet, that's what the free world is doing when it allows criminals to
share a platform with true prisoners of conscience, with men who lost
their freedom for the simple act of speaking out against a system or a
government. The tendency to label every action as being either for or
against a cause so politicizes the act that we sometimes stop seeing it
for what it truly is.
``We need to make those distinctions,'' says Arturo López-Levy, a
professor of international relations at the University of Denver. ``The
use of violence against civilians is not justified.''
López-Levy would like to see a nonviolence clause added to claims of
political asylum that would automatically deny eligibility to anyone who
uses violence against civilians.
Some governments and organizations have done a better job than others of
distinguishing between political and criminal acts. For example, in 1998
hijacker Suárez was among a list of political prisoners that were to be
freed to Canada, but Canada ultimately rejected Suarez because of the
violent nature of his act.
During the 2003 hijacking incident to Key West, U.S. District Judge
Shelby Highsmith in Miami ruled that testimony of ``duress, necessity or
justification'' would not be allowed.
Still, the distinction isn't always clear.
López-Levy, for example, was among more than five dozen academics who
recently wrote a letter to University of Miami President Donna Shalala
condemning what they described as an homage to Orlando Bosch at an event
hosted by an institute at the university.
Bosch is best known for an alleged connection to the 1976 bombing of a
civilian Cuban airliner that killed 73 men, women and children, though
he was acquitted by a Venezuelan court. In 1968, Bosch was convicted for
his involvement in an attack against a Polish ship docked at the Port of
Miami.
Some consider Bosch a patriotic dissident; others consider him a
terrorist and criminal.
Spain and the rest of us would do well to remember the two roles aren't
always mutually exclusive.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/09/1917880/free-world-unlike-cuba-shouldnt.html
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