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CNN Live Saturday

Cubans Identify With Terrorism, Call for Justice

Aired October 06, 2001 - 17:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Cuba says that it is no stranger to terrorists and today brings back an especially bitter memory. Twenty- five years ago a Cuban passenger jet was blown up over the Caribbean. The terrorists have never been caught but Cuba says it knows who is to blame.

CNN's Lucia Newman explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Waving flags and wearing tee shirts reading "Justice for the Martyrs" tens of thousands of Cubans rallied at a government organized demonstration to commemorate this nation's most traumatic experience with terrorism.

Cardros Cadwee (ph) recalls it too well. He was only 14 when his father, then head of Cuban's youth fencing team died when two bombs exploded in a Cubana Airlines passenger jet near Barbados, killing all 73 onboard.

"In many ways I can understand what's happening in the United States," he says, "because it's similar to what we suffered and what we are still to this day suffering.

NEWMAN: What most infuriates the victim's relatives, who this week held a memorial at Havana's cemetery, is that 25 years after the plane bombing the culprits are still at large.

Orlando Bosch, a long-time advocate of violence to overthrow Cuba's communist government was one of two accused of being intellectual authors of the attack. Today he lives in Miami.

Although a Venezuelan court acquitted Bosch after holding him in prison for 11 years, the U.S. Justice Department described him as a dangerous and resolute terrorist when it rejected his application for asylum in the United States.

"His actions have been those of a terrorist, unfettered by law or human decency -- threatening and inflicting violence without regard to the identity of his victims," reads the 1989 Justice Department report. But Bosch was never deported thanks to a pardon months later from President George Bush, Sr. in 1990.

Now in the wake of September 11 tragedy Cuba has seized the moment to insist Washington stop harboring Cuban exile groups Havana claims have been launching terrorist acts against Cuba from U.S. soil for decades.

FIDEL CASTRO, PRESIDENT OF CUBA: We have the full moral authority and the right to demand the end of terrorism against Cuba.

NEWMAN: Opponents dismiss Castro's claims that Washington uses a double standard in fighting terrorism.

REP. ELIANA ROSS-LEIGHTENIN (R), FLORIDA: To say that the Miami exile community is involved in terrorist activities and to put them in the same level as Osama bin Laden who's just killed over 6,000 innocent civilians is absolutely ludicrous.

NEWMAN: But Cuba says it's not the number of victims that's important. Be it opportune or simply political opportunism, the campaign to demand that Washington be less tolerant of Cuba's enemies that live within the United States is just beginning. Lucia Newman, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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