Cubadebate

THIS time he has dropped his mask completely. Internationally renowned for the way in which he attempted to apologize to the Argentine people after calling them "a load of thieves," accompanied by a grotesque show of tears noted around the world, this time the Uruguayan president cleaned up in Miami when he was proclaimed a "hero" by the
worst group of Mafioso terrorists in South Florida.

During a meeting in camera with Batlle, leaders of the Cuban Liberty Council (CLC) - several notorious terrorists included - awarded the controversial Uruguayan leader the medal of the "Heroes of Liberty" order, a decoration dreamed up by Ninoska Lucrecia Perez Castellon, radio presenter and that extremist group's leader for life. Batlle "advised us that this is what we should do for all presidents" declared (but without apparently taking into account the absurdity of his statement) Elpidio Nunez, another leader of this fanatical group linked to the Cuban-American National Foundation's (CANF) terrorist operations. Nunez and Luis Zuniga, another director of the organization, presented the leader with the award at a lunch "among buddies".

SUSPICIOUS EXPULSION

Just a few days before September 11, 2001, CANF very suspiciously expelled these individuals accusing them of giving indiscriminate backing to the terror this organization has sustained since its creation by CIA official Jorge Mas Canosa. Batlle cannot ignore the fact
that Nunzez Zuniga and the other CLC executives all signed the CANF statement on August 11, 1997 calling for support for the terrorist campaign carried out in Cuba that same year by international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, currently imprisoned in Panama.

These same CLC leaders have openly raised funds to help pay defense costs for Posada and his accomplices. Posada's extensive criminal past is notorious and even features in
several declassified FBI documents. Elpidio Nunez, accompanied at the time by another extremist leader, Diego Suarez, had already met with the Uruguayan president in
February 2002, offering him funds from the Miami mafia in exchange for blind support for their schemes. With respect to Luis Zuniga - the other CLC leader who presented Batlle
with his award - he too has a past he might prefer to forget.

Leaving Cuba through the Guantanamo Naval Base in 1970, this active CIA collaborator was punished in 1974 after carrying out an armed infiltration into Cuba. During the 1990s, when
he was in charge of CANF's terrorist activities, he recruited Cubans traveling to the United States to carry out acts of sabotage on the island. In August 2001, he joined the neo-fascist organization run by Ninoska Lucrecia Perez-Castellon and her husband, Roberto "Macho" Martin Perez - son of henchmen Lutgardo Martin Perez, who enjoyed a lengthy career as an assassin during the Machado and Batista dictatorships and went on to lead a (sadly) well-known band of score settlers in Miami. But his background didn't stop Zuniga from declaring himself a "human rights defender" and appearing in Geneva to take part in the anti-Cuban show organized by Washington.

Batlle's friends within the CLC leadership include former CANF chairman Alberto Hernandez and Feliciano Foyo, the man who Posada denounced as one of the principal fundraisers for
his criminal activities; Horacio Garcia, who also helped organize CANF's terrorist plans; and Ignacio Sanchez, a lawyer for Bacardi who collaborated on the wording of key articles for the anti-Cuban Helms Burton Act. Alberto Hernandez had the "privilege" of contracting Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo - ex-CORU leader, actively involved in the terrorist Plan Condor in Argentina - as a guard and mercenary prior to his arrest in Panama with Posada.

"I VOTE FOR MIAMI!"

Another terrorist, Carlos Alberto Montaner - "leader" of the Cuban Liberal Union - attended the small private meeting to congratulate the "heroic" Paraguayan president. Sentenced in
Cuba in 1961 for concealing explosives in packets of cigars, he was later responsible for helping terrorist Juan Felipe de la Cruz' travel to France. De la Cruz died when the bomb
he intended to plant at the Cuban embassy in Paris exploded prematurely.

Montaner stated that "the meeting was very successful" because Uruguay is a country with "an important diplomatic presence" that can be "put to the service of our cause". El
Nuevo Herald reported that strangely, "neither Batlle nor his spokespeople wished to comment about the meeting to the press, who were unable to attend." CANF had the unpleasant responsibility of delegating a representative to the ceremony so that its CLC rivals didn't steal all the credit for the show.

Hours later, Batlle became the continent's first leader to lend his official support to Miami's dream of becoming the permanent headquarters of the hegemonic Free Trade of the
Americas Area (FTAA). "I vote for Miami!" Batlle yelled in English whilst being applauded by businesspeople, diplomats and government officials. And of course by a broadly grinning "brotherly" Florida governor Jeb Bush.

 (From Granma International)