From: ww@nyxfer.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Date: 06 Jan 93 23:09 PST
Subject: Cuban Plane Hijacking Made in USA
Nf-ID: #N:XLVZwB2w165w@nyxfer.uucp:1108993474:000:3282
Nf-From: nyxfer.uucp!ww    Jan  6 23:09:00 1993


Subject: Cuban Plane Hijacking Made in USA
From: nyxfer!ww (Workers World Service)


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


Cuban plane hijacking made in USA

By Pat Chin

The recent hijacking of a Cuban commercial airliner has resulted
in an orgy of semantic contortions by the Cuban exile community
and the U.S. government.

On Dec. 29, an Aero-Caribbean plane on a domestic run over Cuba,
was flown to Miami by pilot Carlos Cancio Porcel. Before the
government-owned aircraft was illegally diverted from its
original course, co-pilot Rolando Vila was overcome, bound and
silenced in the words of the Dec. 29 New York Times.  Chloroform
was used to subdue Andres Hernandez Ledesma, the security officer
on board.

After landing at Miami International Airport, most of the 53
people on board reportedly requested political asylum in the U.S.
Five passengers, including the co-pilot, flight attendant and
security guard, demanded to be repatriated to Cuba.

The plane had barely touched down when anti-Castro Cubans in
Miami and U.S. government officials started "scrambling to find a
legal justification" for the hijacking.  "The officials are
reluctant to take legal action against the pilot of what they
regard as a freedom flight but what Cuba says is a hijacking."
(New York Times, Dec. 29)

Since the 1959 toppling of the U.S. backed Batistia regime, the
U.S. has worked feverishly and spent millions of dollars to
destroy the Cuban revolution. Parts of this campaign, including
the 30-year blockade, have long encouraged Cubans to desert their
country.

But under international agreements signed by both Cuba and the
U.S., hijackings are a crime. Moreover, these accords require
punishment or extradition of the hijackers and the return of the
aircraft and passengers.

Denounced as a terrorist act by the Cuban government, this latest
attempt to destabilize Cuba's socialist system came two weeks
after another incident that, like the hijacking, could not have
occurred without help from the U.S. The other event involved the
escapade of Cuban defector Orestes Lorenzo, who flew a small
plane into Cuba and departed for the U.S. with family members.

A news release issued Dec. 29 by the New York-based Peace for
Cuba Appeal exposed the self-serving manipulation of
international law by right-wing Cubans and U.S. officials. It
also blasted the starkly different treatment of Haitian refugees
who are forcibly returned to Haiti by the U.S. Coast Guard "to
face extreme conditions in their country."  But, the release
continued, "Cubans ready to denounce their government are
welcomed with open arms by the U.S. in an openly racist double
standard."

                            -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; via e-mail: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org or
workers@igc.apc.org or workers@mcimail.com.)

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