Cubans demand extradition of accused terrorist in Havana protest

The Department of Homeland Security was expected to make a decision on what to do with Mr. Posada Carriles on Tuesday, prompting the Cuban protest.

He could be released, held for another 90 days or deported to a third country. However, there is no guarantee that the decision will come down [Tuesday].

Venezuela filed an extradition petition supported by Cuba shortly after Posada surfaced in Miami some nine months ago. However, Immigration Judge William L. Abbott earlier ruled that Posada could not be extradited to either Cuba or Venezuela lest he be tortured.

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The crowd numbered 1.4 million people according to state-run media, though the Associated Press notes that "Those who attend government-sponsored marches are given the day off from work."

Organized by school, work and military groups, marchers waved little red, white and blue Cuban flags and chanted "Bush: fascist! Condemn the terrorist!" The 79-year-old Cuban leader watched the nearly seven-hour event, then marched himself at the end.

Signs and billboards calling US President George Bush and Posada terrorists and comparing them to Adolf Hitler lined the march route, reported CBS News.

One of the billboards read: "They want to free Posada" next to a photo of sobbing people, presumably relatives of the 73 on board the Cuban airliner that exploded in mid-air Oct. 6, 1976 off Barbados. Declassified CIA and FBI documents identify Posada as a former CIA agent and one of the "engineers" of that terrorist bombing.

For the moment, Posada's situation remains in deadlock, reports Knight Ridder, as no decision was reached Tuesday. Posada's lawyer "doesn't expect a decision this week on whether Posada, 77, will be released and allowed to stay - as he hopes will happen - in the United States under supervision or in another country, if another country can be found to take him. ... A decision now is expected by April."

But while Posada may have been the official reason for the Cuban march Tuesday, several media outlets, including ABC News, Voice of America, and The Miami Herald, indicated the march's actual trigger may be the newest weapon in the US public relations arsenal: a massive news ticker in the window of the US mission offices in Havana.

ABC News reports that "Castro termed the ticker, which began to send messages urging Cubans to oppose the government a week ago, ' a gross provocation and perverse affront to Cuba's dignity and sovereignty no government could accept.'

The U.S. electronic message board, with 9-foot-high crimson letters running through 25 windows on the building's fifth floor, can be seen kilometers away.

Even as Castro spoke [during Tuesday's march], the ticker sprang to life with news interspersed between messages such as, "only in totalitarian societies do governments talk at their people and never listen."

The Miami Herald reports that "The sign was the latest in a public relations battle between Cuba and the diplomatic mission, officially known as the U.S. Interests Section, each using billboards and displays to mock the other."

"To help Cubans shuck off their propaganda strait jacket, we have creatively used new measures to dialogue with them -- and the streaming, electronic billboard is just our latest initiative," U.S. Interests Section chief Michael Parmly said in an e-mail to The Miami Herald. "Our goal is to show Cubans that other long-repressed people have realized their democratic aspirations."

The mission turned on the ticker during Tuesday's march, to Castro's chagrin.

Castro was clearly irked by the billboard, calling it another "provocation" aimed at forcing a total break in U.S.-Cuba relations.

"They turned on the little sign. How brave the cockroaches are," Castro retorted. "Looks like 'Bushecito' [little Bush] gave the order." ...

A U.S. official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name, said Tuesday's use of the sign was common sense: "If the point is to reach people, why not turn it on when a million people are cruising by?"

However, ABC News reports that some Western diplomats think the huge news ticker goes too far, and is "a serious violation of diplomatic norms."

"This time they have gone way over the top," one diplomat said, asking that his name not be used.

He said U.S. officials do not see why Cuban authorities should take offense.

"I find it ironic that the Cuban government is organizing these protests against these messages that are being put up on the U.S. interests section in Havana, with quotes about freedom from Martin Luther King and other topics," he said. "I don't see why that should be a such a source of concern for the Cuban government. But nonetheless they have seen it fit to organize these large protests against, essentially, freedom. So I think it's more of the same from the Cuban government."

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• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Arthur Bright.