Bush entertains terrorist at White House?

Although it has recieved little coverage elsewhere, the Cuban daily Ahora reports today that on May 20, Bush received a Cuban-American delegation at the White House led by Luis ZĂșñiga Rey of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), presumably to discuss the Posada Carriles affair. The article calls ZĂșñiga a “terrorist,” and quotes Percy Alvarado, AKA Agent Frayle, a Guatemalan who infiltrated anti-Castro terror groups for Cuban state security: “ZĂșñiga told me, face to face, that it was necessary to be violent and cold-blooded, calculating and merciless, to overthrow Fidel and the Revolution. I can still see him that November night in 1993, when he proposed sinister plans by the CANF to set off powerful bombs in Havana’s Hotel Nacional and in a famous restaurant in that city.”

A March 27, 2004 item in Cuba’s principal daily Granma provides further details on ZĂșñiga. The paper ran the text of a letter from the Cuban UN ambassador Orlando Requeijo Gual to Secretary General Kofi Annan, protesting ZĂșñiga’s appointment as an official U.S. delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission (HRC). Citing a 1999 report by Enrique Bernales Ballesteros, UN Special Rapporteur on mercenary activities, the letter outlines ZĂșñiga’s terrorist career, which began when he left Cuba illegally in 1973 via GuantĂĄnamo naval base. In Miami, he was recruited by the CIA for sabotage missions in Cuba, and was arrested by Cuban authorities in August 1974 attempting to enter the country with explosives and weapons. Released in 1988, he made his way back to Miami, resumed work with his old network and “was directly or indirectly involved in planting explosive devices in Havana hotels and Cuban hospitals.”

The White House visit claim comes just as Washington has launched a new regime change offensive against Cuba.