Nexus - 0224 - New Times Magazine-pages

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program. Under National Security Decision Directive 3, signed That Miami Police Department document stated in unambigu- by Ronald Reagan in May 1982, Bush was placed in charge of two ous terms: “Frank Castro is a close associate of an individual by little-known White House secret committees: the Special the name of Francisco Chanes... Chanes is a narcotics trafficker. Situation Group (SSG) and the Crisis Pre-Planning Group _ ...Chanes was giving financial support to anti-Castro groups and (CPPG). Oliver North was the secretary of the CPPG, and it was the Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas; the monies come from narcotic in this capacity that he ran the Central America spook show— transactions. ...Frank Castro contacted Mr Coutin to give the under George Bush. Legion Cubana financial support to fight the Nicaraguan North's personal notebooks, which catalogued most of his meet- Sandinista Marxist government...the financial support was from ings, telephone calls and personal observations during his White drug monies." House days, betray the fact that he was well aware that the Contras were being heavily financed by Miami-based cocaine traf- | White House Ties to Terrorists fickers. For example, a 26 March 1985 handwritten entry in North's collusion with dope peddlers was not limited to Central North's notebook read: "Rafael Quintero—Secord’s Agent should America. In the spring of 1986, according to the congressional - be on shore when arrivals occur—as liaison w/ APLICANO... _ Iran-Contra investigation, North, then-National Security Adviser Quintero..." Several days later, on 3 April, a sequel note read: | Robert McFarlane and other administration officials opened a so- "0600—RAFAEL QUINTERO—(captured)—known narcotics called “second channel" to secretly negotiate the arms-for- trafficker—Enrique Camarena...". hostages swap with the Lebanese-based terrorists holding Camarena was a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) American hostages. That second channel was a Syrian national agent in Guadalajara, Mexico, who was kidnapped and tortured to named Mansur Al-Kassar. A well-known international heroin, death in February 1985. In 1990, Juan Ram6n Matta Ballesteros, hashish and cocaine smuggler, Al-Kassar was also implicated in a a Honduran national who helped set up Colombian cocaine routes __ string of terrorist attacks and kidnappings in the Middle East, through Mexico, was convicted along with several other men in including the infamous Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in federal court in Los Angeles of conspiracy to kidnap and murder which an American citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, was killed. Al- Camarena. At the time of the —_— . Kassar provided arms to the Palestine Camarena affair, Matta Ballesteros was Liberation Front, the group responsible the owner of a Honduran charter air- Kissinger was furious that for the Achille Lauro attack, and for line, SETCO Air, which was paid over * . years ran a mercenary kidnapping rin. a half-million dollars by the Us State | LaRouche and his associates ‘aside Lebanon with Abul Abbas, head Department to airlift ‘humanitarian po widely circulated the official - & FE. a pokey oO e Contras in a program run 'y . oviel-made weapons to ic ac Oliver North from the White House. | _ text of his Chatham House September group of Abu Nidal and to Other funds, drawn directly from secret ry eech to docume t that the Syrian-sponsored Popular Front for North-Secord bank accounts in P ” the Liberation of Palestine-General Switzerland, were also funneled into | Kissinger Was 2 loyal asset of Command of Ahmed Jibril. SETCO Air. it} Al-Kassar was a black market part- Worse, according to a report pub- the British Crown. ner of Syria's Vice-President Rifaat al- lished in the Washington Post on 5 July Assad, the brother of President Hafez 1990, a ranch near Veracruz, Mexico, al-Assad. In 1986, Spanish authorities owned by Rafael Caro Quintero, the mastermind of the Camarena _ obtained photographs of Al-Kassar and Rifaat al-Assad meeting in torture-murder and the head of the Mexican drug mafia, was used _ the city of Marbella with Medellin Cartel boss Pablo Escobar by the CIA to train Central American guerrillas as yet another fea- / Gaviria. The purpose of the meeting was to establish expanded ~ ture of the North-White House effort. According to DEA infor- cocaine-trafficking operations in continental Europe. Al-Kassar, mant Laurence Victor Harrison, the CIA used Mexico's Federal throughout this period, was identified in CIA files as an agent of Security Directorate (DFS) “as a cover in the event any questions the Soviet KGB who had been a leading smuggler of Soviet bloc were raised as to who was running the training operation. _ arms into the West. Representatives of the DFS, which was the front for the training None of this dissuaded North and company from bringing Al- camp, were in fact acting in consort with major drug overlords to Kassar into the White House ‘Enterprise’. He never succeeded in ensure a flow of narcotics through Mexico into the United States." winning the freedom of any of the hostages, but he did become Another North notebook entry on 9 August 1985 removes any _ one of the suppliers of Soviet bloc weapons to the Contras. . In shadow of a doubt that Oliver North was fully aware of the 1986, one transaction alone netted Al-Kassar US$1.5 million in Contra-cocaine connection: “Honduran DC-6 which is being used payments from the North-Secord Lake Resources Swiss bank for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs _ accounts. into US." The Honduran plane referenced by North was owned by In return for these favours, Al-Kassar's drug-running and terror- Matta Ballesteros. ist activities were protected by the National Security Council. North and company were aware of the cocaine connection even This protection continued long after the Iran-Contra scandal had earlier, according to other government records. On 26 September blown up in the faces of North, Secord, CIA director William 1984, the Miami Police Department provided FBI Special Agent Casey, et al. And, according to one report, Al-Kassar's cozy ties George Kiszynski with an investigative report identifying a net- _ to the White House may have led to the deaths of 270 people. work of Miami cocaine traffickers which was pouring money into On 21 December 1988, just weeks before George Bush's inau- the Contras’ coffers. Within days of the report being turned over guration as President, a bomb exploded aboard Pan American to Kiszynski, according to congressional testimony, it had been World Airways Flight 103 above Lockerbie, Scotland. Some 259 passed on to Oliver Revell, a key player in the 'Get LaRouche’ passengers and crew aboard the plane, and 11 people on the effort and North's FBI liaison for the White House Central ground, were killed. America program. It is still not known exactly how the bomb was placed on board That Miami Police Department document stated in unambigu- ous terms: "Frank Castro is a close associate of an individual by the name of Francisco Chanes... Chanes is a narcotics trafficker. ..Chanes was giving financial support to anti-Castro groups and the Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas; the monies come from narcotic transactions. ...Frank Castro contacted Mr Coutin to give the Legion Cubana financial support to fight the Nicaraguan Sandinista Marxist government...the financial support was from drug monies." Kissinger was furious that LaRouche and his associates widely circulated the official text of his Chatham House speech to document that Kissinger was a loyal asset of the British Crown. 34 ¢ NEXUS FEBRUARY - MARCH 1995