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11/21/2004:

"Latin Americans Back Cuba, Venezuela on Terror"

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Used to hearing U.S. calls for support against Middle Eastern terrorism, Latin American leaders on Saturday added their own warning by condemning lesser-known terrorist acts against anti-American governments in the region.

Cuba and Venezuela won the backing of their neighbors, many of whom have swung to the left in recent years, to censure terrorism in all its forms, not just attacks aimed at the United States.

It was a rare diplomatic victory for Cuba, which persuaded an Ibero-American summit in Costa Rica to denounce the pardon of four dissidents who tried to assassinate President Fidel Castro in 2000.

Panama's outgoing President Mireya Moscoso released the four, jailed for their involvement in a failed bomb plot at a summit in Panama, just before leaving office in August.

Havana broke diplomatic relations with Panama in anger at the pardon and accused the United States of double standards in its war against terror for allowing three of the plotters to fly to Miami.

``We observe with deep concern the recent freeing of four known terrorists of Cuban origin,'' the leaders from Latin American countries plus Spain and Portugal said in a statement.

Panama's new President Martin Torrijos has criticized the pardon, and Cuba and Panama restored consular relations at the summit on Friday, in a step toward renewing full ties.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque represented his country at the gathering instead of Castro, who has rarely traveled to summits in recent years.

VENEZUELA CAR BOMB

The leaders also condemned Thursday's killing of Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was probing a 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez.

Anderson was killed by a car bomb, and Venezuela blamed radical opponents it said were training in the United States.

``The heads of state and government expressed a radical condemnation of the terrorist attack suffered by the special prosecutor in Venezuela,'' Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told journalists.
Full Article: nytimes.com