From daemon Sat Sep 28 20:41:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by pencil.math.missouri.edu.math.missouri.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22931; Sat, 28 Sep 96 20:41:13 CDT Date: Sat, 28 Sep 96 20:41:13 CDT Message-Id: <9609290141.AA22931@pencil.math.missouri.edu.math.missouri.edu> From: scott@rednet.org (Peoples Weekly World) Subject: Drug agent: 'I saw the CIA load the cocaine' Organization: Scott Marshall Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Followup-To: alt.activism.d Approved: map@pencil.math.missouri.edu Apparently-To: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Status: OR **Drug agent: 'I saw the CIA load the cocaine'** (Reprinted from the September 28, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit. For subscription information see below) By Tim Wheeler WASHINGTON - Celerino Castillo III, a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Monday charged that while assigned to Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador in 1986, he observed covert CIA agents loading planes with cocaine destined for the United States. He spoke at a standing-room only news conference convened by activist Dick Gregory; Washington radio talk show host Joe Madison; the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and history professor John Newman of the University of Maryland. Together with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), they have been spearheading nationwide protests against CIA cocaine trafficking exposed in a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News last month. Castillo said he logged in his journal the amounts of cocaine, identification numbers of the planes and even the names of pilots involved in the operation. He sent cables to DEA headquarters in Washington informing them of the heavy flow of drugs through Ilopango, an operation he said, run by Lt.. Col. Oliver North and by Max Gomez, alias Felix Rodriguez, a veteran of the CIA Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and a friend of then-vice President George Bush. Castillo expressed alarm to DEA official John Marsh and to U.S. Air Force Col. James Steele, a U.S. military adviser in El Salvador who supervised the covert CIA operation. He also warned U.S. Ambassador Edwin G. Corr. "I was told my career would end because I was 'stepping on a White House operation,'" Castillo said. "I continued to write reports but they disappeared into the black hole" at DEA headquarters. "The evidence is there. I have the case file numbers, names and dates." He said Oliver North did not spend a day in jail for his Iran-contra crimes "and ran for Senate in Virginia in 1994" on the Republican ticket. (Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole campaigned for him). Gregory said, "This matter will not be wiped out by the standard 'plausible denials.' Was cocaine hauled into the United States aboard CIA planes? They sold as much as $3 million worth of cocaine per day, every day for years There is nothing as evil as what they have done. We're talking about crack babies, babies lynched in their mother's womb." "This is not a 'Black issue,'" Gregory said "Sixty-seven percent of crack cocaine is used by whites. We're dealing with some strong, cutthroat, evil thugs. We do not want a quick investigation , a white-wash. Release the documents and release them now!" Gregory said it is "time to put the CIA out of business." Lowery said that in 1987 he traveled to Nicaragua to attend the trial of CIA agent Eugene Hasenfus who was shot down in a C-123K cargo plane owned by the CIA. The same plane had been used by drug trafficker Barry Seal to transport tons of cocaine and other narcotics into the United States. "We have never stopped believing for a moment that there was some government complicity in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," said Lowery. To white supremacists, "the African-American community is expendable. If you want to do an experiment on syphilis, go to Tuskegee, Alabama and infect Black men. Racism takes its toll." Lowery said, "This is a new and worse form of slavery: chemical warfare in the form of drugs. Its worse than anything Saddam Hussein has done. I attended Hasenfus' trial, a CIA agent, and it was common knowledge in Nicaragua that the contras were involved in drug trafficking." Following the news conference, Gregory, Madison, and Lowery went to DEA headquarters in Crystal City, Va. to demand that drug agency open the files on Castillo's list of cases. They were arrested on charges of "impeding traffic." ##30## ************************************************************ *** * Read the Peoples Weekly World * ********* **** * Sub info: pww@igc.apc.org * **** * **** 235 W. 23rd St. NYC 10011 *** * ** **** * $20/yr - $1-2 mos trial sub * **** * *** * * ********* ************************************************************ Tired of the same old system: Join the Communist Party, USA Info: CPUSA@rednet.org; or (212) 989-4994; or http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa ************************************************************