Panama bares plot to eliminate Castro

Panama bares plot to eliminate Castro
REUTERS

PANAMA CITY, NOV 18: Panamanian police said late on Friday they had arrested the presumed mastermind behind an alleged plot to assassinate veteran Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Police sources said they had arrested Luis Posada Carriles and three of his Cuban-American colleagues at a hotel in central Panama City as a ``precautionary measure'' after Castro accused them of plotting to take his life.

Castro, in Panama for the opening of the Ibero-American summit on childhood, said earlier on Friday that ``terrorists'' armed by anti-communist Cuban Americans were planning to assassinate him. He said Carriles was ``the most notorious terrorist in the area'' and was trained by the CIA. Castro did not say how his team had uncovered the assassination plan, but added that authorities in Panama had been forewarned.

As the Castro drama played out on Friday, heads of state from across the region flew into Panama, with the exception of Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman, who attributed his absence to family illness, and Peru's Alberto Fujimori, kept home by a two-month old political crisis. Fujimori's grip on power has been seriously weakened by a corruption scandal involving his fugitive former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, caught on video bribing an Opposition lawmaker.

Fujimori had been expected to play a central role at the annual summit, but even in his absence fears of instability in Peru will surely come up in side meetings at the event, if not in the main forum.

Economic instability in Argentina, Colombia's seemingly endless war against Leftist rebels and cocaine producers, and fears of eroding democracy in Venezuela, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has widened his powers, are other potential topics of discussion.