The American People Themselves Must Demand Freedom for the Cuban Five

An International Campaign to Free the Cuban Five will begin on September 12. This will be an excellent opportunity to knock at the doors of American people’s consciences

by Luis Luque Alvarez

Sept. 6, 2007

Reprinted from:  http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu

One of former US President Jimmy Carter’s daughters violated the law when she occupied a university building in protest of illegal acts of aggression against Nicaragua in the 1980s. However, she was found not guilty! The intention of preventing the useless death of thousands of people weighed more than her infraction; therefore, the court declared her innocent.
Such fundamental rule is not applied to Cuba. The US government does not recognize that five Cuban men needed to infiltrate the terrorist groups in South of Florida to prevent hostile actions against the Cuban people.
"Should we wait for Washington to willingly rectify the clumsy injustice it has committed against Gerardo, Rene, Ramon, Fernando and Antonio?" said the president of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, in an interview broadcast on Tuesday on the Round Table TV news/commentary program.
"Continuing the struggle to raise popular awareness about this case: that is the key, that is what the Cuban Five have signalled, said Alarcon, for whom the possibility to move up the liberation of the Cuban Five lies on the ability to mobilize the people.
"What we need," he said, "is for the American people to organize themselves in the streets, unions, factories to demand the end of this outrage. And the first step is to allow those people to know the truth."
The President of the Cuban Parliament added that throughout the history of the United States, no political case has been settled solely in the courts. If there has been justice, it has had to do with the popular struggle, such as when John Lennon defended a Black activist to whom a court had rejected to grant his freedom. Tens of thousands of peoples called on by the artist unveiled what the prison bars and the press tried to hide.
"Therefore, mobilization is the key element of this case. Even the US government agrees with us; that’s why they prefer to remain silent," said Alarcon.
The next International Campaign to Free the Cuban Five, scheduled to run from September 12 to October 8, will be an excellent opportunity to knock at the door of the American people’s consciences. Little by little, they will answer the call.

 http://www.freethefive.org/updates/CubanMedia/CMAmericanPeople90507.htm







CALL TO INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE CUBAN FIVE


On September 12th, the struggle to Free the "Cuban Five" enters its tenth
year.

Gerardo, Ramón, Fernando, René y Antonio are still serving long sentences
in US high security prisons. They have been deprived of regular family
visits. The US government has denied two of them the right to be visited
by their wives at all.

This past August 20 oral arguments for the Five took place in Atlanta. The
presence of internationally known personalities and jurists, from around
the world, demonstrated the international support that the Five enjoy and
the truth of their cause. It is unknown when the judges will deliver their
decision. We cannot just wait for their verdict but rather now more than
ever it is imperative to continue to mobilize on their behalf.

Recent interviews with the BBC, CNN, Reuters, and the articles in the
Washington Post and the New York Times and other major media, shows that
the wall of silence is starting to crack, thanks to the solidarity and the
international denunciation that continues to build.

This is a crucial moment for our Five brothers!

We make a call to all the committees in support of the Five, friends of
Cuba, and all honest justice loving women and men around the world, to
organize events of solidarity with the Cuban Five from September 12th to
October 8th

September 12th: Marks 9 years of the unjust imprisonment of the Five.
October 6th: 31 years since the terrorist bombing of the Cubana airliner
over Barbados.October 8th: The 40th anniversary of the assassination of
Che by the CIA.

Let us raise our voices from the most diverse actions: marches, picket
lines, public events, video documentary showings, flyer distributions
every where, signs, and other forms of creative actions.

Let us unite our forces to make the condemnation against the empire for
all it crimes be unanimous!

FREEDOM NOW TO THE FIVE CUBAN PATRIOTS!
INMEDIATE US VISAS FOR OLGA SALANUEVA AND ADRIANA PEREZ!
EXTRADITION TO VENEZUELA OF LUIS POSADA CARRILES!

For more information e-mail to:  ajrapko@yahoo.com











THE WASHINGTON NOTE: Ever Heard of the Cuban 5? When We Look Like the Bad Guys. . .


Steve C. Clemons

2007-09-10

THE WASHINGTON NOTE*

 http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002337.php


September 06, 2007


All I'd need to write here is Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or Haditha to make the case that America has lost its moral credibility in much of the world. It's tough to make a case against other thugs in the world when we deploy unaccountable thuggery of our own.
But despite that, I think that it's important to continue to fight for what is right and just -- particularly in the cases that are unpleasant.
Did Larry Craig -- someone who really doesn't deserve much support from this blogger -- get screwed by the cops in Minneapolis? Probably so. We all know what constitutes genuinely lewd conduct vs. what is just hitting on someone. But let's leave that for another day.
Another case when weighing justice gets tougher is when national security, foreigners, and fears of espionage are involved. This is in fact the case of five Cuban nationals charged with spying for their government and currently in prison for trying to infiltrate groups in the US who might attack Cuba or Cubans.
I've begun to look into this case as more and more media around the world are kicking the tires of this bizarre legal case in which five men -- who seem rather ordinary to tell you the truth -- have received some of the heaviest prison penalties in the intel business and yet -- didn't seem to have discovered any national secrets and as best as I can tell were not spying on the US government.
I need to learn more about this -- and as readers of this blog know -- I think that US-Cuba relations are important to change gears on -- as a move on this front could appear a harbinger of healthier American engagement in Latin America but also more enlightened US global engagement as well. It would symbolize the peripheralization of interest-group driven foreign policy cabals and finally bury Cold War era deals that have no place in the 21st century.
I'm going to go hear the Cuban 5's attorney, Leonard Weinglass -- who is mentioned in the CNN story above -- make his case. It should be useful and interesting to those who are interested in how real or not the charges against these Cuban nationals are -- and whether there ought to be a difference when people are caught spying on dangerous NGOs or spying on the Pentagon.

The info for the meeting is:

FOREIGN POLICY, POLITICS AND THE LAW: THE CASE OF THE CUBAN FIVE

You are cordially invited to hear noted civil rights lawyer and activist, LEONARD WEINGLASS, speak about this highly controversial case
SEPTEMBER 12, 2007
6:00 P.M.
HOWARD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, MOOT COURT ROOM
2900 VAN NESS STREET, NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20008


I'm not the organizer of this meeting -- but I find the subject very interesting because it may be the cases involving citizens from Cuba, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere when it is most important to show how "justice" in a fair and impartial legal system is supposed to work.
I have a hunch that some in the Cuban-American community have been more than comfortable with subverting a just legal process to achieve unfair convictions. . .but as I said, I want to learn more.
Someone I know in the military establishment, however, shared with me a bit of information that may very well be classified.
He said that in the many simulations he had been involved with in planning war exercises dealing with Cuba, the simulation called for US military forces to repel attacks from Floridians aimed at Cuba.
That information makes one think that whatever the Cuban Five may have been doing for the Cuban government, fears in Havana were shared by many planning combat exercises in the Pentagon.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons
*The Washington Note is a blog created by Steve Clemons, Senior Fellow & Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation.




Posted from:

 http://www.antiterroristas.cu/index.php?tpl=./interface.en/design/reading/special-article.tpl.html&aNews_lang=en&aNews_obj_id=1000851








The Truth About the Cuban Five published in Project Censored 2008


Alicia Jrapko

2007-09-07


Project Censored is a progressive research group located at Sonoma State University in Northern California. The backbone of this project is made up primarily of students who are interested in doing investigative research of news stories that have been censored and buried by the U.S. corporate media.

Every year Project Censored publishes a book that includes a number of chapters of topics that have been unreported and the 25 top ignored stories during the previous year before the publication of the book. Due to the fact that the case of the Cuban Five has been practically ignored for the past nine years, the importance of the case merited a chapter in the 2008 book that is being released at the beginning of September.

Project Censored started in 1976 under the direction of Dr. Carl Jensen, professor emeritus of Communication Studies at Sonoma State University. After Jensen retired, Dr. Peter Phillips, A sociology professor at the university assumed the direction of the project that continues to train critical thinking students in the field of journalism.
Hundreds of stories of the most diverse themes are sent annually to Project Censored where they are reviewed by students and professors connected to the project. Among the personalities that have been in charge of selecting the stories for publication are Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Norman Solomon, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, and Mike Wallace.
Under the title "Corporate Media Bias in the Case of the Cuban Five” a 9 page, 4000 words comprehensive chapter on the case details the history of the Cuban Five.

The author of the piece is Jeffrey Huling, a Sonoma State University student. Prior to being randomly assigned by Professor Phillips to research the case, Huling had never heard about the Cuban Five.

According to Huling, working on the story opened his eyes to the deception and hypocrisy of the US government beyond what he thought they were capable of. “It was extremely frustrating to see through the evidence of this case how powerless justice can be in the face of political corruption” Huling said.

Project Censored 2008 is being translated into several languages including Arabic, Spanish and Italian. In the United States alone between 15 and 20 thousand copies are being printed. Project Censored web page, www.projectcensored.org, receives between 25 and 30 thousand visitors a day.

Project Censored’s wide international reach is one more educational tool in the struggle to work the truth about the Case of the Cuban Five to the surface. It also reveals the complicity of the corporate media to silent a story about heroism, justice, sacrifice and the rights of a country to defend itself when it does not line up with the policies of the U.S. government.



 http://www.antiterroristas.cu










Alarcon Says American People Could Help Release the Five

Sept. 5, 2007

Reprinted from Cuban News Agency

Havana, Sept 5 (acn) The head of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon said the possibility of having the Five men imprisoned in the U.S released earlier depends very much on the support they receive from the American people.
"The first step is to let that people know the truth. This is what we need to keep on demanding," said the Parliament president.
In the daily TV Round Table show, Ricardo Alarcon, gave legal and ethical details of the Five's case, showing the double standards of the U.S' policy and its hostility towards Cuba. The statements were the continuity of an interview he gave last August 27 also broadcasted on
Cuban TV.
The President of the Cuban parliament said the American government is aware of the effect that the support of the American people could have on international opinion. For that reason the media has been instructed to refer to the Cuban men only as "spies."
Alarcon said the American government has turned a blind eye on news releases that show Washington's political bias against the Five. He mentioned the articles posted by London's BBC and the New York Times, which were very objective, but they are not willing to follow the case.
It will be nine years on the coming September 12, since Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez, were sent to American jails.
That day in 1998, the Five Cuban men were arrested and later subjected to a politically biased trial in Miami. The judicial process ended in 2001 with the judge handing down harsh sentences on the men, whose only crime was to infiltrate Miami-based extreme right groups that operated with Washington's consent, organizing and conducted terrorist actions against the Cuban people.
Alarcon pointed out that the U.S does not have evidence proving that the Five were conspiring to commit espionage or murder. However, they are serving outrageous terms in jail.
All the evidence is available online to all news agencies willing to report on the issue, Alarcon said. He mentioned the internet portal of the U.S Justice Department, on the South Florida Court, "look up the U.S. case against Gerardo Hernandez," he pointed.
Alarcon said on one occasion, the American government decided to remove the second charge -conspiracy to commit espionage- from the files of three of the defendants -Gerardo, Ramon and Antonio-, as long as they pleaded guilty to other crimes. However, the third charge would not be taken to the negotiating table. Instead, seeking to please the Miami-based Cuban-American community, a charge of quadruple fist degree murder was added to the case.
The U.S government ended up recognizing in writing before the Court of Appeals of Atlanta, that the charges had been manipulated. Now we have to wait until the Court overrules such allegations, explained the Cuban official.
The head of the Cuban parliament went on to say that the Cuban Five acted under the principle of "State of Necessity," comparing the case with that of former U.S president Jimmy Carter's daughter, who was arrested in the late 1980's for taking over a building to protest against the CIA. Eventually, she was released on the grounds that she and the other 14 people accompanying her had committed minor crimes to avoid a greater one.
Likewise, Alarcon mentioned the case of Zacarias Musagüi, accused of being involved in the Sept 11 attacks. He noted that the mother of Moroccan-born Musagui was allowed to visit her son. Meanwhile, the mothers of the Five Cuban men are patiently waiting in line to get an entry visa to the U.S to be able to see their sons. "It is the right of any prisoner, irrespective of the crime they committed, and in this case the Five did not even threaten nor shoot any body, nor did their relatives," Alarcon stressed.
Ricardo Alarcon concluded the interview by saying that no one should think that is doing too much for the Five. "We are not even doing a fraction of what they are doing themselves, with their constancy, resistance and leading the battle for justice and for their release.




International days of action to support Cuban anti-terrorists
Washington, Sept. 4 (PL).— The International Committee to Free the Five, based in the United States, has called for international days of action in solidarity with the Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned for almost a decade in this country.
Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González were arrested in September 1998 in the United States while they were protecting their country from terrorist groups of Cuban origin based in Miami, Florida.
This September 12, the struggle to free the Cuban Five, as they are known, enters its 10th year, and we should not allow international support for the Cuban patriots to falter, said a press release from the non-governmental group
The press release noted that Gerardo, Ramón, Fernando, René and Antonio continue to be held in maximum-security prisons, deprived of their right to have regular contact with their families.
Washington has denied two of them the right to be visited by their wives, the press release added.
On August 20, there was a hearing on their case in a federal Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia. Those present at the hearing to show their support for the Five included renowned jurists and prominent individuals from all over the world, the note said.
Moreover, coverage of the hearing by major news media such as the BBC, CNN and the Washington Post and New York Times demonstrate that the wall of silence is beginning to crumble, thanks to international solidarity.
The press release said: “We call on all committees and friends of Cuba, all honest men and women in the world, to carry out a mass international campaign of days of action in solidarity with the Five from September 12 to October 8.
“Let us speak out through the most diverse actions: marches, pickets, sit-ins, public events, documentaries, distribution of literature in public, placards, articles and manifestoes,” the press release stated.
Richard Klugh, defense attorney for Fernando González, remarked on the interest shown by the Atlanta Appeals Court judges this past August 20, giving reason to be optimistic about the future of the Five’s case, despite their lengthy incarceration.
A similar opinion was expressed by Antonio Guerrero’s lawyer, Leonard Weinglass, in recounting the strength and validity of the arguments presented at the U.S. court.
The defense concentrated its presentation on three issues: the charge against Gerardo of conspiracy to commit murder, that of conspiracy to commit espionage, and inappropriate conduct by prosecutors.
Translated by Granma International

 http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/septiembre/mier5/international-days.html



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