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:
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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.
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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:
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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*
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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:
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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.
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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
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Geography of Solidarity with the Cuban Five
12.09.2007 23:04
Free the Cuban Five!
by Deisy Francis Mexidor
Sept. 12, 2007
Reprinted from:
According to the dictionary, solidarity has many definitions: help, defense, support, etc., just what the Cuban Five (imprisoned since 1998) have received since 2001 when their case became known.
Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labañino begin their tenth year in prison on Wednesday, convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Their only "offense" was to protect Cuba and the United States from terrorist acts organized with impunity from US territory.
Granma asked Antonio Guerrero by letter to write on the topic of solidarity. From Florence, Colorado, the prison where he is serving a life plus ten-year sentence, Tony replied:
THE LETTER FROM THE FARTHEST PLACE
"It took me a while to answer the question about the letter of support received from the place most distant from Florence. First I had to remember the places from where I’ve received messages of support and encouragement, from regions of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia," said Tony.
"I made a map of the world and began to locate countries and cities from where people had written me. Then came the most difficult part; calculating the distances. The Earth is round…"
"I got some help from someone to find a map with the longitudes and latitudes. That was a big step. Florence (or Florence, Colorado) is located at around 100 degrees west longitude from Greenwich (this is an approximation). I looked at the longitudes of cities and countries: Moscow (Russia), Tokyo (Japan), Victoria (Australia), Cape Town (South Africa) and New Delhi (India).
"According to my calculation India was the country farthest from Florence of the countries from where I’ve received a letter. If my memory doesn’t betray me, the letter came from our embassy in that country. New Delhi is located at approximately 80 degrees east longitude. We can almost say that it is the most distant place from Florence as far as longitude goes, that is, it is exactly 180 degrees of difference.
"In miles the estimate is 12,000 miles, which converted into kilometers (multiplying by 1.609) equals 19,308 kilometers. (I hope our geographers don’t laugh at these calculations). So my answer is India.’
LOVE AND ADMIRATION
"Now that I’m on the subject of the letters we’ve received and the countries from where people have written, I am going to give some mental statistics on a topic that shows how much our people are loved around the world and how much the Revolution is admired: Excluding Cuba, most of the letters I have received came from Europe.
"Of the 38 countries that my calculations say make up the current European continent (that’s another discussion: the word continent, because you’d have to include Asia) the most letters of support have come from the United Kingdom.
"Now, from how many of the 38 countries have people written? Here I’ll mention every country I can remember: Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Slovenia, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, Norway and Ireland, which makes a total of 20 countries.
"There may be letters from other countries of the region, but that’s what I remember."
TSUNAMI OF SOLIDARITY
"It would be a long, complex and interesting task to explain each show of solidarity, support encouragement and affection that we’ve received from around the world. One day we’ll do it, nobody should doubt it. But for now, I can say that they have all had an immense importance for the five of us and all have a place in our hearts.
"Without a doubt our friends have taught us to learn the geography of our planet better; they have taken us to travel to their lands, and with them we have climbed mountains, crossed rivers, admired forests and grasslands. They have given us the opportunity to get to know their traditions and their history. They have taken us into their homes in which we have spoken in the most beautiful language, that of friendship and peace.
"None of the Cuban Five could have imagined that behind the cruel and unjust sentences we received would come all these waves of friendship and love; a great tsunami of solidarity that took its waters to five distant prisons, breaking the walls and clearing the path to a safe return home, which is where these waves of friendship and justice will take us.
"There are still a million things to say; for example the case of the Japanese woman who wrote me one day from Tokyo in Spanish saying that she was working on the translation of my book of poetry book From My Vantage Point. Then there’s the girl from Turkey who sent me a photo and painting of her mother; the French students who consider me one of their classmates; the friend from Greece who, with her British father, always writes me. There’s the letters from our internationalist doctors. Look, the list is never-ending and it’s unfair not to mention everyone. It’s something incredible and marvelous, something that gives us an invincible strength, like that of our already invincible people."
Messages of Alice Walker and Danny Glover on the Cuban Five
2007-09-12
Alice Walker (1944) is an American author and civil rights activist. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 for her critically acclaimed novel "The Color Purple". She wrote the prologue for “The Sweet Abyss”, a book of letters of the Cuban Five and their wives and children.
To the Children (especially) and Families of The Cuban Five:
Dear Friends,
I am relieved to learn that the media in my country, the United States, and Britain, are showing interest, after almost a decade, in the wrongful incarceration of your loved ones. I imagine you, the children, as so much bigger now than you were when your parents left. I pray you are still able to feel connected to them: through letters, phone-calls; perhaps, by now, visits? It is painful to realize what joys of connection between you and your fathers have been stolen from you. And yet, how great their love for you remains. For they wanted you to grow up in a safer country, a place where you could play and grow, go to school and to work, without fearing for your life. I admire your fathers very much.
In my own experience everything to do with attaining justice has been very hard, very difficult, a very long struggle. Apparently endless, in fact. That is unfortunately the experience of much of the world. Still, we persist in our hope of justice, our belief in it, our dedication to it as a noble ideal, worthy of the best humans, those who seek it at the expense of themselves. As your fathers have done.
When I was growing up in the North American South in the middle of the last century, if a black person was attacked by a white one it was considered a death sentence for the person of color to defend himself. This led to a community of people who suffered from the many illnesses associated with humiliation and stifled rage: hypertension, eating disorders, diabetes, heart disease, depression, stroke and so forth. It also led, ironically, to the creation of a lot of amazing art. Especially music, which we then showered generously on the world. I offer this memory ( we changed the scenario about not fighting back!) not to sadden you, but to remind you of the fact that suffering is not without its gifts. And to warn you, I suppose, to be sure to share the pain and sadness you are feeling about what has happened to your parents. Share it with others. Don't neglect to talk about it. You are not alone in this world. Though some of your friends, like me, are far away in miles, we are near in consciousness. We recognize that we are caught in the tangles of the same bizarre nightmare. That Earth itself is captive these days to a mad vision of what a few out of balance people insist that it is. Our vision is different, and worth holding to: that people have a right to defend themselves. That people have a right to justice and peace. That torture, whether it is being placed in isolation for 17 months or having our children kept from us, is something evolved human beings have long outgrown.
We insist on a better world! We know a better world is possible. We have seen it.
This is the world your fathers know, kept from the sunlight of freedom as they are. Holding this place of knowing, enduring such sacrifice- especially not seeing and being with you - is their gift to us. And, even more so, to you.
Yours in peace and compassion,
Your Tia, Alice (Walker)
Danny Glover (1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is presently chair of the TransAfrica Forum, "a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the general public — particularly African-Americans — on the economic, political and moral ramifications of U.S. foreign policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America". He narrated documental film "The Trial: The Untold Story of the Cuban Five".
Danny Glover’s Message
Hello, I’m Danny Glover, chairman of the board of TransAfrica Forum. I regret I cannot be with you today tonight at Howard University, the pinnacle African American and African diaspora education.
Howard has been an historic board working against injustice and the legal soul of African Americans. I can not think of a better venue to present a film on the case of the Cuban Five.
These five Cuban citizens acted in the self defense of their nation and their families. They had to act because the United States government in violation of its own laws and in contravention of its own calls to prevent and step out terrorists activities failed to act.
The US government failed to prevent murderous terrorist attacks being repeatedly launched from within the US for many decades against the sovereign nation of Cuba.
These five Cuban citizens have been unjustly imprisoned and condemned to unusually harsh and cruel punishments for exercising their moral obligation to self defense, a right agreed upon by all nations.
Rogue acts of violence against the Cuban people by cold blood US-based terrorists and supported by the inaction and the irresponsibility of our government, demands critical intervention by the American people. Across the ideological and political spectrum, people who honestly stand against terrorism must speak out against these terrorist acts that operate outside US and international law. They speak out in defense of the Cuban Five.
I invite you to join in and organize fellow students, faculties, administrators, families and friends to bring to life the spirit of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. who said “injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere”, and call on our government to implement our nation’s moral and legal obligations to justice and international law.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2007 6:00 P.M.
HOWARD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, MOOT COURT ROOM
FOREIGN POLICY, POLITICS AND THE LAW: THE CASE OF THE CUBAN FIVE Civil rights lawyer and activist, LEONARD WEINGLASS, speak about this highly controversial case
Presentation of "The Trial--The untold story of the Cuban Five", 56 Minutes documental film. English language version. Produced by Cuba's world renknowned film institute, El Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematograficos (ICAIC) in association with Telesur. Narrated by Danny Glover.
F Espinoza