Movement grows to free the Cuban 5

Ten years ago on Sept. 12 five heroic Cuban men were brutally torn from their homes and families in Florida, subjected to a trial that even U.S. federal judges called “a perfect storm” of prejudice, and then unjustly condemned to prison terms ranging from 15 years to double life sentences.

The call to free the Cuban Five, as they are known, spans the globe and is growing inside the United States, too. This struggle pierces the fabricated media campaign against Cuba and exposes Washington’s 50-year-long dirty war to undo the Cuban revolution, recolonize Cuba and rob the Cuban workers of the better life they have built through socialist planning.

The Five have endured periods of isolation in “the hole” and separation from their family members. Washington has denied entry visas eight times to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, spouses of Gerardo Hernández and René González, two of the Five. On July 16, Adriana Pérez was denied a visa for the ninth time and notified that the denial is permanent.

But the Five receive the love of the Cuban people, who demonstrate in the millions for their return to their homeland, and widespread respect and support as diverse as from Amnesty International to an engineering college in Nepal that hosted a meeting of 200 students and professors on Aug. 31. The bushels of letters and cards sent to the Five let prison administrators know these prisoners have millions of friends.

Who are the Cuban Five?

The Cuban Five, who include Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, came to Florida following a wave of terror bombings at Havana hotels during the 1990s, bombings designed to threaten Cuba’s tourism industry. The Five’s mission—a mission against terror—aimed to peacefully monitor counterrevolutionary attackers organizing from U.S. territory.

Although headlines characterized them as “spies,” the U.S. government admitted during their trial that no classified documents were used by any of the Cuban Five. As appeal attorney, Leonard Weinglass has often stressed, “None of the charges involved violence in the U.S., the use of weapons or property damage.”

Since their sentencing in 2001, the struggle to free the Five has been both in the streets and in the appeals court. This Sept. 2, the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta denied a request for reconsideration, thereby affirming a June 4 decision by a three-judge panel that upheld all convictions, but found that the sentencing for three of the Cuban heroes was excessive. The court ordered the original Miami judge, Joan Lenard, to resentence Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, letting the outrageous sentences of the unjustly convicted Gerardo Hernández (two life sentences plus 15 years) and René González (15 years) stand.

Even the appeals court had to recognize the impact of the violent anti-Cuba paramilitary organizations headquartered in Miami. On Aug. 9, 2005, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned all the convictions because a change of venue to a nearby Florida city had been refused in the original 2001 trial. This decision was later reversed by the entire 11th Circuit, but opened an official window on the case.

U.S. favors terrorist bombers

Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, two of the architects of the violent attacks on Cuba, walk free on the streets of Miami today. George Bush Sr. pardoned Bosch. Venezuela wants to try Posada Carriles for the 1976 midair bombing of Cubana 455 out of Barbados that cost 73 civilians their lives. The U.S. refuses to honor Venezuela’s extradition request and refused to obey the Montreal Treaty that requires Washington to either extradite Posada or try him in the U.S.

Before Posada illegally entered the U.S. in 2005, he and two co-conspirators were convicted in Panama of preparing to bomb a full university auditorium in 2000 to kill Fidel Castro at the Iberio-American Summit. Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned the three, then left office and moved to Miami. On June 30 the Panamanian Supreme Court overturned this pardon.

In a move that may forestall removing Posada to Panama to serve out his prison term, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Aug. 14 to reinstitute charges against Posada for entering the U.S. illegally and lying to a federal agents. It will allow Posada to continue the good life in Miami until he is called to court in El Paso, Texas, at some point in the future.

According to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which outlined his history as a CIA operative, Posada’s bloody career is well known in the upper echelons of the U.S. government, which continues to back this terrorist bomber.