Berkeley City Council supports Cuban Five
By Alicia Jrapko
Berkeley, Calif.
On June 10, the City Council of Berkeley
unanimously passed a resolution in support of the Cuban Five.
Nine members of the council, including Mayor Tom Bates, were
present for the vote.
The resolution directed the Berkeley City Council to send
letters to President George W. Bush, members of the Bay Area
congressional delegation, Attorney General John Aschcroft, the
Congressional Working Group on Cuba, and the 11th Circuit Court
of Appeals. The letters call for a "new and fair trail in a
neutral venue outside of Miami-Dade County; and for the same
family visitation rights, humanitarian concerns and equal
treatment under the law for the Cuban Five as any other
prisoner in the United States."
Berkeley is the first city in the United States to have
passed a resolution on behalf of the Cuban Five, who are in
U.S. prisons for having monitored the activities of terrorist
groups in the Miami area. The U.S. government called this
“espionage.” Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo
Hernández, Ramón Labañino, René
González and Fernando González were convicted on
June 8, 2001, and sentenced by a federal court in Miami to
sentences ranging from 17 years to double life.
The resolution was first introduced in March of this year,
but one member of the City Council recommended that it be
brought up to the Peace and Justice Committee. This is a common
procedure when there is some disagreement about an issue or it
needs further clarification.
The Peace and Justice Committee gave strong support to the
resolution. Before the vote, Roya Arasthe from the Peace and
Justice Committee told the council: "The issue of the five is
about political prisoners unjustly imprisoned in the United
States." She briefly explained to the council that, without
evidence, the five were convicted and sentenced to long terms
in prison, reflecting the bias of the court in Miami.
Rebecca Davis from the U.S.-Cuba Sister City Association
that links Berkeley with Palma Soriano, Cuba, read a message
from Livio Di Celmo in support of the Cuban Five and against
U.S.-sponsored terrorism. His brother, Fabio Di Celmo, was an
Italian tourist who was killed in 1997 by a bomb planted in
Havana's Hotel Copacabana. The terrorist who planted the bomb
was paid by the Miami-based right-wing Cuban American National
Foundation.
Two members of the National Committee to Free the
Five--Gloria la Riva and the writer of this article--attended
the meeting. The committee was actively involved in supporting
the adoption of the resolution. Other individual and group
supporters were present with signs that read, "Free the Cuban
Five."
The Berkeley City Council resolution is a step forward in
this struggle and hopefully will encourage other city councils
around the country to do the same.
For more information about the Cuban Five, visit www.freethefive.org or
www.antiterroristas.cu.
Reprinted from the June 26, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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