Prisoner in U.S. sets record straight
Who are the Cuban 'dissidents'?
A group in the U.S. called the Campaign for Peace and
Democracy put out a statement denouncing Cuba for having tried
a group of people in March for counter-revolutionary activity
instigated by the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba. Joanne Landy
spearheaded the CPD anti-Cuba campaign with an ad in The
Progressive magazine. On July 15, René González,
one of the Cuban Five political prisoners who is held in a
federal prison in South Carolina, wrote a letter to Landy in
response. Below are excerpts from his letter.
Dear Ms. Joanne Landy:
Being a Cuban revolutionary all of my life, having fought in
Angola against the South African invasion and being, at the
present time, incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison for
protecting the Cuban people from the terrorist actions
supported, encouraged and silenced by the United States
government, I hope that--if being progressive is still to fight
for a better world--I might be entitled to the benefit of being
considered a progressive person.
So, when I opened a magazine called precisely The
Progressive and read an ad by the Campaign for Peace and
Democracy requesting signatures in order to condemn Cuba for
its alleged "repression of dissidents," I was, at best, in
disbelief.
I can't imagine that somebody can consider himself a
progressive person and then take at its word the endemic
slandering and lies of the U.S. media in regards to Cuba. It
would only take a little bit of intellectual honesty and some
research to discover that the money to pay the "dissidents" is
appropriated, overtly and openly, by the U.S. authorities to be
distributed through entities like NED and USAID among whomever,
on the island, decides to make a living as a dissident.
Who gives any moral authority to the American government to
create a paid opposition in Cuba? What international principle
of law applies to this behavior? Since when is it a role of a
U.S. diplomat to tour the island organizing the "opposition"
and giving out money?
Whoever, in his own country, receives money from a foreign
power to undermine his government is considered a traitor, be
it in Cuba or in any other nation of the world, including the
United States.
These so-called "dissidents" have--contrary to what appears
in the ad--all the right to express their opinions in Cuba. All
they have to do is to stand up at a nomination meeting and
explain to their neighbors that they want to take the country
back to 1959, return the Cuban land to the United Fruit
Company, recall the terrorists that now live in Miami to the
island and give them their properties back, sell the country to
the transnationals and become themselves the political class
who will take care of all those people's petty interests. If
their neighbors agree with them, they will be nominated without
having to spend one dollar. In any event nothing would happen
to them for looking stupid while expressing their political
platform in front of the electorate.
But if they run into a revolutionary constituency--and their
neighbors are committed to their country and support the
government of the people, for the people and by the people, and
have fought and died for their society, and don't want to
betray the memory of the patriots who have given their lives
for the sovereignty and independence of Cuba--no "dissident"
will be nominated nor will he obtain any vote.
And if they don't deserve the confidence of their people,
they don't have the right to go to the American Embassy--the
last place I would think of as a haven for democracy--to find a
source of sovereignty that only lies in the Cubans.
Cuba, for more than 40 years, has faced a state of hostility
and war that has caused more than 3,000 deaths and more than
2,000 injured on account of terrorist and armed actions carried
out by traitors paid, trained and supplied by the U.S.
government. Those mercenaries were dealt with through the legal
system. They weren't arbitrarily declared "enemy" or "illegal"
combatants, or disposed of through a drone-launched rocket so
that Fidel could pose to the cameras declaring them "no longer
a problem," or subjected to secret military tribunals, nor were
their families' homes demolished by the Cuban military.
They were given sentences according to their involvement in
their terrorist activities instead of the irrational punishment
accorded here to the Puerto Rican patriots, just for their
affiliation to a given organization, or the vindictive
treatment given to me and my co-defendants for protecting Cuba
from those mercenaries who now, with their money and
connections to the U.S. administration, sponsor schemes like
the one of the "dissidents" or the encouragement to illegal
immigration from Cuba in order to justify the aggressive policy
against Cuba.
The Cuban people has had no other option than to take their
losses and to keep building the socialist society that too many
have fought for, leaving it to history to make us justice and
relying on extreme patience and enormous courage. ...
Consider for a moment the awesome power accumulated by the
U.S. imperialist government. Consider the enormous sense of
impunity that right now can be felt by these people who just
accomplished a war of aggression defying the whole world, lying
in front of everybody like nobody did before to justify it,
creating a criminal and illegal doctrine of preemptive war,
breaking any principle of international relations in the
process and getting away with all of it. Compare this
overwhelming power with the little island of Cuba and it won't
be hard to see how much damage this fascist establishment can
inflict on my country. ...
Rene González Sehwerert
Federal Correctional Institution
Edgefield, S.C.
Cc: The Progressive
Reprinted from the Aug. 21, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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