Cuban Five need your support

The case of the Cuban Five got a big boost on Oct. 15 when a 10-minute videotaped interview with Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón was shown at the Millions More Movement rally in Washington, D.C., and was simultaneously broadcast across the country by C-SPAN. In the video, Alarcón appealed for the release of the five Cubans, who have been imprisoned in the United States for seven years now.

On Aug. 9 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had overturned their convictions, saying they had not received a fair trial. But they remain in separate prisons scattered across the United States.

The five have been incarcerated since 1998. Their only crime was to fight against the terrorism carried out against Cuba by right-wing forces in Florida who are supported and encouraged by the White House.

Their trial was held in Miami, where right-wing Cuban Americans have a stronghold. The 11th Circuit Court determined that the atmosphere in Miami was poisoned against them, and ordered a new trial.

However, on Sept. 28, the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami filed an appeal asking the court to reconsider its decision.

Leonard Weinglass, an attorney for the defense, said that the U.S. attorney’s appeal is an action that “has no adequate basis in legal practice. The opinion that they [the prosecution] are trying to challenge is the most extensive decision written on the theme of venue in the history of the United States. They don’t consider the decision adequate, obviously for political reasons.”

The lengthy document issued in August by the appeals court detailed the disruptive and dangerous role right-wing Cuban Americans have played. The court, for example, cited their struggle to keep little Elián Gonzalez from being sent back home to his father in Cuba in 2000.

In May, another mainstream body had said publicly that the trial of the Cuban Five was unfair. The United Nations Human Rights Commission Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions determined that the detention of the five was arbitrary and illegal. It wrote that “the trial did not take place in an impartial and objective climate,” that “the defense attorneys had a very limited access to evidence,” and that “the communication with their attorneys, access to the evidence, and consequently, the possibility of an adequate defense were weakened.”

Despite these encouraging rulings, the U.S. attorney’s appeal could mean long delays in letting the Cuban Five return home. The U.S. government will do everything possible to keep from freeing them as well as to silence their voices.

But their tenacity and firmness to their commitments and ideals have been an inspiration. Despite solitary confinement, being denied visits by their families and being kept in separate jails so they cannot discuss their case together, the five remain principled and steadfast leaders and defenders of the Cuban Revolution.

The struggle to free the Cuban Five is a righteous one. People are encouraged to get involved by signing on to a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that has received worldwide support, including from Nobel Prize laureates. The National Committee to Free the Five is also raising money for an ad in the New York Times on the case. Both are available at www.freethefive.org.

The New York Committee to Free the Five, which on Sept. 23 sent a women’s delegation to the Justice Department with petitions on the case, has launched a Women’s Letter for the Five, and is organizing a second women’s delegation. To sign on to the womendelegation, please visit www.freethefiveny.org.