‘Free the Cuban Five, jail terrorist Posada’

The first national march and forum demanding justice for the Cuban Five was held here on Sept. 23. Organizers had petitioned, rallied and raised funds in their communities before carrying their demands to Washington, D.C.

WW photo: Cheryl LaBash

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five organized the event as part of three weeks of international activities to run from Sept. 12, the anniversary of the arrest of the Five eight years ago, through Oct. 6, the date exactly 30 years ago that Cubana Airlines Flight 455 was bombed in midair, killing all 73 people aboard.

The Cuban Five—Ramón Labañino, René González, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernández—had come to the U.S. from socialist Cuba to try to stop such horrific terrorist acts from happening again. But after successfully penetrating violent anti-Cuba groups in the Miami area and letting the Cuban government know what was being planned against their people, the Five were forced into a new chapter in their courageous struggle to stop U.S.-sponsored terror against their beloved homeland.

They were torn from their homes and families, falsely convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, and imprisoned. The actions of the U.S. government did not turn back the movement here in solidarity with Cuba, however. Instead, they inspired just the opposite: a movement inside the United States itself to free these five heroes and support Cuba’s right of self-determination.

People came to the protest from as far away as Maine and Oregon, Miami and Montreal—30 cities in all—by car, bus and plane. Organizers estimate that 600 people gathered at the doors of the U.S. Justice Department and then marched to the White House gates, where they picketed while chanting, “Free the Cuban Five!”

The largest contingent by far traveled from Florida. This delegation of Cuban Americans daily confronts anti-Cuba terrorists and paramilitaries in the Miami area, where Orlando Bosch, who has admitted involvement in the plane bombing, walks free. Bosch, who has worked with the CIA, has a long history of terrorist acts in several countries. They include attacks in the U.S., for which he was arrested but later pardoned in 1990 by then-president George H.W. Bush. (wikipedia.org) Bush had been CIA director at the time the Cuban airliner was bombed.

The forum was opened and closed by Andrés Gómez, coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, a Cuban American organization centered in Miami. It was co-chaired by Peta Lindsay of ANSWER.

Gómez introduced two family members of people killed by terrorists linked to right-wing Cuban Americans. Francisco Letelier talked about his father, Orlando Letelier, who had been a diplomat in the Chilean government of Socialist Salvador Allende before it was overthrown in 1973 by the fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet in a bloody coup supported by the U.S. government. Letelier was murdered in 1976 in a car bombing right in Washington, D.C., along with co-worker Ronni Moffitt.

Two weeks later, the Cubana plane was bombed.

Livio Di Celmo spoke of his brother, Fabio Di Celmo, an Italian tourist killed in 1997 at the age of 32 by shrapnel from a bomb placed in a Havana hotel by anti-Cuba terrorists.

José Pertierra, an attorney for Venezuela, explained that admitted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is on the verge of being released from U.S. detention, even though, “According to the CIA’s own documents from 1976 posted by the National Security Archive of George Washington University, Luis Posada Carriles spoke of his plans to ‘hit’ a Cuban airliner only days before CU-455 was blown out of the sky on Oct. 6, 1976.”

Posada Carriles has been held by immigration since entering the U.S. without papers a year ago, but the prosecutor will not press charges against him or extradite him to either Cuba or Venezuela, where he is wanted for mass murder.

Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Five, spoke about the missions and sacrifices of the individual heroes and of family members who have been denied visas to visit them. La Riva reported on media coverage and on the Five Freedom Fund, which has raised $105,000 of a $250,000 goal to put ads about the case in newspapers, especially the New York Times.

Leonard Weinglass, the appeals attorney for Antonio Guerrero, reviewed their case and concluded, “It is very important in this critical period of time that we all stand together in large numbers, making our position clear, encouraging others to stand with them and to finally reverse this injustice and to send the Five home to Cuba.”

A suggestion for building the movement for the Five came from International Representative Akbar Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad suggested reaching out to the “natural allies” of the Cuban Five by placing ads in the 267 Black and Latin@ newspapers in this country rather than the New York Times. Muhammad was representing Minister Louis Farrakhan, who could not attend personally due to illness.

Other speakers included Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana; Saul Landau, fellow, Institute for Policy Studies; and Heidi Boghosian, National Lawyers Guild executive director.