U.S. uses Cuban 5 as hostage to anti-Cuba policy

On Sept. 16, Judge Joan Lenard refused to allow René González, one of the five Cuban heroes unjustly held in U.S. prisons, to return to Cuba and his family when he is released on Oct. 7.

Only the day before, the former New ­Mexico governor, Bill Richardson, complain­­ed that Cuba did not allow him to visit convicted U.S. agent Alan Gross serving a 15-year sentence for distributing satellite phones. Gross worked for a U.S. government-funded program intended to undermine Cuban sovereignty and independence.

According to the New York Times, Richardson on his unofficial “humanitarian” visit carried with him a purported offer from the U.S. State Dept. which including repatriating González when he is released. A second part was to promote “a process for removing Cuba from the list of states sponsoring terrorism.”

These offers could only be viewed as a slap in the face of the Cuban people and government. In addition, they were a test of whether the current changes proposed at the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party meant Cuba’s commitment to self-determination and socialism had weakened. They haven’t.

On Sept. 13, President Barack Obama extended the merciless blockade of Cuba for another year. In the United Nations, meanwhile, on Oct. 25 for the 20th consecutive time the General Assembly is expected to vote to condemn this unilateral act of war by the U.S. against its small but determined island neighbor.

In 2010, 187 countries voted to remove the blockade. Only the U.S. and Israel supported the blockade, with the Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia abstaining.

The Cuban Five — González, with ­Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino and Fernando González — had, during the 1990s, monitored the activities of extremist groups in Miami that were carrying out terrorist attacks against Cuba’s civilian population from their safe havens in southern Florida. For daring to defend Cuba against terrorism, the Five are serving harsh prison terms — including Gerardo Hernández’s double-life plus 15 years sentence.

Earlier in the case, a three-judge appeals panel called the Miami venue of the trial “a perfect storm of prejudice” against the Five. Requiring René González to serve three years of parole in Miami puts him in harm’s way near the paramilitaries he came to the U.S. to monitor.

It also extends another injustice. Olga Salanueva, González’s spouse, is banned from entering the U.S. to visit him. Gerardo Hernández’s spouse, Adriana Pérez, has not been granted a U.S. visa to visit him at the prison in Victorville, Calif.

The actions of Judge Lenard and Bill Richardson virtually admit that the Cuban Five are held hostage by the U.S. government for use as yet another battering ram against Cuba’s right to determine its own path and destiny. It is the responsibility of U.S. residents to make the pressure to free the Cuban Five and end the blockade of Cuba irresistible.