One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter
 

By Marco Giorgi

Part 1: The Freedom Fighters

Imagine if you had to witness citizens of your country die year after year, with many others being severely injured, due to terrorist attacks. If you knew where these attacks were being planned and launched from, and the government of that country, which was harboring these terrorists, ignored all calls to help prevent these unjustified attacks against your country, what would you do? Would you go into the lion’s den of this terrorist activity to help your country be better prepared to stop the bloodshed. Would you remain unarmed, merely searching for information on non-governmental organizations which strive to harm your country?

Now, imagine that you are Cuban. You decide to take the more proactive approach to combat the situation mentioned above. Imagine if the country you entered in order to stop terrorist acts from being carried out on your homeland was the United States of America; more specifically South Florida.

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Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez are The Cuban Five. This nickname was given to these Cuban patriots who were unjustly imprisoned, in 1998, by the United States government for investigating terrorist organizations in South Florida. The acts of violence The Five were trying to gather information on were conducted by anti-Cuban terrorist and terror organizations residing in the U.S. Atrocities committed by Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Alpha 66, Comandos F4, Brothers to the Rescue, Omega 77, Movimiento Democratico, CORU, Accion Cubana, Brigade 2506, the Cuban American National Foundation, and more have led to the deaths of over 3,000 Cubans, including many foreign tourists vacationing in Cuba throughout the past 40-plus years. Because these terrorists were organizing and operating with complete impunity from the U.S. justice system, the Cuban government needed to do something in order to protect its citizens from being murdered.

In the 1990s, the Cuban government sent courageous patriots to South Florida to infiltrate anti-Cuban terrorist organizations and gather information on attacks directed at Cuba. They collected data on plots to attack Cuba in a variety of ways – arson, bombings, drive by shootings aimed at coastal hotels, sabotaging crops and industries, propaganda campaigns, etc. – and handed what they found over to the Cuban government which then informed the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI’s response was typical from a government which has spent the better half of a century demonizing anything to do with Cuba. On September 12, 1998, The Five were arrested on charges of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder and using false identification. They were held for 17 months in solitary confinement until their seven month trial started. After four days of jury deliberation in 2001, the Cuban five were convicted on all 26 counts and sentenced to an unprecedented 77 years combined behind bars in maximum security prisons. These were the longest prison terms ever given in a case of espionage that didn’t include any secret government documents. Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, however, any issue in the U.S. that involves Cuba, or Cubans, is always driven by politics, and not morality.

Fernando Gonzalez was sentenced to 19 years in prison in Oxford, Wisconsin. Rene Gonzalez was sentenced to 15 years in Marianna, Florida. Antonio Guerrero was sentenced to life plus 10 years in Florence, Colorado. Gerardo Hernandez was sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years in Victorville, California. Ramon Labanino was sentenced to life plus 18 years in Beaumont, Texas.

Guerrero received the harshest sentence because, as the U.S. government claims, he passed information to the Cuban government that led to the downing of two prop planes that entered Cuban airspace. The planes were flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, an NGO which claims to help Cubans come to America. Four people died in the incident. What the U.S. government neglected to mention was that these “brothers to the rescue” have violated Cuban airspace multiple times, for propaganda or violent reasons. They were repeatedly warned not to do so. Like when they dumped pamphlets over the open ocean when winds were strong enough to carry them to Cuba. The pamphlets were filled with “the truth” about the Cuban government, or so they claimed, and were designed to inform the population on the island of how bad they have it under Fidel Castro. Imagine if the situation was reversed. What if the Cuban government released pamphlets over Louisiana shortly after Hurricane Katrina which outlined how the Bush administration screwed the poor and couldn’t protect its citizens? How would the U.S. government respond?

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The Cuban Five never committed one act of violence in America or directed at Americans. They never sought U.S. government documents, nor to harm its national security. They were simply trying to protect the right to live of their fellow countrymen, and they paid for it with their freedom.

After 10 years of imprisonment, justice has ceased to be applied to their case, although 2005 saw a glimmer of hope. In August of that year, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions and demanded a new trial be set based on the fact that Miami’s Cuban exile community and the trial’s publicity made the trial prejudicial to the defendants. When the full 12-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals convened in November of the same year however, they reversed the August decision and upheld the convictions of The Five.

The other victims in this case are The Five’s families. Many family members have consistently been denied visas to visit their husbands, or fathers, or brothers, and sons in prison. Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, the wives of Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez respectively, have yet to be granted visas to visit their husbands in U.S. prisons. The U.S. government claims that these two women are linked to espionage as well, but no proof has ever been provided to corroborate these accusations.

In the meantime, George W. Bush undermines his War on Terrorism with every second that the Cuban Five remain behind bars while South Florida continues to be a haven for anti-Cuban terror cells. But as Bush’s War on Terrorism goes, the contradictions are calculated and never surprising. The movement to free The Cuban Five is ongoing. New revelations and injustices continue to unfold, but for every minute that passes, these men sit in 4 x 8 cells. And for what? For being terrorist spies (in the U.S.)? Or, for being freedom fighters (from Cuba)?

 

What can you do? Find out more information on The Cuban Five and draw your own conclusions on their case:

Materials that may help:
 

www.freethefive.org

www.thecuban5.org

The Trial: The Untold Story
A documentary produced by the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) in association with Telesur. Narrated by Danny Glover.


* Numerous other websites, documentaries, books, materials can be found with a simple search on the Internet.