The Warrior Line

Dear Friends,
Batya has suggested that I post the notes for a talk I gave at a recent commemorative anniversary for Che Guevera (40 yrs since he was assassinated by the CIA) regarding the plight of the Cuban Five, a plight she has already posted some notes on. My talk will not fit in one comment box of 3000 characters, so I will use a succession of comment boxes (if possible). Below then is Part I:

The Cuban Five

Friends, Comrades, Amigos, Companeros . . . .

1. It goes almost without saying that Che sacrificed his privileges, much of his family, and ultimately his life for his commitment to helping the poor and the dispossessed;

he was dedicated not to his own well-being and status, but to political ideals that would ensure that no one suffered hunger, homelessness, ignorance, disease, or violence.

To this end, he laboured ceaselessly for the Cuban revolution and to protect the nation of Cuba and the Cuban people.

2. It was will the same sense of principles, the same dedication to the welfare of their countrymen, that motivated a group of Cuban men – now called the Cuban Five – to travel to Florida in the mid-1990s to infiltrate the powerful and dangerous counter-revolutionary organizations that make their homes there, organizations such as Brothers to the Rescue and Comandos F4.

Just as Che took on many perilous roles in his life in order to protect his adopted revolution and his adopted country, so these five Cubans engaged in a form of preventative and very dangerous espionage to preserve their revolution and their country.

3. Were these five – Fenando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Rene Gonzalez, and Antonio Guerrero – terrorists, as the US government claims?

Hardly.

Were they engaged in terrorist activities, as those who prosecuted the Five have asserted?

Hardly.

4. They were, instead, simply monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their beloved country of Cuba.

5. From the moment the Revolution in Cuba had succeeded in 1959, the US has sponsored terrorist groups in Miami, terrorist groups that have launched repeated hit and run attacks on Cuba

– dropping pathogens and viruses on crops and animal farms;
-- planting bombs in tourist facilities;
-- firing on unarmed civilians on Cuban beaches;
-- and even blowing up a Cubana airplane on October 6, 1976, killing all 76 passengers.

More than three thousand Cubans have died as the result of these attacks.

6. All the Five wished to do was to gain advanced warning of such attacks and alert Cuban authorities so that appropriate counter-measures might be taken, thus preventing wanton death and destruction of their homeland and their countrymen.

The Cuban Five: Part II

7. Is this terrorism?

No, of course not: this is patriotism and heroism of the highest order. (Viva Cuba!)

8. What is truly terrorism is the creation of death squads in El Salvador and Colombia!

What is truly terrorism is the funding of Contra thugs in Nicaragua so they can destroy health clinics, schools, and an entire people’s revolution!

What is terrorism is Operation Condor in South American in the 1970s!

What is terrorism is the financing of a fascist coup d’etat in Chile and the murdering, torturing, and exiling of thousands of Chileans!

What is terrorism is financially backing the military regime in Argentina, a regime infamous for its brutality and excesses of violence!

What is terrorism is the continued funding of the School of the Americas where the highest degrees are awarded to the most competent torturers!

9. US administrations call what they do ‘good and acceptable and appropriate’ terrorism,

while those who oppose that kind of terror,
-- those whose anger arises from oppression, humiliation, exploitation, and despair,
-- and those who try to protect their families and loved ones from ‘the good’ terrorism are, according to George Bush and the criminals that run his government, the real and threatening and evil terrorists.

10. These ironies are almost too painful to contemplate. But they continue:

Those who have tried to destroy the Cuban revolution through genuine acts of terror -- Luis Posada Carriles (who planted the bomb in the Cubana airplane), Orlando Bosch, Jose Antonio Llama, and many others -- are treated by the US government with honour, respect, rewards, and courtesy rather than being arrested and sent to prison for their cowardly crimes.

11. To compound these ironies it was The Cuban Five – the true heroes in this dreadful debacle – who were in 1998 themselves arrested
then held in solitary confinement for 17 months
later tried in Miami in a witchhunt atmosphere under conditions of prejudice and jury intimidation that prevented any semblance of a fair trial
then convicted in June of 2001 of espionage, conspiracy, and attempted sabotage,
then sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to two life terms, and
then packed off to separate prisons where they have spent the last six and a half years.

12. To add cruelty to this sentence, the US state department has routinely refused to grant visas to the family members of the Cuban five and they have in effect been denied all contact with their wives and children for this entire period.

The Cuban Five: Part III

13. The Cuban Five are clearly being used as examples to the rest of the world of how mighty is US power:
-- those who like Che make personal sacrifices to bring safety to their homeland and their fellow citizens,
-- those with the courage to stand up to the bully of US imperialism here is what we will do to you:
“If you try anything like what the Five attempted, you will rot in our filthy, despicable prisons for the rest of your lives.”

14. But amongst this stew of injustice and mistreatment and irony, there is hope:

-- in 2005, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their convictions and ordered a new trial outside of Miami. As if to emphasize the overarching power of the Bush administration, the Circuit Court decision itself was abrogated.

-- However, a second appeal on new grounds was then launched by the pre-eminent lawyer for The Five, Leonard Weinglas, and this appeal was heard on August 22, 2007. A decision is pending – should it be decided in their favour The Five will soon be on their way back to Cuba.

15. And there are other hopeful signs:

-- support committees for the Cuban Five have sprung up in the US, Canada, Europe, and across the planet;

-- the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has been severely critical of the trial proceedings for the Five;

-- Amnesty International has also criticized the US treatment of the Five as human rights violations

-- eight international Nobel Prize winners have written and sent a document to the US Attorney General calling for the Five to be freed; among them are Desmond Tutu, Nadine Gordimer, Rigoberta Menchu, Wole Soyinka, and Gunter Grass.

16. Our local Free the Five Committee continues to work diligently on behalf of these Cuban heroes
by writing letters
by holding educational seminars
by protesting in front of the US Consulate here in Calgary, and
– by no means the least important of our efforts – by carrying on correspondence with each of the Five,
encouraging them to be strong,
providing support and solidarity, and, we hope,
helping to give them hope enough to endure until they are reunited with their families, their nation, and their revolution.

And just in case any readers who have managed to hang on through the last three postings on The Cuban Five might wish to help out, here is some information regarding a petition you can sign:

FREEDOM FOR THE FIVE CUBANS
Dear friends:

Distinguish intellectuals around the World, join the claim in favor of the Cuban Five, fighters against terrorism and injustly detained in separated prisions in the U.S.A.

You can join this appeal signing a petition on the Website:

http://www.liberenlos5.cult.cu/index.php...

English language page:

http://www.liberenlos5.cult.cu/index.php...

or contact us at: liberenlos5@cubarte.cult.cu

************
FREEDOM FOR THE FIVE CUBANS IMPRISONED IN THE UNITED STATES!

For more than nine years now, five Cubans have remained imprisoned in the United States. On their shoulders rest lengthy convictions, resulting from a politicized trial held in the city of Miami. The Five
were helping monitor the terrorist plans orchestrated against Cuba from Florida by far right-wing Cuban groups.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, attached to the UN's former Commission on Human Rights, declared their detention to be arbitrary,
and a three-judge panel, tasked with examining the case at the Atlanta Appeals Court, unanimously agreed to nullify the trial and instructed that the sentences delivered in Miami be repealed. Afterwards, in a
split vote, the Court dismissed that decision; and the case is still going through the appeal process.

The Five have remained in isolation in maximum security prisons, under ruthless conditions of seclusion, in violation of their human rights and of the very laws of the United States. Two of them have been
deprived of the right to be visited by their wives.

We join our voices to all those in the world that call for the immediate end to this enormous injustice. We must not give up on this endeavor until truth prevails and these men return to their homeland and to their families.