Vol. 73/No. 22      June 8, 2009

Known internationally as the Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González have been in prison since their arrest on Sept. 12, 1998. They had been gathering information on counterrevolutionary Cuban American groups that operate from south Florida with Washington’s complicity and have a history of violent attacks on Cuba.

The five were framed and convicted in 2001 on charges that included failing to register as agents of a foreign government and “conspiracy to commit espionage.” They were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life. Hernández, who was also falsely accused of “conspiracy to commit murder,” was sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years, and is currently being held in the federal penitentiary in Victorville, California.

A 2005 federal appeals court ruling that the five had not received a fair trial because of the hostile political atmosphere in Miami was reversed a year later on review by the full court. In 2008 the court ruled that the sentences against Guerrero, Labañino, and Fernando González were excessive and sent those cases back for resentencing.

The five have appealed their convictions to the U.S. Supreme Court. A decision by the Supreme Court on whether it will hear the appeal is expected in June.

The English translation of the interview was checked against the original Spanish and revised by the Militant. Footnotes are by the Militant.
 

Saul Landau: Did you personally meet any of the terrorists,¹ as you call them?

Gerardo Hernández: No, I saw some of them. But I had no contact with them. Some of us were accused of being illegal agents. In my case, I used a false identity—Manuel Viramonte. I compiled information brought to me by agents who maintained their own identities, like René González. He kept his own name. He stole an airplane from Cuba. Someone like that is trusted enough to get close to an organization. Not so in my case, since I didn’t even have a real story. So my task was to compile information the others gave me and send it to Cuba.

Landau: During the day you worked as a graphic artist, didn’t you?

Hernández: It was more like having my own business. At least that was my story. I did a few illustrations for a newspaper, but it was just to maintain the image.

Landau: So you supervised those who had infiltrated the groups? Explain how you did this.

Hernández: It’s not appropriate to give too many details, right? The trial record showed there were a number of agents with access to certain organizations. Their assignment was specifically to protect Cuba by learning beforehand about the plans of these organizations and forewarning Cuba.

For example, René was in Brothers to the Rescue²; he finds out that Basulto said they have a weapon ready to test on targets in the Everglades. They had been firing it and it worked well. The plan is to find a place in Cuba where they can unload them. I’m alerted through a previously arranged method of communication, let’s say a beeper. I answer his call and with a previously arranged coded language we’d arrange to meet. We would meet somewhere after taking a number of precautions and he’d tell me, “Look, this is happening, or they’re testing a weapon they want to get into Cuba.” Or, “Alpha 66 is planning an expedition. They want to get close to the Cuban coast again to fire weapons.” Or, “They want to put a bomb on a plane going from Central America to Cuba to disrupt tourism.”

I’m not making any of this up! I’d give them instructions on how to find out more information without taking unnecessary risks. I’d send this information to Cuba and Cuba would answer, “It’s necessary to do this or that, to seek information this way or that way.” Basically, that was the task.

Landau: Can you describe in detail what happened the day the FBI arrested you?

Hernández: It was a Saturday. I was sleeping. It was about 6:00 a.m. I lived in a small, one-room apartment in a building. My bed was pretty close to the door because the apartment was small. I remember hearing in my sleep someone trying to force open the lock. I barely had time to react because I heard a loud sound as they knocked the door down. It was a SWAT team. In reality it didn’t even give me time to sit up in bed.

I was surrounded by people with machine guns and helmets like you see in the movies. They arrested me, lifted me out of the bed, handcuffed me, and looked in my mouth. I guess they had seen a lot of James Bond movies and they thought I would have cyanide in my mouth. So, they checked to make sure that I wouldn’t poison myself. I asked them why I was being arrested. They said, “You know why.” They put me in a car and took me to the main headquarters of the FBI in south Florida on 163rd Avenue in Miami. There, the interrogation began. But the arrest is the way I described.

Landau: They put you in the “box”?

Hernández: At the FBI headquarters we were each put in separate offices. They sat me in an office, handcuffed me to the wall. There, they interrogated me. I had the “honor” that Hector Pesquera came to see me. He was the director of the FBI in south Florida, and he was Puerto Rican. And my assumed identity, Manuel Viramonte, was Puerto Rican, too. I told him I was from Puerto Rico and so he started to ask me questions about Puerto Rico. All kinds of questions. Who was the governor that year? Where did you live? What bus did you take to get to school? Where did you catch it? And when he saw that I was able to answer these questions he got really upset. He slammed his fist into the table and said, “I know you are Cuban and you are going to rot in prison because Cuba isn’t going to do anything for you.”

Then, not him specifically, but the others who took part in the interrogation, started to make all kinds of offers. They would say to me, “You know how this business works. You know that you are an illegal agent. And what it says in the books is that Cuba isn’t going to admit that they sent you here with a fake passport. Cuba won’t do that, so you will rot in prison. The best thing you can do is cooperate with us and we’ll offer you whatever you want. We will change your identity, give you bank accounts.” Whatever I want, so that I become a traitor.

They would say, “Here is the phone. Call your Consulate.” Strategies designed to get me to be a turncoat. This is what happened to all five of us separately. Later, they took us to the prison, the Federal Detention Center in Miami, and put us in what is called “the hole.”

Landau: For how long?

Hernández: Seventeen months. The first five months were hard for the five, of course. Those of us with false identities didn’t have anyone to write to, no one to write to us, nor anyone to phone. Every so often it was our turn to make a phone call. The guards would open the little window in the door, and put the phone there. “Aren’t you going to call anyone? Your family in Puerto Rico?”

“No,” I would say, “I’m not going to call anyone.”

“But why don’t you make a call?” they’d say to annoy me, because they knew I wasn’t Puerto Rican and wouldn’t use the phone. Those were difficult months.

Landau: Describe “the hole.”

Hernández: It’s an area that every prison has, for disciplining prisoners, or for protective purposes if they can’t be with the rest of the population. In Miami it was a floor, the 12th floor. The cells are for two people, but there are some people there by themselves. For the first six months, we were alone, each in an individual cell—with no contact. Later, our lawyers took legal measures so that we could meet in pairs. But the first six months we were in “solitary confinement,” with a shower inside the cell so you can bathe whenever you want. But that way you get everything in the cell wet when you take a shower.

You’re in the cell 23 hours a day. And there’s one hour a day of recreation when they take you out to another place. In Miami, it was basically just another cell, but a little bigger, with a grate that let you see a little piece of the sky. You could tell if it was day or night and fresh air would come through. That was what they called “recreation.” But often we didn’t go because they’d take too long, handcuffing you, searching you, your cell, taking you. Sometimes, they’d put us all together in the same cell and we could talk.

The regimen was very strict. It’s used to discipline prisoners, as punishment for having committed a serious infraction. We were inside those four quite small walls 23, sometimes 24, hours a day, with nothing to do. It’s very difficult from the human point of view. And many people couldn’t take it. You would see them lose their minds, screaming.

Landau: Did you do something bad?

Hernández: No, we were sent there from the beginning. They told us it was to protect us from the general population. But in my opinion, it had to do with their attempt to get us to change “sides” and become traitors. After fear and intimidation didn’t work they thought, “Well let’s put them in solitary for a few months and see if they change their minds.”

The only thing to read was the Bible, and you had to submit a written request to the chaplain. I made the request, to have something to read, and I asked for a Bible. When they brought it to me—I don’t know if it was a big coincidence or what—it had some cards inside, including ones with the telephone numbers of the FBI. Just in case I had forgotten, right? As if, “Well, this communist guy is asking for the Bible … he must be about to turn.” I imagine that’s what they were thinking, given their way of thinking, their prejudices.

2. Brothers to the Rescue, headed by José Basulto, and Alpha 66 are rightist outfits based in Florida that promote violent actions against targets in Cuba. Brothers to the Rescue falsely portrays itself as a “humanitarian” aid group, but as the Cuban Five testified, was organizing armed provocations in Cuba.