Vol. 73/No. 27      July 20, 2009

Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González were arrested by FBI agents on Sept. 12, 1998. They had been gathering information on counterrevolutionary Cuban American groups that, with Washington’s complicity, operate from south Florida and have a history of violent attacks on Cuba.

The Cuban Five, as they are known, were convicted in 2001 on false charges that included “conspiracy to commit espionage” and failing to register as agents of a foreign government. They were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison. Hernández, who was also falsely accused of “conspiracy to commit murder,” was given two life sentences plus 15 years. He is locked up in the federal penitentiary in Victorville, California. He was previously held in the Lompoc, California, federal prison.

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

Saul Landau: In Angola,¹ in Africa, what did you do?

Gerardo Hernández: I went as second-in-command in a reconnaissance squad. First, all of the compañeros in the same field received general training. Then we were sent to different units in different parts of Angola. I was placed in Cabinda, in the 10th Tank Brigade, 11th Tactical Group. The lieutenant left and I became squad leader until his replacement arrived. Our mission was to explore a part of northern Angola, very close to the Congo, that was a mix of jungle and desert. To protect our troops we scouted the area, looking for signs of enemy activity. We would explore, along with the combat engineers, and inspect the roads our unit’s vehicles used.

For example, there was a well we used to get the unit’s water, and our trucks had to drive there. To prevent the enemy from placing mines, we had to patrol the area with the sappers to make sure there were no mines that could hurt our troops.

I was there from 1989 to 1990. The press has said that I participated in combat missions. There’s a big difference between a combat mission and action in combat. The reconnaissance squad carried out its missions without getting into combat. We completed 64 combat missions but I was never in combat. Even though this was already the last stage of Cuban collaboration in Angola, there were compañeros who did encounter enemy mines.

Landau: Could you speak about living in Miami? How does life compare with Havana?

Hernández: I come from Havana, between La Güinera and Vieja Linda. There are a lot of differences. The first thing that comes to mind is the material difference. But what most struck me wasn’t that. For example, in Cuba people live with their doors open to their neighbors and they know just about everyone in the neighborhood. At 8:00 at night your child could be outside playing. So people yell from the doorway for the kids to come in and eat, or bathe. They live with the assurance of knowing no one will be selling their child drugs or kidnapping him.

In my apartment building [in Miami], although I was there for years … I knew some people by sight, but people live with their doors closed. It’s a different atmosphere. In Cuba, if you see a kid out with his dad, even if you don’t know them, you say, “Oh, what a lovely kid!” And you pat him on the head and pick him up, whatever, and this is completely normal.

Not here. You have to be very careful here about that kind of thing. Also, there were certain Miami neighborhoods where everyone who lives there or a large percentage is of just one race. And people tell you, “Be careful, don’t go there because you look white and that’s a Black neighborhood with gangs.” That shocked me, because in Cuba we live totally mixed together.

The other thing I noticed—reading Cuban history, and from family stories—is that you see people like Esteban Ventura,² the famous Batista police torturer who came to Miami after the triumph of the revolution. So, you can walk on the same streets where these people strolled freely. I was able to observe Orlando Bosch,³ see him up close, knowing he was one of those who ordered a bomb put on a Cuban airplane that killed 73 people. These experiences … what you feel … it’s hard to describe.

I’m talking about my own personal experiences. But the other four had incredible experiences as well, as many or more than me. Their experiences were very similar to mine. The “hole” in Lompoc I was in is not the same one they were in, but theirs was just as bad or worse.

One small detail about Miami. In that “environment” of fear and intimidation, of profiteering, of the “Just give me money and we’ll bring down Castro” extortion they used against their enemies,⁴ I was struck by the many Cubans or Cuban Americans I saw, including those born in this country, as well as other Latin Americans, who were struggling in order that Cuba and the United States could have a better relationship, a mutually respectful relationship, to end the history of intrigues, conflicts, and tensions. It really struck me because I know they are risking their own lives to do this.

Negrín, assassinated by Omega 7 in New Jersey, lost his life because he opposed them. Réplica magazine, the Marazul offices—all the bombings these people faced, victims just because they wanted a more respectful U.S.-Cuba relationship, such as the ability of Cubans here to travel and spend time with their families there.⁵ It was like a ray of hope knowing that not everyone in Miami is part of that stifling, recalcitrant, extremist mafia, that there are many good people there as well.

Landau: Hector Pesquera [then FBI chief in Miami] interrogated you. What was his motivation, in your opinion?

Hernández: I don’t know if he wanted a promotion, or some other benefit, maybe even some financial gain. He has moved to private practice. Ports and airports advisor, I think. I’m convinced he wanted to curry favor with those who control the “Republic of Miami.” As I told you, the FBI ended up looking bad after the Roque and Brothers to the Rescue experience.⁶

Listen to the call-in radio shows. People complained, “The FBI has betrayed us!” “They were spying on Brothers to the Rescue!” So I think one motivating factor was to throw the beasts a piece of meat to make them happy. To tell them, “You say we’ve done nothing, but look, we caught these guys!” In Pesquera’s case, from what I’ve read, it’s possible that his own convictions are quite extremist, quite pro-Cuban American mafia. I think that for him perhaps it was a great pleasure to do this. And after the trial, he and the other FBI officials celebrated their triumph with Basulto⁷ and those people. So that wasn’t at all strange.

Landau: Did you play a key role in Roque’s return?

Hernández: Yes, I played a part. The U.S. government wanted to show that Roque’s return was linked to the shootdown. That’s absolutely false. It’s well-documented that Roque’s return had been planned for a year before that happened. Yet, that confusion persists. The prosecution cleverly removed from the evidence certain communications referring to Operation Venice—Roque’s return—and made it seem that they were referring to Operation Scorpion, the operation to prevent the violation of Cuban airspace.

One clear example is a message I sent responding to a request from Cuba saying that for me it was an honor to have made a modest contribution to a successful mission. It is super clear in the evidence that this referred to Operation Venice, the one about Roque. The government used it as its sole piece of evidence that I had something to do with the shootdown, although they know it did not refer to Operation Scorpion. Our lawyers knew this, but unfortunately, because of the way the justice system works, we couldn’t spare time or space to clear this up.

The prosecution mixed the two up purposely to create a cloud. But we still haven’t been able to clarify that point because of page restrictions, limits on briefs, limitations on everything. I hope at some point it will be clarified. Although it’s not really essential, because even with the confusion it’s been proven I had nothing to do with that. But I don’t want to even concede on that, because it didn’t happen that way. But yes, I played a part in Roque’s return.

Landau: Specifically?

Hernández: Cuba wanted Roque to return to Cuba to reveal all the information he had against the Brothers to the Rescue—their true intentions, explaining that they weren’t a humanitarian organization, but rather one involved in buying weapons.

But it couldn’t be done in time, and coincidentally Roque returned around the time of the shootdown. But among the evidence there’s another message in which Cuba tells Roque he can return on the 23rd or the 27th, because there were flights on those days to his initial destination. And the Brothers to the Rescue flights were on the 24th. That’s as clear as can be in the evidence. So, if Roque’s return was linked to the shootdown, why would they tell him he could return on the 27th, since everyone knew the flights were going to be on the 24th?

That piece of evidence refutes those who claim Roque’s return had something to do with the shootdown. But the U.S. government won’t touch that, won’t refer to it, because it would affect the story they concocted. In essence, Roque had to be gotten out of there with a series of security measures, and that was where we made our contribution. But I assure you that the operation to remove Roque had nothing to do with the shootdown. It was a completely different operation from the one having to do with Brothers to the Rescue.

2. Esteban Ventura was a colonel in the police force under U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

3. Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, and other counterrevolutionaries were implicated in the October 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger plane over Barbados. All 73 people aboard were killed, including 19 members of Cuba’s junior fencing team.

4. Landau notes that Hernández is referring to Cuban exiles such as Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remón, who were implicated along with Posada in an assassination attempt against Fidel Castro in Panama in November 2000.

5. Eulalio José Negrín, director of a Cuban immigrant services center, was shot to death in Union City, New Jersey, in November 1979, a killing for which the counterrevolutionary group Omega 7 took credit. Negrín was a member of the Committee of 75, a group that advocated a dialogue with the Cuban government. Réplica magazine, edited by Max Lesnik and published in Miami for nearly 20 years, publicly called for the end of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Its offices in Little Havana were bombed by rightists 11 times. The Miami offices of Marazul, which organizes travel to Cuba, were firebombed twice in August 1996.

6. Juan Pablo Roque, a former Cuban MiG pilot, left Cuba for the United States in 1992. He was one of the Cuban revolutionaries who entered Brothers to the Rescue to gather information on its activities.

He left Miami for Havana on Feb. 23, 1996, a day before Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces shot down two planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue after they provocatively entered Cuban airspace. Roque had flown missions for the group, and had also been giving information on the group to the FBI. Two days after the shootdown, he appeared on Cuban TV and gave details on how Brothers to the Rescue was planning terrorist attacks on Cuba.

7. José Basulto is head of Brothers to the Rescue, a counterrevolutionary Cuban American group that claimed to be a humanitarian organization devoted to rescuing Cuban “rafters.”