Speaking at the meeting was Irma Sehwerert, mother of Rene González, who said her son was in the United States to gather information and report on the activities of right-wing forces in the United States that had a history of carrying out terrorist actions against Cuba. González was "capable of risking everything, without asking anything in return," she said.

In a case charged with slanders and attacks against the Cuban Revolution and that country's right to defend its sovereignty and people against U.S.-backed rightist forces, the five were convicted on charges ranging from "conspiracy to commit espionage" to "conspiracy to commit murder." Days earlier Lenard handed down the maximum sentence against three of the Cuban patriots. Gerardo Hernández received two consecutive life terms; Ramón Labaniño was sentenced to one life term; and Rene González received consecutive 10-year and a five-year sentences. Sentencing is scheduled to be completed on December 27.

Sehwerert said she lived in Chicago in the 1950s, where she participated in union-organizing efforts. "In the years I spent in the United States I came to know many Americans," she said, "and I know our sons would never do anything to harm the American people. They are innocent!"

She was joined at the event by Carmen Nordelo, the mother of Gerardo Hernández; Magali Llort, mother of Fernando González; Irmita González, older daughter of Rene González; and Mirta Rodríguez, mother of Antonio Guerrero. All traveled from Cuba for the sentencing hearings. The five imprisoned Cubans are now known as the Miami Five.

Andres Gómez of the Antonio Maceo Brigade chaired the program. "We demand the immediate release of the five Cuban patriots," he said, speaking under a banner reading, "Against Terrorism! Freedom for the Five!"

Gómez pointed to the more than 40-year war against Cuba sponsored by the U.S. government, including a military invasion, plane hijackings, biological warfare, and attempted assassinations. He said supporters of the five should have a long-term perspective in this fight, noting that in 1978 "we held a demonstration in an African-American neighborhood in Miami to free Nelson Mandela, and some in the community asked us 'Who is Nelson Mandela?' We were soon able to win thousands of people to understand who Nelson Mandela was" in the continuing fight against apartheid in South Africa.

Luis Miranda of Casa de las Americas in New York recounted some of the history of the fight against Washington's assault on the Cuban Revolution. He explained that in the 1960s and 1970s he was part of the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a broad organization, involving people of many views," demonstrating that "the North American people are not alien" to struggles to end the U.S. embargo of Cuba and the case of the Miami Five.

The event, covered by TV channels 23 and 51 in Miami, was sponsored by the Antonio Maceo Brigade; Alianza Martiana; Alliance of Workers of the Cuban Community; Casa de las Americas in New York; the Cuban-American Coalition; the Cuban-American Defense League; Rescate Cultural Afro-Cubano; the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba; and the International Action Center.

Max Leznick spoke for the Alianza Martiana, explaining that "the Cuban people have suffered for years from the destabilization campaign towards Cuba sponsored and financed by the United States." He pointed to the hypocrisy of the Bush administration's claims to be fighting terrorism in the Middle East, while putting in prison the Miami Five "who have done nothing but protect their country against terrorism" originating in the United States.  
 
Frame-up convictions
In 1998, the FBI announced with much fanfare and media hype that it had discovered a "Cuban spy network" in Florida. Those arrested were charged with trying to "infiltrate" the U.S. Southern Command, passing U.S. "military secrets" to Havana, and "infiltrating" and "disrupting" right-wing Cuban-American groups in Miami that seek to overthrow the revolutionary government of Cuba. The charge of "conspiracy to commit murder" was tacked on later.

This past October the FBI also arrested and jailed Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, for allegedly providing classified information to the Cuban government. As with those arrested in Florida, FBI break-ins into Montes's apartment and electronic eavesdropping are also featured in government actions against her.

On June 8, a jury in a federal courtroom here handed down guilty verdicts against the five men on all 23 charges of "spying" for the government of Cuba. Hernández was found guilty of the unprecedented charge of "conspiracy to commit murder" for allegedly providing Cuban authorities with flight plans of the four Brothers to the Rescue pilots whose planes were shot down in 1996. A number of defense witnesses offered ample evidence that these rightists repeatedly violated Cuban airspace and refused to heed warnings to head back before they were downed near Havana.

Argiris Malapanis, speaking for the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba, told the December 16 event that the arrests and convictions of the five "constituted an attack directed not only at revolutionary Cuba but at democratic rights in the United States. FBI agents broke into their homes repeatedly over the three years prior to the arrests, violating the Fourth Amendment protection against arbitrary search and seizure. The prosecution's 'evidence' consisted of information the FBI claimed to have collected in these raids, and from short-wave radio transmissions governments asserted they intercepted between Havana and the defendants. No evidence of any military secrets being stolen from the United States and turned over to Cuba was ever presented."

As with Washington's attacks on workers' rights under the guise of fighting terrorism since September 11, the U.S. rulers used the "spy scare" case against the Cubans as a means to justify broader powers for the FBI, break-ins and electronic eavesdropping, frame-up trials on scanty evidence, and harsh prison conditions, such as extended solitary confinement solely based on the character of the charges against the defendants.

Malapanis added that prosecuting attorney Caroline Miller charged that Cuban president Fidel Castro should have been indicted as well, when she paraphrased Castro saying during his state visit to Iran earlier in the year that "together Cuba and Iran can bring the United States down."  
 
'Shah of imperialism will fall'
This means supporters of the Miami Five "have to talk about the broader political context," said Malapanis. He quoted Castro who told an enthusiastic audience at the University of Tehran, "You were able to overthrow the biggest gendarme in the region not with guns, but with your ideas, culture, and patriotism. One shah still remains in the world. That is the shah of imperialism, which is entrenched near my homeland. It is an exploiting shah that wants to impose its system on the entire world and drag it into oppression. But as the shah of Iran was overthrown, this shah too will fall!"

Speaking for the National Committee to Free the Five Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prison, Gloria La Riva told the Miami event that since the Cuban Revolution 43 years ago Washington "has used many tactics, but they've always depended on terrorism. They use it against the people of Cuba, and to silence people in Miami." The Committee and local affiliated groups are publicizing the case, and have held public meetings in Los Angeles and New York.

Michael Italie, former Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Miami who was fired from his job after appearing on a televised debate, also expressed his solidarity with the struggle to free the Miami Five. He noted that on December 13 the prosecuting attorney called on the judge to "incapacitate" Rene González by giving him the maximum sentence. Pointing out that this is Wash-ington's goal in attacking workers' rights and defenders of the Cuban Revolution, Italie concluded, "These compañeros will not be 'incapacitated.' And we will not be 'incapacitated' in our struggle to free the Miami Five."

Maggie Becker read from a book of poems by Antonio Guerrero, her companion, expressing his "open heart and optimism." She reported that after attending the trials "my security as a citizen has been shredded by the impossibility of justice in this case." The judge had twisted the wording of Guerrero's letters, said Becker, in order to make it appear as if he were seeking "top secret" government documents. The conduct of the prosecuting attorney and judge convinced her that she had witnessed the "construction of a judicial lie" resulting in convictions and life sentences "that should affect every citizen of this country."  
 
 
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