The five revolutionaries were in the United States on an internationalist mission to defend the sovereignty of their country and the Cuban Revolution. They were gathering information on the activities of counterrevolutionary groups in Florida that have a history of launching violent attacks on Cuba from U.S. soil. The groups have been able to operate with impunity from Florida, often with the assistance of, training by, and funding from the U.S. government.

Unable to prove any illegal acts by the five, the federal government pushed through convictions on a series of conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, to commit espionage, and to commit murder. The five are René González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González.

An international campaign is being waged by various organizations to explain the truth about the cases of the five and to demand they be released from prison. Extensive information on this fight can be found at themilitant.com.

The Militant is running short biographical sketches of each of the five. Following is the biography of René González, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Also pictured is Gerardo Hernández, whose biography was featured in last week’s issue.
 

René González Sehwerert was born in Chicago on Aug. 13, 1956. His father, Cándido René González, had been contracted as a professional baseball player in the United States, but never got to play in a U.S. stadium. "We had some rough times, very rough," he recently recalled. His father and mother Irma had opposed the Batista dictatorship and joined the July 26 Movement in 1957. Following the mobilization of workers and peasants in Cuba to defeat the 1961 U.S.-backed mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs, the González family decided to return to Cuba.

René González attended school in Cuba and wanted to become a pilot since his youth. Due to his decisions to respond to revolutionary developments at home and abroad, he had to postpone his life aspiration several times.

The first time was as a cadre of the Union of Young Communists. González volunteered to go to the countryside to be part of a teaching contingent. Soon after he was called for military service, something he enrolled in voluntarily given his U.S. citizenship.

After completing military service with high grades as a tank driver, González was released to pursue his goal to attend flight school and become a certified pilot. But again world events intervened. On his way to flight school, González, upon learning that his tank unit was on its way to join the Cuba internationalist mission fighting in Angola against an invasion by the racist South African army, decided to rejoin his comrades.

The Cuban revolutionary fighter finally completed his training as a pilot after his return from Angola and worked for some time as a flight instructor.

Already a longtime member of the Union of Young Communists, he was taken into membership in the Cuban Communist Party in 1990. He soon accepted an assignment to go to the United States for his next mission in defense of the revolution. As was the case with the four other Cuban revolutionaries, no one in González’s family knew why he moved to the United States. His brother Roberto says he thought René had died when his plane never came back, because he couldn’t believed he had left for the United States.

In his statement at his sentencing hearing on Dec. 14, 2001, González explained the reasons the five were in Florida. "This whole issue of Cuban agents has a very simple solution: Leave Cuba alone. Do your job. Respect the sovereignty of the Cuban people," he said. "I would gladly say good-bye to every last spy who returns to the island. We have better things to do there, all of them a lot more constructive than watching the criminals who freely walk the streets of Miami."
 
 
Related articles:
Read about Gerardo Hernández  
 
 
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