Hernández along with Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, and René González are currently serving prison terms of between 15 years and a double life sentence after being framed up and convicted in 2001 in a U.S. court. They had been gathering information on the actions of counterrevolutionary groups in Florida that for years have launched violent attacks on Cuba from U.S. soil with the complicity of the U.S. government. They were convicted on false charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, to commit espionage, and to commit murder. An international campaign is being waged to demand the U.S. government free the Cuban Five. The translation from the Spanish is by the Militant.
 

Dear compañeros y compañeros:

Brothers and sisters of Cuba and the world:

This September 12 marks five years since our arrest. It has been five difficult years, far from our homeland and our loved ones. It has been five years marked by the cruelty of those who bear the frustration of having been unable to defeat us, having been unable to get us to renounce our principles and betray the revolution and our people.

Many things have happened since September 1998. But without a doubt it has been the solidarity and support from all of you that deserves to be highlighted and recognized on this date.

Thanks to you, every day there are more people who learn about our case, in an open challenge to the shameful curtain of silence imposed by the same media that calls itself “free.”

Thanks to you, today we are in the general population of our respective prisons, and not in the punishment cells where they had tried to keep us indefinitely.

Thanks to you, there is not a single moment when we feel alone or discouraged, and thanks to you we are certain that one day we will achieve the victory in this battle for truth and justice.

Every day we continue to receive many letters and messages of solidarity—so many that is now impossible to reply to all of them. But we continue to devote a great amount of our attention to these letters because it is the least we can do to reciprocate your unbounded generosity.

We ask you not to be discouraged if our replies to you take a while or sometimes do not arrive, because there is never enough time, after a full day of work, to answer so many letters. Nevertheless, you should know that we read all of your letters with great satisfaction and pride. Each and every message from you brings a dose of optimism and strength into our cells, and for that we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Once again, brothers and sisters, on this September 12 we send you our sincere and eternal gratitude, with the certainty that your support and solidarity are more important and necessary every day. We count on you!

And in the name of Fernando, Ramón, Antonio, René, and our families:

Thank you very much!

Hasta la victoria siempre! [Ever onward until victory]

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

U.S. Penitentiary, Lompoc, California
 
 
Related articles:
Tour in Canada tells truth about Cuban 5  
 
 
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