Vol. 71/No. 15      April 16, 2007

Gerardo Hernández, René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González have been locked up in U.S. federal penitentiaries for more than eight years. They have been kept in solitary confinement on two occasions, had correspondence and literature not delivered to them, and been denied regular visits and normal telephone contact with others. Two of the five have been prevented from seeing their loved ones, as Washington has repeatedly denied visas to their wives and children.

The Young Socialists have been among those in the United States campaigning for improved conditions for the Five and for their release. From organizing campus meetings to spreading the word on the case at other political activities, YSers and others have shown the potential to win a broader hearing for the campaign. Workers, youth, and others familiar with the brutality of capitalist “justice” can be won to demanding improved prison conditions, including allowing their relatives to visit them, and freedom for the five.

The Cuban Five are products of the Cuban Revolution. Their real crime is defending that socialist revolution and their country’s sovereignty. Their selflessness comes from what working people in Cuba accomplished: overthrowing capitalism and, along with it, its dog-eat-dog morality. Being consistent revolutionaries—from their internationalist missions in Africa years before their frame-up to their recent efforts from behind prison walls to extend solidarity to embattled workers in the United States—is the norm in a society where working people have political power and have set out to build a world based on human solidarity.

Explaining who the five are, and why Washington has gone after them with such ire, can lead to an understanding of how working people in Cuba transformed society. Through the campaign for their release, many partisans of the case will be attracted to learning the truth about the Cuban Revolution and become active in its defense. And among them, many can be won to join a revolutionary movement in the United States and other countries seeking to emulate the example Cuba’s workers and peasants set in 1959.

The campaign to win freedom for the five doesn’t end with the April 29-30 international youth conference in Havana. That event will allow young people from around the world involved in this effort to exchange experiences and prepare for the next stage of the struggle. Film showings, house meetings, campus and other events, and broad distribution of literature on the case needs to continue well after the culmination of the international youth campaign at the end of this month.

Let’s spread the efforts to demand: Let their loved ones visit the five men in prison! Free the Cuban 5!
 
 
Related articles:
Young Socialists campaign for freedom for Cuban 5
The Cuban 5: revolutionaries framed up by Washington
The case for fighting to win their freedom  
 
 
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