Vol. 74/No. 9      March 8, 2010

Together with Gerardo Hernández, René González, Fernando González, and Ramón Labañino, Guerrero was arrested in 1998 in Miami, where the five were monitoring the activities of right-wing Cuban exiles who have launched armed attacks on Cuba, with Washington’s blessing. They were convicted on trumped-up charges that included “conspiracy to commit espionage” and, in the case of Hernández, “conspiracy to commit murder.”

In June 2008 a federal appeals court ruled that the sentence of life plus 10 years for Guerrero was excessive, as were the sentences for two of the other five. All three had their sentences reduced, in Guerrero’s case to 21 years and 10 months.

The Louisville exhibit of Guerrero’s paintings and drawings, titled “From My Altitude,” was located in the University of Louisville library in a well-traveled area, said Sonja DeVries, one of the exhibit’s organizers. Some 40 people attended the wrap-up program. “They included a young Cuban woman who had left the island 10 years ago,” said DeVries in a phone interview. “This was her first Cuba event in the United States.”

The Latin American Studies department, Ekstrom Library Exhibits and Programs Committee, and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the university sponsored the event. Other sponsors included the Henry Wallace Brigade and the Kentucky Interfaith Taskforce on Latin America and the Caribbean.

With his reduced sentence, Guerrero now has the possibility of parole in about seven years. Since 2002 he has been incarcerated at the maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, where inmates are on lockdown an estimated 30 percent of the time. He wrote in 2007 about how he studied art in jail to “occupy my time, far from the climate of tension and violence” that dominates the prison.

He went to a class given by another inmate on pencil drawing, and later learned pastels and watercolors from other inmates. When he asked to be moved into the cell of the drawing teacher, which had a vacancy, Guerrero said the guard “was surprised because that prisoner was Black.” Guerrero explained it’s rare in the prison “that prisoners of different races or groups (gangs) live together.”

“What is most important is that I have overcome imprisonment with a healthy and useful activity like plastic arts,” Guerrero wrote. “Each work expresses not only my human essence but that of the Five, united as we are by unbreakable principles.”

The exhibit of Guerrero’s artwork now travels to Eugene, Oregon, where it will be on display at the Fenorio Gallery March 5-31. As part of the activities there, Guerrero’s attorney Leonard Weinglass will speak. The exhibit will travel to other cities afterward, including New York in September.

Go to freethefive.org/artshow.htm to view some of Guerrero’s paintings and drawings.
 
 
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