Vol. 77/No. 34 September 30, 2013
In a message “to the conscience of the world and the North American people,” the Five point out the U.S. government “used cruel conditions of confinement to try to break us and to impede our preparations for a proper defense. Lies dominated the courtroom. Evidence was adulterated, damaged or suppressed.”
Prosecutors tried to intimidate the Five into collaborating with the U.S. government. “But we didn’t plea bargain because the display of brute force does not imply the possession of a moral high ground by the one who unleashes it. We did not plea bargain because the price of lying to satisfy the demands of the prosecutors seemed to us too degrading. … because implicating Cuba — the nation we were protecting — with false accusations that would bolster the U.S. charges against the island would have been an unpardonable act of betrayal to the Cuban people who we love.
“We decided to go to trial,” they said, “a trial that if it had been reported on would have put into doubt not only this case, but the U.S. justice system itself. If the knowledge of what happened in this hall of justice had not been hidden from the people of the United States to whom we never caused, nor intended to cause the slightest harm, it would have been impossible to carry out the Roman circus that this parody of justice became.”
Over the years, knowledge of the fight to free the Five has little by little become more known in the U.S. and garnered support from working people, labor unions and a wide range of organizations and prominent individuals around the world. In Mexico the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity issued a statement Sept. 12 signed by scores of writers and artists and political activists from more than 30 countries calling for the return of the Five to Cuba.
The Cuban Five statement said, “Fifteen years have passed during which the U.S. government and justice system have turned a deaf ear to the demands of U.N. bodies, Amnesty International, Nobel prize winners, parliamentarians and parliaments, personalities and religious and legal institutions.”
Supporters of the fight to free the Five marked the anniversary of their arrest with protest demonstrations, vigils, public meetings and other events to build support for the Five and break through what the Five called “the other blockade, the one imposed on the people of the United States.”
Picket lines demanding their release were held Sept. 12 in New York, Chicago and Montreal. In Washington, D.C., the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 held a vigil in front of the White House. That same day an exhibit of watercolors by Guerrero opened in Minneapolis.
Thousands join march in Havana
In Cuba thousands joined a march in Havana organized by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, and the Committee in Solidarity with the Five. That evening thousands more attended a Havana concert opened by René González in solidarity with the imprisoned revolutionaries. Similar events took place across the island.“The heroic example of a revolutionary people resisting for more than half a century the most powerful empire in history is the main source of nourishment for our spirit of struggle, our decision to resist and our confidence that we will return to our homeland,” Fernando González said in a message sent to the concert in Havana. “Sooner or later the bars that keep us captive will have to open up.”
An article René González wrote was printed that day in the Guardian newspaper, a major daily in London, titled, “Today marks 15 years since ‘Cuban Five’ arrest, another US injustice: Four Cuban patriots languish in US prisons after a phony trial. Every day they spend in jail is a mockery of human decency.”
On Sept. 13 the University of the District of Columbia Law School hosted a forum that drew 200 participants, mostly students. It was sponsored by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five and campus chapters of the Black Law Students Association, Black Men’s Law Society, Latino/a Law Student Association, National Lawyers Guild and the Criminal Justice Society.
Speakers at the forum included actor Danny Glover; attorney Richard Klugh, part of the Five’s legal team; Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund; and Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. Chrisarla Houston, an associate professor at the university, chaired the meeting.
“The case of the Five is a political case,” said Glover, the featured speaker. “They are in jail today because of the more than 50-year-old hostility of the U.S. government toward the Cuban Revolution. It is part of this government’s attempt to punish the Cuban people for their revolution, their sovereignty, their integrity.
“We need to tell [President Barack] Obama to free the Five and end the embargo of Cuba,” he said. “We can and should raise our voices.”
Later that evening more than 70 people participated in an event for the Five sponsored by the Embassy of Venezuela and the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, held at the embassy. Speakers there included Glover; Stephen Kimber, author of What Lies Across the Water, a new book on the Cuban Five; and attorney Jose Pertierra. Pertierra is representing the Venezuelan government in its effort to have Luis Posada Carriles face trial in that country for his role in masterminding the Oct. 6, 1976, bombing of a Cubana airline flight that killed all 73 people on board — the type of murderous attack the Five were in the U.S. to prevent. Venezuelan Charge d’affaires Calixto Ortega welcomed participants.
Kimber has been on a tour sponsored by the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 speaking at meetings in New York; Boston; Columbia, Md.; and Washington, D.C.
The statement by the Five concludes: “We will continue to denounce this injustice that has already lasted 15 years and we will never cede one inch of the moral advantage that has allowed us to resist and to grow as we bear all the weight of the hateful vengeance of the most powerful government on earth.”
Omari Musa in Washington, D.C., contributed to this article.
Related articles:
Minneapolis exhibit draws new support in fight to free Cuban 5
Build int’l fight to free the Cuban 5!
Who are the Cuban 5?
Nelson Mandela: Cuba’s aid to Africa is unparalleled
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