Vol. 79/No. 31      September 7, 2015

Freedom for the Five, Guerrero said, was also a victory for the Cuban Revolution, for “the steadfastness of our people, who refused to surrender an inch in our principles,” and for “the historic leadership of the revolution,” led by Fidel Castro.

The message was the highlight of the meeting, and everyone received a copy of it in English or Spanish.

Sixteen watercolors painted by Guerrero just months before his release, titled “Absolved by Solidarity,” have been exhibited since July at a gallery at this housing project in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. Three paintings from an earlier series, “I Will Die the Way I’ve Lived,” are also on display. The exhibit is up until Sept. 11; the gallery is open Wednesday-Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.

The paintings portray the 17-month pretrial incarceration of the Five in the hole and their seven-month frame-up trial in Miami. Two catalogs of the watercolors and other books on the Cuban Five published by Pathfinder Press were available at the event.

The five Cuban revolutionaries were arrested in 1998 by federal police and imprisoned, framed up and convicted on multiple counts, including conspiracy to commit espionage and murder. Three were initially sentenced to life without parole. In reality, they were keeping tabs on paramilitary groups in Florida that carried out violent attacks on the Cuban Revolution and its supporters.

Last December the 16-year-long international campaign to win the freedom of the Five succeeded when Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino were released from federal prison and returned to Cuba. René González and Fernando González had been released previously after serving their entire sentences.

Jim Furlong, Hudson Guild Director of Arts, opened the program, which was chaired by Martín Koppel, editor of the Spanish-language text of the catalogs. Koppel recognized Santiago Castillo, counsellor, and Armando Fernández, second secretary at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations, who were in the audience. Iris Colón, a leader of 34 Women NYC for Oscar spoke about the fight to free Puerto Rican independence leader Oscar López, who has served more than 34 years in U.S. prisons.

Mary-Alice Waters, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party, president of Pathfinder Press and editor of the books of Guerrero’s paintings, was the final speaker. She had just returned from Cuba where she and Róger Calero had interviewed the Cuban Five on their experiences as part of the working class in the U.S., both as immigrant workers before they were arrested and while they were in prison. Waters and Calero brought the special message from Guerrero back with them.

The more than 60 people at the meeting included residents from the apartment complex, long-time supporters of the Cuban Revolution, participants in the fight against police brutality, activists in the Puerto Rican independence struggle and members of the Hudson Guild. A reception at the center’s outdoor patio allowed time for plenty of informal discussion.

In his welcoming remarks, Furlong said, “From the beginning the arts have been a part of the mission of the Hudson Guild, which opened its doors in 1895 to offer cradle-to-grave services to those in the community.”

He explained that Guerrero’s “poetic and beautifully wrought artwork” and the fight of the Cuban Five came to his attention last year when a supporter of the Militant newspaper, taking the paper door to door at the apartment complex, knocked on the door of Miriam Green. Green grew up there and taught at the Hudson Guild children’s program for 40 years. She saw the book of Guerrero’s paintings and suggested contacting the center about an exhibit. Furlong introduced Green from the audience.

“The paintings displayed here tell a compelling story,” Furlong said. “And it’s a story with a happy ending,” he concluded to laughter and applause.

Victory for the Cuban people

“It has increased interest in the Five. Who are these men who spent so many years in U.S. prisons and returned with their heads high? These paintings are a good place to start. They show the dignity, humanity, creativity and sense of humor of the Five.”

The Cuban Five are fighting to free Puerto Rican leader Oscar López, Koppel said in introducing Iris Colón.

“They charged Oscar with conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government in Puerto Rico and accuse him of being a terrorist,” Colón said. “But Oscar is in prison for only one reason — fighting for the independence of his country.”

“When the Cuban Five were released,” Colón said, “I felt unadulterated joy, as if Oscar had been freed.” She noted that he had shared a cell for four years at Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana with Fernando González.

In the fight for independence and sovereignty, she said, the peoples of Cuba and Puerto Rico “have had a pact of solidarity for hundreds of years, ever since Spain was the colonizer.” In response to a question, she said there has been growing receptivity the past year to the fight to free López, including a contingent in New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade in June that got substantial media coverage.

“With the economic crisis on the island,” Colón said, “more people are realizing that being a U.S. colony is not good for Puerto Rico. Supporters of statehood and of the status quo, as well as the independence movement, are all saying, ‘We need Oscar home!’”

After the meeting, Green, who is Puerto Rican, remarked that before the program, “I never really thought about the connections between the Cuban Revolution and Puerto Rico. In fact, earlier this year I ran into one of the demonstrations by the 34 Women for Oscar López, but I didn’t really know what it was about.”

Colón invited participants to join the next protest in Queens Aug. 30. (see calendar on p. 4).

U.S. efforts to crush revolution failed

“It is part of the recognition by the U.S. government that their efforts over 55 years to isolate and crush the Cuban people and their revolution through an economic war have failed,” she said. “As President Barack Obama explained last Dec. 17, however, when he announced the decision to move toward re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, the U.S. government’s objectives haven’t changed.”

“They will never forget and will never forgive the Cuban people for making a socialist revolution on their doorstep. They will keep trying to undermine and destroy it.”

Since their release from prison, the Five have not only spoken widely throughout Cuba. They have traveled worldwide to thank those who joined in the campaign for their freedom: to Venezuela, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Japan — and one will soon be on his way to Vietnam.

The Five feel enormous gratitude for people around the world who, like those at the meeting, worked to win their release, Waters said. They point out that books such as those available at the exhibit and newspapers like the Militant that told the truth about their case helped protect them during the years they were incarcerated — they became known to fellow prisoners throughout the federal system.

“The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world,” Waters said. “And the Cuban Five are in a unique position to explain the character and workings of ‘justice’ under capitalism.”

“They understand and clearly explain the illusion of the ‘American Dream,’ an illusion that exists not only in the United States but in Cuba as well,” she said. “That’s why the Five have been speaking especially to young people in Cuba who’ve never lived under capitalism. They talk with Cuban youth and workers about the myriad forms of exploitation and oppression facing working people in the U.S. and around the world, conditions that were changed forever by the Cuban Revolution.”

“The U.S. prison system is designed for retribution and punishment,” Waters said. “But you don’t often hear about the solidarity among the prisoners themselves. Each of the Five treated fellow prisoners with respect, and they were treated with respect in return.

“It’s this solidarity that comes through in the paintings we see here,” Waters said.

Several participants commented on that aspect of the watercolors after the meeting. Norma Abiles said how moved she was by the painting of “The Air Vent,” which pictures one of the ways the Five communicated between their cells. “I got a new insight into prisoners organizing solidarity with each other,” said Abiles, who volunteers with the Chelsea Organization on Housing. She has lived in the neighborhood her whole life and has been active in defending the Cuban Revolution since visiting Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade in 1970.

Waters also pointed to some of the battles working people in the U.S. are waging today: by fast-food workers for a $15 minimum wage and a union; by families of those killed by the police and the Black Lives Matter protests; and others.

Among those at the meeting was Davon Blank, who attended the Movement for Black Lives Convening conference in Cleveland in July. Now 22, he first got involved in the fight against New York City’s “stop-and-frisk” laws as a high school student.

“I really loved the exhibit,” he said. “The fact that Antonio Guerrero and the others were able to use their revolutionary mindset to create artwork and poetry is part of how they resisted. It’s very powerful.”

In Guerrero’s videotaped message to the meeting, he assured participants that “our hearts are full of energy to continue taking on new battles. Cuba faces huge challenges in a world we know is complex. We still have the unjust embargo that has been imposed against Cuba, and the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo.

“We know the road is not easy,” Guerrero said, “but we know our friends, wherever they are, will continue waging these battles alongside Cuba.”  
 
 
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