Letter of march to Obama.

Mr President Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500

Mr President,

Fifty years ago, February 3rd 1962, J.F. Kennedy officially established the blockade against Cuba. This was a criminal measure, because the large Caribbean island of Cuba depended largely on the United States both for its exportations and for its importations.
Making Cuba bow to the will of the U.S. had been one of President Eisenhower’s electoral campaign stakes, while R. Nixon and J.F. Kennedy were trying to outdo each other in cleverness in order to succeed him. For the United States, it was about “liquidating the center of revolutionary infection that threatened to metastasize in the Latin-American corps”.

Eisenhower had well prepared the ground for the anti-Castroist struggle. Thirteen days after the CIA’s terrorist attack on the French ship “La Coubre”, which had killed around a hundred people in the port of Havana, on March 13th 1960, he gave his written assent to opening a training camp for anti-Castroists. A few months before he left the White House, in April 1960, his government considered to“reduce incomes, therefore to provoke famine, despair and destabilize the government”. In July he went into action, decreeing an embargo on Cuban petroleum and sugar products, and in October, he imposed a partial embargo prohibiting all U.S. exportation towards Cuba with the exception of medicines and non-subsidized alimentary products.

We all know what happened next, and the Cuban people have been suffering from this for a half a century.

Honestly, Mr. President, we were hoping for a policy on your part that made a break with that of your predecessors. But nothing of the sort happened; every year you voted for the continuation of the blockade against Cuba, without giving a single thought for the fact that almost every country in the world is in opposition. You have tried to choke off Cuba using every means at your disposal, without even respecting international law. The Geneva Convention prohibits an embargo on medical supplies, even in times of war, but your country refuses to sell medicine to Cuba.

The hostility of the United States towards Cuba has been continuing for more than fifty years. This aggressive policy has caused enormous harm for the Cuban people. The Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino and René González, have helped their country to foil Machiavellian projects cooked up by the highest authorities of your country. You have not, up until now, lifted your little finger to give these Cuban patriots back their freedom. Their condemnation is a monstrosity of total cynicism.

By the way, this obsession of the United States government to destroy the Cuban regime explains why, when the US press refers to the Cuban Five, it writes, every time, “the five Cuban spies”, a formula that reveals the complicity between terrorist organizations and the US government.

This duplicity is denounced in every defense speech pronounced by the Cuban Five since their verdicts were announced, in 2001.

Here is an extract of Antonio Guerrero’s defense speech:« … Cuba has never placed the security of the United States in jeopardy nor committed any act of aggression or terrorism against it. It deeply loves peace and quiet and wants the best relations between our two countries. It has shown that it admires and respects the American people.
"Cuba is not a military threat to the United States," Admiral Carroll said in this courtroom.
General Atkinson testified that Cuba presents "zero" military threat to the United States.
It is my country’s unquestionable right –like that of any other— to defend itself against those who try to harm its people.
The job of putting a stop to these terrorist acts has been complex and difficult because the terrorists have enjoyed the complicity or lax tolerance of the authorities.
My country has done everything possible to warn the US government of the danger of these acts and to do so it has used official, unofficial and public channels. However, such cooperation has never been reciprocated.
In the nineties, fired up by the demise of the socialist camp, terrorist groups intensified their activities against Cuba. It was, they felt, the long dreamed hour for stirring up the final chaos, for terrorizing the people, destabilizing the economy, damaging the tourist industry, building up a crisis and dealing the death blow to the Cuban Revolution.
What could Cuba do to defend itself and be forewarned of the terrorist plans against it? What could it do to avoid a greater conflict? What options did it have to safeguard its sovereignty and the safety of its children?
One way to prevent these brutal and bloody acts, to prevent the suffering becoming worse because of more deaths was to move quietly.
There was no alternative but to rely on men who –out of love for a just cause, out of love for their country and their people, out of love for peace and life– were prepared to voluntarily agree to carry out this honorable duty against terrorism, that is, to give advanced warning of the danger of attack.… »

Mr. President Obama, the attitude of the United States towards Cuba must change. The time has come to turn, once and for all, this page of US history – a page that has nothing to be proud of… Cuba is a sovereign country, whether certain people who are nostalgic for pre-revolutionary times like it or not.

An act of humanitarian reciprocity is possible in order to begin new relations between your two countries. All you would have to do for this is to send these five Cubans back to their country in exchange for the liberation of Alan Gross. The Cuban Five have already paid a heavy price, what with more than 13 years in prison. As for Alan Gross, condemned to 15 years for espionage, he has been imprisoned for two years now in Cuba.

A gesture such as this, Mr. President, would honor your country, a country that has already so flouted Cuba’s sovereignty.

Please receive, Mr. President, the expression of my most sincere humanistic sentiments.

Jacqueline Roussie

Copies sent to: Mrs. Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Kathryn Ruemmler, Janet Napolitano; to Mr. Harry Reid, Eric Holder, John F. Kerry, Pete Rouse, Rick Scott and Charles Rivkin, United States Ambassador in France.

Translated by William Peterson

PS : I have just learnt that Roberto Gonzalez, René’s brother is gravely ill. Please, Mr. President, let René visit Roberto.