letter of may to Obama.

Mr President Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500

Mr President,

On May 27th 2005, the U.N. working group on arbitrary detentions qualified as arbitrary the detention of the five Cubans Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino and René González, considering their sentence in Miami as unfair. Unfortunately, seven years later, the United States government has still not taken this U.N. declaration into account.

From a legal point of view, in the Cuban Five affair, collateral appeals are being made on account of new elements concerning the legal proceedings. Because after the sentencing, it was found out that unscrupulous newspaper reporters had been paid during the trial to create a hateful climate towards the Cubans so as to influence the jury members.

Gerardo Hernández’s case is the most complex, as he was sentenced to life for “conspiracy of attempted murder” for the death of four pilots of the Hermanos al Rescate organization on February 24th 1996, in spite of the prosecution’s demand to take this accusation out of his case file, recognizing that it was impossible to prove it.
Cuban radar indicated that the two small aircraft shot down, were flying over Cuban territorial waters, which contradicted the US government statement that those aircraft were in international airspace.

Without being a specialist in the field of aviation, it seems to me that this object of contention could by easily cleared up by consulting the satellite photos that your government has at its disposal. This, by the way, is what Colonel George E. Buchner, who the Prosecution presented as an expert in the matter, thinks.

Everything that happens all over the world, particularly in this area, is recorded by your satellites. The only thing is that you refuse to furnish these satellite images, in spite of repeated demands by Gerardo’s lawyers as well as the Cuban government.

Even worse, the exact place where those two planes went down, was given by Bjorn Johansen, the captain of the ship “Majesty of the Seas”, one of the prosecution’s witnesses. This location, based on visual observation, not on electronically recorded latitude and longitude, is far from being a well-founded fact! Bjorn Johansen was working at the time for the shipping company “Caribbean Cruises”, a firm helping to finance the FNCA (Cuban American National Foundation), an organization whose goal is to overthrow the Cuban government. His second-in-command on the ship was Peter G. Whelpton, a member of the FNCA and, what’s more, the director of the Blue Ribbon Foundation that was also opposed to the Cuban government.

You must admit, Mr. President, that under these conditions one can only take into doubt the declarations made by such a witness for the prosecution…

In the meantime, Gerardo Hernández, who had nothing to do with those planes being shot down, is still locked up in a high security prison, where living conditions are particularly harsh. He is not even allowed to have his wife, who your administration refuses an entrée visa into the United States, visit him, just as it also refuses one for Olga Salanueva, René González’s wife.

By refusing a fair trial outside of Miami, the United States government has deliberately chosen to wreck the lives of these five men who remain unsullied and praiseworthy. The Cuban Five are free in their hearts even if, physically, they’re not free. Their behavior commands admiration of everyone, all over the world.

You have, Mr President, the means for freeing these five courageous patriots. More the time passes and more your attitude is incomprehensible, seeming all the more petty politicking.

We are waiting for you, Mr President, to make a move worthy of the Nobel Prize that you represent. Hoping that, as soon as possible, you will now do what must be done to finally render freedom to these men who never should have been denied it, please receive, Mr President, the expression of my most sincere humanistic sentiments.

Jacqueline Roussie
France

Translated by William Peterson

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.