letter of november to Obama.

Mr President Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500

Mr President,

On September 25th, forty-four democrat and republican senators wrote to President Raul Castro asking him to liberate their fellow citizen Alan Gross. This man is serving a fifteen-year sentence in a Havana prison for “acts against the integrity and the independence of the nation”. In their letter, the senators noted that his prison sentence “is a major obstacle to improving relations”.

As for the Cuban authorities, they have always desired better relations with the United States. They have declared several times that they are ready to liberate Alan Gross on the condition that, on your side, you do what is required to liberate the five Cubans, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González. These five patriots have been deprived of their liberty for more than fourteen years.

The solution appears to be easily achieved, probably too easy…

In point of fact, those forty-four senators wrote to the wrong address. It was to you, Mr President that they should have written, because it is you who is responsible for the obstruction.

Your government greatly augmented the funds for the USAID Agency, intended to “change the regime” in Cuba, as is specified in a document dated June 28th that “encourages the continuation of Alan Gross’ works, all the while excluding any kind of responsibility for what could happen to any persons on mission in Cuba.”

As a matter of fact, Alan Gross was working on behalf of USAID when he was arrested in 2009, in possession of a huge assortment of computer-assisted communications material. According to information coming from the United States, this man might be seriously ill. All the more reason to promptly take it upon yourself and accept this humanitarian exchange.

As for the Cuban Five, they were arrested in 1998. They had not committed a single act prejudicial to your government, unless one considers that the terrorist attacks against Cuba were carried out under your administration’s prerogative. It is true that the C.I.A., at the least, encouraged these attacks…

Speaking of the Cuban Five, the media in your country characteristically uses the term “the Cuban spies” every time, whereas the Cubans were never convicted of espionage. To attribute to the accused the intention to commit a crime is a handy way to convict innocents!

For Gerardo Hernández, it’s the worst yet! Without the slightest proof, he was convicted of “conspiracy to commit murder” for the dramatic incident in 1996 concerning the “brothers to the rescue ” organization’s small planes. This charge, a blatant lie, was preposterously added onto Gerardo’s case file more than two years after the act. It was so crazy that the prosecution, at the last moment, demanded in the end to have it removed, considering it impossible to be proved. Even so, the Miami judge maintained this charge, confirmed in record time by jurors well-conditioned by corrupted reporters.

Gerardo not only had nothing to do with this dramatic incident, which you know perfectly well, Mr President, but moreover, the small planes shot down after many warnings by the Cuban government, were shot down in Cuban airspace. The clearest proof of this is the categorical refuse on the part of your government to show the satellite photos of this incident. Neither the International Civil Aviation Organization nor the U.N. Security Council nor the Miami and Atlanta courts are allowed access to these photos!

Seeing the complete impunity the Miami terrorists are benefiting from, and the relentlessness of your country’s successive governments towards the Cuban Five, one wonders about the responsibility in unexplained crimes, in certain assassinations of high-placed people, of key personalities in your country…

At the moment when you will be either starting a new mandate as president, or bringing an end to your presidential career, don’t you think that the time has come to see Alan Gross and the five Cubans go back to their respective homes and families? One signature on your part would be enough for the United States and Cuba to no longer have major obstacles in order to begin better bilateral relations.
Such a gesture on your part would be in harmony with the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to you.

Hoping for such an action on your part, please receive, Mr. President, the expression of my most sincere humanistic sentiments.

Jacqueline Roussie

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, Donald, Rick Scott, and to Charles Rivkin, United States Ambassador in France.