letter of october to Obama.

Mr President Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500

Mr President,

Last September 12th was the fourteenth anniversary of the arrests of the five Cubans - Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González. Added to their punishment is the fact that Gerardo and René are not allowed to have their wives visit them, your administration systematically refusing an entry visa into the U.S., despite the protests of humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International.

The United States should have considerations towards the Cuban agents who fought against terrorism. For example, it could remember when, during the summer of 1984, it was thanks to their work that President Ronald Reagan escaped an assassination attempt during his re-election campaign. Immediately after the Cuban government learned that an extreme right-wing group from North Carolina was preparing an attack against the President, it informed U.S. authorities through Robert C. Muller, the head of security for the U.S. at the United Nations.

In 1998, when the Cuban Five found out that attacks were being prepared targeting planes, with the same loyalty as in 1984, Cuban authorities handed over to an F.B.I. delegation an extremely complete dossier permitting the arrest of the plotters. As incredible as it may seem, two months later, it was the Cuban agents that were arrested, and then submitted to a treatment of the utmost odiousness.
After they were arrested, the Cuban Five were held for 17 months in solitary confinement in Miami Prison, which by the way is against the law in your country. A court trial with the jury held under an atmosphere of hate and fear condemned, in 2001, the Cuban Five to extremely heavy sentences, going as far as two life sentences plus fifteen years for Gerardo Hernández. This hateful atmosphere was kept up by reporters paid by the Florida Federal government, as we found out in 2006.

If there were any justice in your country, not only should the Cuban Five not be imprisoned, but in the words of the former ex-US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, they would have to be honoured as « heroes of humanity ».

Last 17th September, during the Washington-Havana video conference, in reply to the question about the attitude that he would have adopted if the corruption of journalists had taken place when he was U.S. Attorney General, Clark asserted that if he were Attorney General today, he would do what anyone in that office should do: overturn the case, as an ethical and legal responsibility.

Should do, of course! But remember, Mr President, on August 9th 2005, three Atlanta Appeals Court judges had quashed the Cuban Five’s sentences and demanded a new trial, a fair one this time, outside of Miami. A unique case in the judicial history of the United States, Alberto Gonzalez, George Bush’s Attorney General, lodged an appeal to these judge’s decision…

Why such relentlessness against the Cuban Five? Could it be terrorists like Posada Carriles blackmailing, threatening to uncover despicable acts carried out by ex-leaders of your country if the Cuban Five were liberated? One day the truth will come out.

In the meantime these Cubans are still in prison or out on parole. At this moment, several collateral demands for appeals are being lodged. Will Gerardo Hernández finally be able to set out all the irregularities during his trial as he demanded two months ago? The facts are nevertheless very grave. Buying off journalists is not a minor offence! To cap it all off, honest reporters who denounced this outrage to their profession received threats or were compelled to move to protect their family. This is what happened in particular to the Miami Herald journalist, Oscar Corral.

You who are a lawyer should show yourself to be sensitive that justice is done to these courageous men who have been going through the worst sufferings for more than fourteen years now. All this suffering can never be totally wiped away, and the pain that Gerardo and Fernando and their wives suffer by not being able to have children is irreversible.

Mr President, election time is coming up in your country, and you do not have the certainty of being re-elected. If at least, during the run-up to the election, you consented to let free the Cuban Five, your country would come out of this a greater country. You would go down in history as the President who was able to initiate new relationships between Cuba and the United States, which the great majority of the habitants of both countries are wishing for.

Hoping for such an action on your part, 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, Donald, Rick Scott, and to Charles Rivkin, United States Ambassador in France.