Action Alert for the Cuban Five

Action Alert By Pat Fry

Date: Sunday, March 7, 2004

Special to Portside

After months of fundraising efforts by the National
Committee to Free the Cuban Five, a full page ad in
support of five Cuban nationals who were wrongly
convicted and serving life sentences appeared in last
Wednesday’s issue of the New York Times. The ad broke
the news media silence on the case one week before a
team of defense lawyers including the famed Leonard
Weinglass present arguments before a Court of Appeals
in Miami March 10th.

The ad urges the public to petition the Bush
administration to demand freedom for Gerardo Hernandez,
Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, and
Fernando Gonzalez. The full text of the ad follows
below and can be downloaded as it appeared in the NYT
at the web site: www.freethefive.org

At a rally to free the Cuban 5 held in New York City on
Friday at SEIU Local 1199 , it was noted before the
packed audience of several hundred that the web site
which was listed on the ad had more than 40,000 hits in
the two days since the ad was published. In addition,
numerous news organizations also contacted the
committee for information on the case.

The ad begins asking the public to join with Alice
Walker, Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark, Cynthia McKinney,
Dolores Huerta, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Rigoberta
Menchu, the National Lawyers Guild, the International
Association of Democratic Lawyers, and many others in
"this critical cause for justice."

The main text of the ad reads:

"For over 40 years, Washington has tolerated the
existence of a terrorist network in Miami, made up of
extremist, right-wing Cuban-Americans. These
Miami-based terrorist organizations operate with
impunity. Anti-Cuba terrorism has caused the deaths of
almost 3,500 Cubans in a low-intensity warfare against
the island, a war unknown to most Americans outside of
Florida.

"Yet, terrorists like Orlando Bosch - who walks the
streets of Miami a free man - are protected by U.S.
officials all the way up to the White House: ’....now the
Bush Administration coddles one of the hemisphere’s
most notorious terrorists (Orlando Bosch). And for what
reason? The only one evident is currying favor in south
Florida.’ (New York Times, July 20, 1990)

"After decades of protests to the U.S. government,
which did nothing, Cuba dispatched a group of men to
Miami to observe, monitor, and report on the workings
of the terrorist network. The objective: To protect
innocent lives in Cuba AND the United States.

"The men, now known as the Cuban Five, collected
evidence of the terrorists’ plots, which was then
presented to the FBI. On June 17, 1998, a historic
meeting was held in Havana. There, Cuban officials
implored U.S. law enforcement officials to act on
evidence presented, in order to end the cycle of
terror.

"Instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI rounded
up the Cuban Five, the very people who were warning
about the terrorist plans. Gerardo Hernandez, Rene
Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, and
Fernando Gonzalez were arrested on September 12, 1998,
and placed in solitary confinement for 17 months.

"They were charged with failure to disclose themselves
as foreign agents, to several counts of conspiracy. The
Cuban Five were denied the right to an unbiased jury
trial, after the judge turned down their motions for a
change of venue out of Miami.

"The jury was intimidated, witnesses were bullied by
the prosecution, and defense lawyers were denied access
to evidence on the spurious grounds that the
information was classified. Even high-ranking officials
of the FBI and the U.S. Southern Command testified that
the Five did nothing to compromise the national
security of the United States. After a seven-month
trial, generating 14,000 transcript pages to consider,
the Miami jury convicted on all counts without asking
one question of the court in deliberations.

"The swift verdict was not the result of a careful
analysis of the facts presented at trial. Rather, the
convictions were inevitable in a trial held in Miami -
the only city in the U.S. so deeply saturated with
anti-Cuba prejudice. The Cuban Five were sentenced to
four life terms and 75 years collectively."

The ad has provoked strong reaction in the anti-Cuba
Miami community. On Friday, two days after it appeared,
a Spanish language talk radio program in Miami featured
guest panelists who in unison attacked the New York
Times as "shameful" for publishing the ad, and labeled
as communists the signers of the ad.

Today, the Sunday edition of the Miami Herald carried
an op ed article attacking the New York Times ad and
lamenting the fact that $10,000 of the $50,000 for the
ad was raised in Miami.

On Wednesday, March 10, lawyers for the Cuban Five will
submit a 700-page brief to argue the appeal. "The case
is very good on the facts," said Michael Steven Smith,
one of the defense lawyers who spoke at the Friday
night rally in New York. He cautioned however, that one
of the three judges who will hear the appeal is a
former member of the U.S. Army special forces.

The Cuban Five campaign has become a cause celibre
throughout the world with 210 Free the Five committees
established in other countries, and 25 committees in
the U.S. Portsiders are urged to call and petition the
White House to protest the convictions of the Cuban
Five.