[News] Cuba's Alarcon: "The US people have the right to know the truth"

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Havana. August 1, 2005

Alarcón meets with Pastors for Peace
"The U.S. people have the right
to know the truth"
• The case of the Five is "irrefutable proof of the Bush administration’s 
terrorist policy," states the president of the National Assembly

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—

IF the George W. Bush administration continues to favor the terrorist media 
of Miami, "it is because people in the United States outside of Miami don’t 
know it...and they don’t know because the U.S. people are being denied the 
First Amendment of their Constitution!" stated Ricardo Alarcón, president 
of the Cuban Parliament. He denounced the wall of silence surrounding the 
case of the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States – known as the Five 
– for having infiltrated extremist Miami groups linked to the White House.

The Cuban leader was speaking before members of the Pastors for Peace 
US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan and the Venceremos Brigade, who were meeting 
with relatives of the Five in the gardens of the Cuban Institute of 
Friendship with the Peoples in Havana.

"The people of the United States have the right for the First Amendment of 
their Constitution to be respected. They have the right to know the 
truth...They shouldn’t have to raise money to pay $50,000 to a newspaper 
whose slogan is "All the News That’s Fit to Print" in order for it to allow 
some U.S. citizens to say something about the Five," Alarcón commented, 
referring to a paid public advertisement in the New York Times some months 
ago that had the goal of explaining the case of the Cuban prisoners. "And I 
don’t want to criticize the New York Times; after all, at least it 
published the ad!"

The people of the United States have the right for their newspapers not to 
hide information from them, but "for it to be supplied to them," Alarcón 
affirmed, emphasizing that on the other hand, the national television 
networks, "minus one re-broadcast of just seven minutes, paradoxically by 
the FOX network," have "never, ever said one word on this issue."

The case of the Five is "irrefutable proof of the Bush administration’s 
terrorist policy," he stated.

Alarcón emphasized to his interlocutors from the U.S. to what point it is 
necessary for the U.S. government to respect their right to know the truth, 
"because for not knowing the truth, more than 1,700 young people from the 
United States have died in Iraq, and of course, tens of thousands of 
Iraqis," while the occupation forces "have fallen into a predicament from 
which nobody knows how to extract them."

"The administration was able to go in there and remain there thanks to the 
television networks, the main radio stations, the top newspapers and 
magazines, which in a premeditated manner hid and are hiding the basic 
information," the Cuban leader said.

"And the case of the Five shows, in the government’s own words, that Mr. 
Bush has close terrorist friends whom he protects and, in order to protect 
them, he persecuted and convicted those Five compatriots of ours."

POSADA: ARRESTED TO SAVE HIM

Referring to the presence in the U.S. of international terrorist Luis 
Posada Carriles, currently being held by immigration authorities in El 
Paso, Texas, Alarcón commented that the media have made some mention of the 
case, "but they’re talking about it less and less."

Posada appeared in Miami, he noted, "and that ridiculous individual Roger 
Noriega, supposedly now on the way out, spent two months saying that he 
didn’t know if Posada Carriles was there.

"Until they were obliged by international accusations and the provocation 
of Posada himself, who called a press conference to say what everyone 
already knew, that he had been there for two months, that nobody was 
bothering him, that he was walking the streets of Miami greeting his old 
friends, and that he had decided to leave in the same way as he entered."

Then the authorities decided to arrest him. "But to arrest him to save him, 
to avoid his being tried as a terrorist!"

More than two months have gone by since Posada’s arrest, and he is being 
held in a "luxurious cell, with special treatment that nobody else 
imprisoned in El Paso has.

"Ask the Mexicans, ask the illegal immigrants who are charged by the 
thousands every day, to see how many of them have received the treatment 
that Posada continues to receive!"

Noting that another hearing has been set for August 29, Alarcón commented 
that it will be "another step to not bring the Venezuelan application for 
extradition before the courts, which is an obligation of the U.S. 
government," he said.

Posada is a fugitive of Venezuelan justice and was awaiting a decision by a 
Venezuelan court in his trial for the sabotage of a civilian passenger 
plane, Alarcón remarked. "A classic act of terrorism."

Every day since mid-March, what the U.S. government has been doing is 
failing to comply with its obligation to immediately hand over that 
individual so that his trial can continue, the Cuban leader stated. "In 
other words, at this moment, nobody can deny that the U.S. government is 
failing to comply with its obligations and is protecting the most notorious 
terrorist in this hemisphere, preventing him from being subjected to 
justice for the crime of terrorism."

FIVE CUBANS KIDNAPPED SINCE 1998

"In the United States, there are five Cubans who have been kidnapped since 
1998 with the peculiarity that the kidnappers are the U.S. authorities," 
commented Alarcón, recounting the recent conclusions of the UN Working 
Group on Arbitrary Detentions.

The Group established that the imprisonment of the Five is illegal and 
arbitrary, and urged the U.S. government to end that situation as quickly 
as possible.

Explaining that that committee of jurists had duly solicited explanations 
from the U.S. government, Alarcón noted that, in its conclusions, the Group 
was basing itself on "those things that the U.S. government did not deny, 
but affirmed: that the venue of the trial (Miami) was completely 
inappropriate, that the jury was subjected to pressure," and that the Five 
"spent the first 17 months after being arrested in solitary confinement."

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