[Ppnews] On the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles

[Political Prisoner News]

2 Articles follow!


Alpha 66 present at Posada hearing
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/abril/juev5/15audiencia-i.html

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD ­Granma International staff writer­

BEFORE some 30 of his supporters representing 
various groups preaching the use of terror 
against Cuba, Luis Posada Carriles – still not 
accused of terrorism, in violation of a number of 
international conventions – offered a property 
valued at $2.5 million as guarantee for his bail application.

According to news agency reports, the hearing 
before Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, 
took place in the presence of at least 30 
representatives of Cuban exile organizations in California and Miami.

The organizations identified included the Bay of 
Pigs Veterans Association (Brigade 2506) headed 
by assassin and CIA agent Félix Ismael Rodríguez 
Mendigutía; the Independent and Democratic Cuba 
of drug trafficker Hubert Matos; and the 
so-called Cuban Political Prisoners Council, of 
the notorious terrorist Reinaldo Aquit.

But among the individuals in the courtroom, 
without Judge Cardone being aware of it and 
unmentioned by the agencies, was Ernesto Díaz 
Rodríguez, chief of the Alpha 66 terrorist group. 
Alpha 66 has a history of acts of terrorism 
against Cuba spanning more than 40 years. Díaz 
Rodríguez subsequently commented publicly on the 
hearing during a Miami radio program along with 
Mafia lawyer Arturo Hernández Hernández, Posada’s defense attorney.

During the hearing, Hernández emphasized that 
Posada Carriles can count upon "important 
sympathizers in the Cuban exile community in 
Miami" who have signed petitions for him, without 
commenting on the presence of notorious 
terrorists in the campaign organized for those purposes.

Among other signatures, the "petition" mentioned 
by Hernández bears that of Orlando Bosch, 
terrorist accomplice in the sabotage of a Cubana 
passenger plane in 1976, which killed 73 people; 
Rodolfo Frómeta, capo of the terrorist Comando 
F-4 group; and various other individuals identified with the Alpha 66 group.

ELDERLY INVALID SCRIPT

Trying to win the court’s sympathy, Hernández did 
not hesitate to fall back on the script already 
used in Panama by narco-lawyer Rogelio Cruz, 
making out that Posada is suffering from a whole 
series of illnesses ranging from cancer to 
diabetes, and including arterial hypertension and arthritis.

Posada is an elderly and sick person who is not 
threatening anyone’s tranquility, the lawyer 
stated, without mentioning that when the criminal 
was released from the El Renacer prison in 
Panama, the "elderly invalid" was capable of 
disappearing for months in Honduras, using a 
stolen passport and taking advantage of the aid 
of his Central American network of assorted notorious criminals.

Describing the conditions in Otero County Jail in 
New Mexico, where Posada is being held, Hernández 
gave details recalling how Bush’s prisons are 
using methods observed in the Guantánamo interrogation camp.

There, he affirmed, it is impossible to sleep, 
because they keep the lights burning 24 hours a 
day, and do not provide adequate medical services.

On April 17, 2005, warning that Posada Carriles 
could be "disappeared" in the United States, 
President Fidel Castro commented: "In order that 
they don’t kill him now, don’t poison him, don’t 
say that he died of a heart attack or a brain 
hemorrhage, we are prepared to send doctors to 
look after him, so that he tells what he knows and goes on trial."

FALSE PASSPORTS FACILITATED BY THE UNITED STATES

District Attorney Paul Ahern stated that there 
was no guarantee that Posada would remain under 
house arrest, given that he escaped from a 
Venezuelan jail in 1985 after being charged with 
the attack on the Cuban aircraft and traveled on 
false passports on a number of occasions.

With surprising frankness, Hernández responded 
that those passports were facilitated by the U.S. 
government, which was aware of his existence at 
least when Posada Carriles was a CIA informer.

Nobody denied that assertion.

One of the terrorist’s lawyers, Matthew L. 
Archambeault, argued on another occasion that 
Posada "knows a lot" and that if he talked, it 
could be damaging to the FBI, the CIA and the 
government in general. Hernández’ reference seems 
to be a similar attempt to pressure the justice system.

The Bush family connection with anti-Cuban 
terrorism and Posada in particular dates back to 
the early 1960s and goes from Operation 40 in the 
context of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to the 
presence of CIA agent Jorge Mas Canosa at the 
head of the Cuban-American National Foundation, 
which funded and directed acts of terrorism confessed to by Posada.

Hernández offered bail in the form of a 
commercial property in Miami valued at $2.5 
million and belonging to one Judith García. The 
lawyer also proposed an additional corporate bond of $100,000.

DISTRICT ATTORNEY IGNORES INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

Ahern affirmed that the United States lacks 
jurisdiction to try Posada for the attack on the 
Cubana Aviation airplane in 1976. Surprisingly, 
the district attorney appeared to ignore the fact 
that the U.S. government signed the Convention 
for the Repression of Illicit Acts against Civil 
Aviation in 1971 and the International Convention 
for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, in effect since 2001.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
agency (ICE) stated months back in a letter to 
Posada Carriles, that he was a danger to national 
security due to his long record of criminal 
activity and violence in which innocent civilians died.

Judge Cardone will decide in the course of this 
week whether to release Posada, who faces seven 
charges of immigration fraud and of having lied to immigration officials.

Posada tried to say that he entered the United 
States illegally via the Matamoros-Brownsville 
location, when his arrival in Miami aboard the 
shrimper Santrina, accompanied by various 
terrorists of his clan, has been documented.

The trial is scheduled for May 11 in El Paso.

(Translated by Granma International)


http://www.counterpunch.org/lariva04062007.html

April 6, 2007


An Interview with Human Rights Lawyer José Pertierra


On the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles

By GLORIA LA RIVA

Q: José, what is your role in the case of Luis Posada Carriles?

A: I am the attorney for the Bolivarian Republic 
of Venezuela with respect to its petition for the 
extradition of Luis Posada Carriles from the United States to Caracas.

Q: There is a hearing in El Paso tomorrow about 
Posada. Can you tell us what it is regarding?

A: Posada Carriles is charged by the federal 
government for lying, not for terrorism. The U.S. 
government is accusing Posada of immigration fraud.

On Tuesday, there is a bond hearing to determine 
if Posada Carriles will await his trial-to take 
place in May-in the streets of Miami or in a New 
Mexico jail where he is currently. There is a 
woman who has put up a commercial property which 
she has in Miami, with a value of two million 
dollars. The judge will determine whether Posada, 
1.) is a person who would try to flee, and 2.) 
whether Posada is a danger to the community.

That is the only thing that will be decided 
Tuesday, Apr. 3. The trial on whether he lied or 
not in his naturalization petition, will take place in May.

But it is obvious throughout all of Posada 
Carriles' history, that he is a person who has a 
propensity to escape or flee. He is already a 
fugitive from justice. He escaped from a prison 
in Venezuela while facing 73 homicide charges 
against him. There is now an order for his arrest 
in Venezuela, for those 73 murder charges and he is a fugitive from justice.

In spite of the extradition petition that the 
Venezuelan government presented in June 2005, 
almost two years ago, in spite of the fact that 
he is a fugitive in Venezuela after escaping from 
a Venezuelan prison in 1985-with the help of his 
accomplices in Miami, in spite of the 73 counts 
of first-degree murder for the 73 people who were 
on board the Cubana Airlines passenger plane, 
despite all this, the United States:

First, refused to charge Luis Posada Carriles with being a terrorist.

Second, it has not attended to the extradition 
petition that Venezuela has presented.

Third, the government issued a simple immigration 
violation charge against him, accusing him of 
having entered the country illegally through the border with Mexico.

And upon the conclusion of that immigration 
violation procedure, they have charged him with 
lying. It is a felony to lie to a U.S. official, 
and Posada Carriles did it when he alleged that 
he was a U.S. citizen and lied about how he 
entered. He said that he had entered without 
documentation through the border when in reality 
he entered Miami in 2005 on a boat named Santrina.

This is an individual who has a history of 
violence against defenseless civilians. He is 
accused of bombing a plane with 73 passengers. He 
is accused of murdering dozens of political 
prisoners in cold blood in Venezuela in the 
1970s, when he was head of special operations in 
the intelligence services of Venezuela, called 
the DISIP. He is a person who collaborated with 
the bloodiest forces in Central America, 
specifically the paramilitaries in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

This man was key in the operation, the scandal 
later called Iran-Contra, which gave arms and 
technical assistance to the Nicaraguan contras, 
who committed so many human rights violations.

Posada was convicted in a trial in Panama for 
conspiring to bomb an auditorium with C-4 
explosives in the University of Panama, which 
would have been full of Panamanian students 
listening to a speech that the Cuban President Fidel Castro was going to give.

This is an individual with a long history of 
terrorism. He is known as the Osama Bin Laden of 
Latin America. I cannot imagine that a U.S. judge 
would determine that he is not a danger to the community and release him.

But everything is possible in the United States. There is that danger.

Q: Why do you think the government is not 
extraditing or trying Posada Carriles for the 
plane bombing? The Homeland Security prosecutors 
did not even mention that crime of Posada when 
the immigration hearings for Posada were held in 
June and August 2005 in El Paso, Texas.

A: During the whole immigration proceedings 
against Posada, it was obvious that the United 
States had an interest in appearing to do 
something with respect to Posada while in reality doing the minimum possible.

I believe there is an understanding, not written, 
but an understanding between the government and 
Posada, that he will be treated well by the 
United States while he is in U.S. territory, in 
exchange for Posada not saying all that he could 
about the U.S. intelligence services. Keep in 
mind that Posada, by his own admission, is an 
individual who worked with the CIA since at least 1962.

He was sent by the CIA to Venezuela in the 1970s 
to lead an anti-subversive operation there, and 
to capture and torture individuals who were 
seeking social change in Venezuela in the 1970s. 
He is a man who has worked closely with the U.S. 
intelligence services since he began his career.

Therefore, it does not surprise me that the 
United States is doing the minimum to maintain 
Posada in prison, because it is not politically 
wise for them to free him, but they will not extradite nor try him for murder.

That is why, you see, they first initiate 
immigration charges, and later they begin a 
criminal process, but they limit the accusation 
as to whether Posada lied, not whether he is a terrorist.

He has a great deal of information that would be 
a very delicate matter for the United States if he were to talk.

Q: Can you tell us something about Posada's 
attacks against Cuba, carried out by mercenaries 
in the 1990s, and the current investigation being 
carried out in New Jersey over those crimes?

A: In the 1990s, Cuba experienced a very 
difficult economic situation, that was the 
special period when the socialist camp collapsed 
and the countries that traded with Cuba underwent 
drastic political changes. They stopped trade 
relations, and the Cuban people endured hardship 
because they had no resources. There was no oil, 
no fuel, and many times no food.

Cuba opened up to tourism as never before since 
the triumph of the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1, 
1959. They opened up hotels and tourists began to 
come to Havana and other cities in Cuba.

At the same time this was happening, various 
groups of Cuban origin in the United States 
decided to unleash a wave of violence against the 
tourist sector in Cuba. Terrorism is always 
against defenseless civilians but it has a 
political goal. The political goal in this case 
was to terrorize the tourists who wanted to travel to Cuba.

At that time, in 1997, Posada was in Central 
America, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. He 
moved from one country to another with false 
passports. Posada was the mastermind behind that wave of terror.

Interestingly, it has been discovered that the 
organizations of Cuban origin in the United 
States, specifically in New Jersey and Miami, 
sent money to Posada by cable while he was in Guatemala.

With that money, Posada hired Guatemalan and 
Salvadoran mercenaries to take explosives to 
Cuba, where they were detonated in the best and 
most luxurious hotels and Cuban cabarets.

If you follow the money, you see that those New 
Jersey and Miami organizations send money to 
Posada, Posada hires those people from Central 
America, they go to Cuba and explode bombs.

After all those bombings, it seems that Posada 
wanted them to send him more money for the 
successful campaign he was carrying out. He was 
very upset about this and gave an interview in 
1998 to two New York Times journalists, Larry 
Rohter and Ann Louise Bardach. He told him he was 
the mastermind of that wave of terror. He also 
told them he was receiving money from certain 
organizations in the United States.

The New York Times published the story. Now the 
FBI along with a New Jersey prosecutor, have 
opened a grand jury investigation to examine the 
evidence that exists, which could possibly result 
in prosecutions of Posada and others, for that 
wave of terrorist attacks that killed an Italian 
in Cuba, named Fabio Di Celmo. The grand jury 
still has not concluded. We don't know if they will indict or not.

The United States is full of contradictions. 
Although I believe the White House is trying to 
help its favorite terrorist, Luis Posada 
Carriles, at the same time I am convinced that 
there are honest prosecutors who work in the 
Department of Justice and who take seriously the 
fact that that department is named Justice. I 
believe there are those who want to carry out an investigation of this type.

However, the final decision as to what will 
happen will be made in the White House, as well 
as in the immigration case. The Homeland Security 
prosecutors were not able to act on their own, 
they had to follow specific instructions from the White House.

The murder of Fabio Di Celmo was a horrifying 
crime. He was a man who was having a drink in a 
hotel bar. He was on vacation when the bomb 
exploded that killed him. That crime cannot go 
unpunished. Posada Carriles must be tried not 
only for the plane bombing but also for the 
murder of Fabio Di Celmo. I would be very pleased 
if he were tried for that crime as well.

Q: The terrorist Santiago Alvarez brought Posada 
into Miami secretly on his boat Santrina in March 
2005. Afterwards, Alvarez was arrested for an 
arms cache that he had in Miami. What is your 
opinion of the government's treatment of Santiago 
Alvarez? In spite of being an accomplice of 
Posada, now the government is reducing his 
already light sentence for illegal possession of weapons.

It is strange. Santiago Alvarez was the financial 
backer of Posada Carriles, the man who paid for 
his trips and sent him money. This is an 
individual who has been indicted and convicted 
for having an illegal weapons cache in a house in southern Florida.

He is in prison now but he has not been charged 
for bringing Posada illegally into the United 
States. What you say is true. They are charging 
Posada for immigration fraud, alleging that he 
came on the Santrina, with Santiago Alvarez and Mitat.

So then, why are they not charging Santiago 
Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat for bringing Posada to 
the United States? The law prohibits anyone from 
helping another person enter the country 
illegally. It is a serious crime, a felony. But 
if the person you are helping is not simply an 
undocumented person who comes to the United 
States to be with his family or to harvest 
artichokes in California, but instead is a 
terrorist, the sanctions are more severe and 
Alvarez could be imprisoned for decades.

But for that kind of a trial to happen Posada 
would have to be declared a terrorist. I am sure 
that if Luis Posada Carriles' name were Mohammed, 
Alvarez would be facing much more serious charges than he is now.

Another thing that occurs to me is the huge 
armament that Santiago Alvarez had in southern 
Florida, machine guns, rocket launchers, 
grenades. Why is no one asking what they were 
going to do with all those weapons? Was there a 
terrorist operation being planned in the United 
States? Against the United States, Cuba or 
Venezuela? It seems to me that it is something 
that should be investigated and the press should 
ask the U.S. authorities if they have investigated this.

It is too much of a coincidence that Posada 
arrived in the United States at a time when the 
person who brought him has an enormous arsenal 
hidden in a Miami warehouse. Miami is a city 
where they just accused a group of individuals of 
being terrorists, because they supposedly planned 
to blow up a building in Chicago. These 
individuals didn't even have a fake pistol. They 
had not one weapon or bullet and they are accused of terrorism.

But here we have a man with a long history of 
terrorism, who is aided by other individuals, 
friends and accomplices who are also involved in 
terrorism, and nobody asks what actions these 
terrorists were going to carry out.

Q: It is evident, with all that is happening in 
Miami, how the Miami terrorists operate with 
total impunity, while the Cuban Five 
anti-terrorists have been unjustly imprisoned for 
over eight years in United States prisons. They 
are effectively kidnapped by Washington for 
having struggled against Miami terrorism.

A: The case of the Five is one of the most unjust 
cases in the history of United States 
jurisprudence. The Five did not come to the 
United States, as the prosecutor on three 
different occasions stated in the trial, "to 
destroy the United States." There is not any evidence showing that.

Quite the contrary. The evidence shows that those 
individuals came to this country to penetrate 
organizations of Cuban origin that carry out 
terrorist actions against the island of Cuba, from U.S. territory.

The Five had to come to the United States, 
because the U.S. government, instead of 
investigating, arresting and prosecuting the 
terrorists who were carrying out hostile actions 
against Cuban civilians for decades, instead of 
doing that, the U.S. organized the terrorists, 
trained them, encouraged and supported them during all these decades.

Therefore, facing this situation, in order to 
defend their civilian population-a civilian 
population that has suffered more than 3,000 
murders since the Cuban revolution began in 
1959-Cuba sent these individuals to obtain 
information, not information of the United 
States, not classified U.S. government 
information, but information on the Miami 
terrorist organizations who were carrying out this wave of terrorist acts.

After obtaining much of this necessary 
information, Cuba sent a messenger to President 
Clinton about the information obtained by these 
five anti-terrorists and delivered to him a 
hand-written letter by President Fidel Castro. 
The letter was given to President Clinton by a 
unusual messenger, Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Laureate in Literature.

García Márquez has related how he felt carrying 
this letter, because he didn't want to leave the 
Hotel Washington for fear that someone might rob 
the letter. García Márquez gave the letter to 
Clinton's assistant, Max McCarty, who commented 
to the Colombian writer the following: "The 
United States and Cuba have a common enemy and 
that enemy is terrorism. We can fight together against terrorism."

Cuba handed over documentation and waited and 
waited and waited for the FBI to act and capture 
those terrorists. But instead of capturing the 
terrorists, the FBI, through its Miami director, 
Héctor Pesquera, arrested the men who had 
infiltrated those organizations. In other words, 
the FBI instead of using the information that 
Cuba gave it to arrest the terrorists, it used 
that information to investigate and find out who 
those individuals were that Cuba had penetrated into the organizations.

After the FBI found out, it arrested the Five 
individuals, who were convicted and received 
prison sentences of four life terms and many years.

They were convicted without one single classified 
document in their possession, with no evidence 
whatsoever that they had participated in 
violence, much less homicide. And they were tried 
in Miami, in an atmosphere highly contaminated by 
the hatred in Miami against Cuba. Miami is a city 
where the very U.S. government has not wanted to 
see its Cuba-related cases to be tried in Miami, 
knowing that such a trial could not be fair in Miami.

But that is precisely where these courageous five 
men were tried. They were tried in Miami and, of 
course, convicted, as would be expected. This 
injustice cannot be tolerated. The Cuban Five 
must be freed and it is Posada and the other 
terrorists living freely in the United States who should be prosecuted.

Q: You were in Venezuela recently. Can you tell 
us if the government is doing anything to back up its extradition petition?

A: Venezuela presented to the United States in 
June 2005, two volumes totaling almost 2,000 
pages of documents in support of its extradition 
petition. There are more than enough documents 
for the United States to extradite Posada or to 
try him in the United States. The United States 
government has plenty of documentation, including 
the documents declassified by the U.S. government 
itself and cited by the CIA. These are not only 
in U.S. possession, they are easily available on 
the Internet. The National Security Archives, a 
non-governmental organization run by the George 
Washington University, has published dozens of 
documents declassified by the U.S. government, 
very telling about the terrorist activities of 
Luis Posada Carriles and his participation in the plane bombing.

There are other documents in Venezuela about 
Posada's terrorist history. Posada did not become 
a terrorist with the plane bombing of Oct. 6, 
1976. He has been a terrorist since he left Cuba. 
He has a long history in the Venezuelan archives. 
There is documentation about Posada Carriles when 
he was head of special operations in DISIP. He 
was in charge of anti-subversive operations in 
Venezuela. Just in Caracas alone, he captured 
several prominent individuals who were part of 
the Venezuelan social movement, whom he 
interrogated, tortured and murdered. They were 
very meticulous about documenting their crimes. 
Whoever reads "The Path of the Warrior," Posada's 
autobiography, will be able to verify some of those crimes.

Q: In June 2006 during the first hearing for 
Posada in El Paso, Posada's attorney Eduardo Soto 
told the press that Posada had been a CIA agent 
until the mid-1990s. Does this statement hold any significance?

A: I have never seen any proof that Posada has renounced his work with the CIA.

The people who collaborate with the CIA are not 
necessarily employees of the CIA. Working with 
the CIA is not like working in a factory, where 
you punch your timecard in at 8:00 am and when 
you leave at 5:00 pm you punch out to prove you worked the whole day.

There are undoubtedly workers who work in Langley 
on a daily basis, who receive their salary in 
checks that carry the CIA label. But the majority 
of individuals who work with the CIA on a 
clandestine basis are not conventional salaried 
employees. What they do is provide information or 
they carry out operations that are directed or 
inspired by the CIA. I do not think there is any 
evidence that Posada has renounced these activities.

What's more, if we talk about 1976 and the plane 
bombing, for example, Posada sent his right-hand 
man-a Venezuelan named Hernán Ricardo who was his 
subordinate in the DISIP-to plant the bomb. 
Ricardo recruited his associate, Freddy Lugo, 
also Venezuelan. These two men were the direct 
perpetrators of the bombing. When they were 
captured in Trinidad, they confessed to the 
police chief, Dennis Ramdwar, a police 
commissioner, that: 1.) They were from DISIP, and 
2.) they were CIA, that their explosives-training 
was done by the CIA and that they received CIA 
training on how to plant the bombs.

Ricardo said, "my boss is Luis Posada Carriles." 
There is an expression in Spanish, to describe 
something very obvious: "It didn't fall far from 
the tree." I think that type of confession shows 
that Posada Carriles and Hernán Ricardo are 
individuals who in 1976 were trained in the use 
of explosives and were inspired by the CIA to 
carry out terrorist acts . There is absolutely no doubt of that.

Another curious thing. In Venezuela where I was 
recently, I saw the little phone and address 
directory that Ricardo had when he was captured 
in Trinidad after having placed the bomb.

In the first page of that book is the first and 
last name of the U.S. diplomat at the U.S. 
embassy in Caracas, Joseph Leo. Now, I am not 
saying that Joseph Leo is a CIA, but nobody can 
deny that that man was a functionary of the U.S. embassy.

I ask myself, what is a terrorist-who just 
finished placing a bomb, killing 73 
passengers-doing with a phone directory that has 
the name and telephone number of a U.S. diplomat 
based in the embassy in Venezuela?

Q: By international law, the U.S. authorities 
still have an obligation to try Posada. What can be done to win justice?

A: Venezuela's extradition request is based on 
three different legal instruments. The first, of 
course, is the extradition treaty between 
Venezuela and the United States, signed in 1922. 
We also rely on another legal instrument, the 
Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts 
against the Safety of Civilian Aviation, ratified 
in Montreal in 1971. And the third, the 
International Convention for the Repression of 
Terrorist Attacks Committed with Bombs, ratified in 2001, which is retroactive.

Article 7 of the Montreal Convention says, "The 
Contracting State in the territory of which the 
alleged offender is found" -in other words, the 
United States- "shall, if it does not extradite 
him, be obliged, without exception whatsoever and 
whether or not the offence was committed in its 
territory, to submit the case to its competent 
authorities for the purpose of prosecution."

Now, what does that mean? It means if Posada is 
in the United States and if he committed a crime 
in Venezuela or elsewhere, and if the United 
States does not want to extradite him to 
Venezuela, he has to be tried in the United States, no exceptions.

Article 8 of the International Convention for the 
Repression of Terrorist Acts Committed with Bombs says the same.

If he is not extradited to Venezuela, the United 
States has a legal obligation to try Luis Posada 
Carriles in the United States, for the plane 
bombing, for the 73 cases of homicide. This 
includes the little girl Harry Paul, one of the 
few bodies that were recuperated in the sea. 
Anyone who would see the photos of that child and 
what the bombing did to her, would not hesitate 
to demand justice from the White House. That poor 
child, seated in a seat next to her grandmother 
and mother, was very close to where the first 
bomb exploded. Her corpse had no brain, only 
pieces of her abdomen remained, with no intestines, no heart, nothing.

Q: Many activists were in front of the court 
during the immigration hearings for Posada last 
year. We mounted a wall in front of the court to 
show Posada's victims, which received a lot of 
press coverage. We reached the public through 
television to tell the truth about Posada's 
crimes, something that the prosecutor did not do 
inside the Court. What would you suggest we do to continue this struggle?

A: Continue with those types of actions. The 
people have to protest, their voices should be 
heard. It is important to write letters to the 
editors, to pressure the media. The news 
bewilders people with such unimportant 
stories-whether Britney Spears really shaved her 
head or if an astronaut put on diapers in order 
to kill a woman who allegedly took her boyfriend. 
They treat the people of the U.S. like idiots, in 
order to avoid covering the true scandals, the 
real scandal of the U.S. government keeping five 
anti-terrorist fighters in prison while 
sheltering the Osama Bin Laden of Latin America for decades.

Gloria La Riva is the coordinator of the National 
Committee to Free the Cuban Five.

For more information: <http://www.www.freethefive.org/>www.freethefive.org


The Freedom Archives
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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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