[Ppnews] Jimmy Carter urges release of Cuban Five

Political Prisoner News ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Fri Apr 1 07:09:34 EDT 2011



Jimmy Carter urges release of Cuban Five

Posted on 
<http://machetera.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/jimmy-carter-urges-release-of-cuban-five/>March 
31, 2011 by <http://machetera.wordpress.com/author/machetera/>machetera
http://machetera.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/jimmy-carter-urges-release-of-cuban-five/

Interview with former U.S. President, Jimmy 
Carter, by Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, Cuban 
Television journalist - 
<http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2011/03/30/entrevista-con-james-carter-realizada-por-arleen-rodriguez-fotos-y-video/>español

Translation: Machetera

Arleen Rodríguez: Hello!  A greeting to all of 
those who are watching Cuban Television right 
now.   I welcome all of you, along with the 
former President of the United States, James 
Carter, who just moments before leaving to return 
to his country has graciously agreed to give us 
an interview, and an exclusive statement for our television broadcast.

Welcome.  Thank you for accepting our invitation.

Jimmy Carter: It’s a great pleasure to return to Cuba, to Havana.

Rodríguez: It’s a great pleasure to have you here 
as well.  You told me that you’d like to say 
something to the Cuban people before our interview.

Carter: Yes.

Rodríguez: The camera is yours.

Carter: To the people of Cuba I would like to say 
that I am very grateful for the chance to return 
to your wonderful country once again.  My wife 
and I enjoy being here with the Cuban people, to 
meet with the government leaders, to meet with 
some of those Cuban citizens who disagree with 
the government.  We met with all of them.  We are 
very excited about the prospects for the upcoming 
Congress that will begin next month.  We also had 
a chance to meet with the parents of the 
so-called Cuban Five, with two of the mothers and also with the wives.

My hope is that in the future we will see 
normalization of relations between Cuba and the 
United States.  I would like to see at the time 
all the restraints on travel from the United 
States to Cuba and Cuba to the United States 
lifted, and also have freedoms in both our 
countries, freedom of assembly, freedom of 
speech, freedom to travel as you wish, these are 
very important for the entire world and for the people of Cuba.

We had meetings with the foreign minister, with 
the President of the National Assembly, with 
President Castro, with the former President, 
Fidel Castro, an old friend of mine, to learn all 
we can about the economic changes in Cuba.

This morning I was also able to meet with Mr. 
Gross, who has been sentenced to a long term in 
prison in Cuba, and we believe he is innocent of 
any crime.  I hope in the future we'll see his 
freedom along with the freedom of the so-called 
Cuban Five who have now spent 12 years in prison in the United States.

In the future I hope that we can see unimpeded 
trade and commerce as well as travel back and 
forth between our two countries and I’d like to 
see the economic embargo lifted completely
it 
doesn’t just affect the government but it hurts 
the people.  My views on the Cuban American 
relationship are that it needs to change.

When I became president I immediately lifted the 
travel restraints between both my country and 
Cuba and I have worked very closely with your 
former President Fidel Castro to establish 
diplomatic exchange through Interests 
Sections.  Now the United States and Cuba have 
about 300 people employed in the Interests 
Sections, both in the United States as well as in 
Cuba, and there are Cubans who work in the 
Interests Section in Cuba and vice-versa, and I 
think that this can contribute to normal 
diplomatic relations between the two countries.

This has been a good opportunity that I’ve been 
given by Cuban TV to address you and say how marvelous your country is.

Rodríguez: Thanks.

I’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask you a few questions.

First of all, I’d like to congratulate you for 
the respect and sympathy that you've generated as 
the only U.S. President in 50 years to do 
something to normalize relations.  You recalled 
some of the important steps.  Also for the fact 
that you have come to Cuba twice already, and for 
doing so with your hand extended and with 
respect.  The Cuban people, who have a lot of 
pride and dignity, receive such visitors sympathetically.

I believe that, getting down to the substance of 
this interview, you've relieved me of having to 
do an introduction, by expressing once again your 
desire and willingness for the blockade against 
Cuba to be lifted.  It’s known that there’s a 
majority consensus in U.S. society on this, even 
among the Cuban community in the United States, 
and that, furthermore, the international 
community has overwhelmingly demanded this for 
the last twenty years, the same way that its 
efforts are supported by a vast majority in Cuba and the United States.

As you yourself acknowledge, the blockade remains 
in place, and the Cuban people know, furthermore, 
that it remains in place as stiffly as ever, 
sometimes even more rigorous than before.

I ask: What prospects do you see for relations 
between Cuba and the United States and for this 
blockade, that the whole world opposes?

Carter: As you know, the majority of Cubans want 
to have normal relations with the United States, 
and the overwhelming majority of North Americans 
also want to have normal relationships with 
Cuba.  Unfortunately there are a few radical 
leaders in my country, some in prominent 
positions in Congress, mostly Cuban Americans, 
who insist on keeping the relationship between 
our two countries separate, these representatives 
of the old Cuban American community, whose main 
goal was to overthrow the Castro regime; even 
among the Cuban Americans now in my country they 
are a small minority now, but they’re very 
powerful, in our political circles.  I believe 
that in the last few years, I’ve seen public 
opinion polls even inside Miami 
 testifying that 
the younger members of that community want to 
move the economic blockade against Cuba and want 
to have normal opportunities to travel in both 
directions: from the United States to Cuba and 
also from Cuba to the United States. This is a 
change.  In my opinion, it’s a change that is 
going to continue into the future and I hope that 
my small voice, and the opinion of many American, can make this a reality.

Rodríguez: Mr. Carter, I was very moved as I 
listened to you in the press conference, and here 
in your statement, when I heard you also ask for, 
demand, freedom for the Five Cuban Heroes 
imprisoned in the States, who Cuba considers 
heroes, because they faced terrorist groups and 
were able to prevent the list of 2,099 wounded 
and 3,478 dead from terrorist attacks on our country from growing any larger.

I don’t know how aware you are of how deeply the 
Cuban people feel about the demand that the Five 
be released.  However, I didn’t hear you say they should be pardoned.

You said that according to U.S. law you expected 
that they would be freed.  They have appealed to 
the Supreme Court, which refused to hear their 
case, despite the fact that more than 10 Nobel 
laureates and hundreds of political personalities 
and intellectuals around the world had demanded 
it.  In other words, all the legal steps have been exhausted.

The process has been extremely arbitrary, as you 
said, judges have acknowledged this, and two of 
them have been subjected to the additional 
punishment of being denied regular visits from 
their wives, as well as having the visits from 
their family members made very difficult.

To arrive at this point with the Supreme Court 
and not allow even for the review of such a 
complex case is what made these Nobel 
prizewinners and political personalities demand that Obama grant a pardon.

You were the President of the United States.  You 
exercised the right to pardon, as a humanitarian 
gesture, that I tell you – as a Cuban – the Cuban 
people would deeply appreciate a pardon.  Are you 
inclined to add your name to the other Nobel 
prizewinners who are asking Obama to pardon the Five?

Carter: As you know, I’m not only a former 
president, but I’m also a Nobel laureate.

Rodríguez: That’s why.

Carter: Well, in my private talks to President 
Bush and also with President Obama, I have urged 
the release of these prisoners.

I recognize the restraints within the American 
judicial system, and my hope is that the 
president might grant a pardon, but you have to 
realize that this is a decision that could only 
be made by the president himself, it would be 
presumptuous of me to try to tell another 
president what to do; but the presidents, now and 
before this, have known that my own opinion is 
that the original trial of the Cuban Five was 
very doubtful, it violated standards, and also 
some of the restraints on their visitation were extreme.

Now I know that all of the people have been able 
to visit them in jail, and it is my wish in the 
future that before a pardon might be granted is 
that there could be more access by these families to these prisoners .

I have been informed by officials, for instance, 
that the shooting down of the small planes over 
Havana, that caused the death of two pilots, was 
done after the President of the United States 
informed Cuban leaders that no more flights would 
take place.  And I was informed by Cuban 
officials that they notified the President of the 
United States, very clearly, that they could not 
permit a plane to fly over their capital 
city
dropping leaflets
but that they would 
protect the sovereignty of Cuba.  So even those 
more serious, allegations, in my opinion are very 
doubtful, about their need or cause of the 
extensive sentences that have been granted to one 
of the prisoners; but in every way, in my private 
report with Obama when I return to the United 
States, in my public statements like today, in my 
previous conversations with American leaders, 
I’ve called for the release of the Cuban Five. 
One of the reasons is that, guilty or not, is 
they've served a long prison sentence already, 
more than 12 years, and the fact that they've 
been punished adequately, even if they are guilty.

Rodríguez: Recently a person very closely 
connected to the case, who you knew very well, 
Leonard Weinglass, passed away.  I know that you 
know he was a man with a love for justice, who 
fought for justice, and his last words, his last 
work, even, on his deathbed, was to prove that 
the Five had nothing to do with the downing of the planes.

Carter: Yes, I know.

Rodríguez: To go further into the case would make 
this conversation much longer, but what the Cuban 
people know, what can be proven, what is known, 
even by U.S. authorities, through the reports 
that Cuba sent, is that the only thing these 
young people were doing was looking for 
information to prevent terrorist actions.

I am confident that you will be able to convey 
the insistence on a pardon, as a humanitarian 
gesture.  These men have suffered a lot, and have 
lost family members without being able to be at 
their side; finally, I don’t insist, I thank you 
for your interest and your statements in the name of the Cuban people.

Mr. Carter, you also said this morning at the 
press conference that you had a friendly meeting 
with Comandante Fidel Castro, who has expressed 
in his Reflections a great deal of anguish about 
the risks faced by the human species, about the 
huge nuclear arsenals that keep on growing and 
that are capable of destroying the world several 
times over, and also about the nefarious 
consequences that climate change might have for 
the human species.  These are subjects in which I 
believe you have broad agreement.

As a nuclear physicist, you know what nuclear 
weapons mean for the human species, when you were 
President, you worked hard to educate your people 
against consumer culture, promoted rational 
policies, defended the environment, even though 
it made you unpopular among certain sectors.

Well, quickly, I’d like to know if you still 
think there is a chance to do something to save humankind.

Carter: Well, when I was president, we negotiated 
with the Soviet Union to reduce the level of 
nuclear weapons, through the so-called SALT II 
Treaty, and since then I’ve been a strong 
advocate of reducing productions in nuclear 
arsenals on both sides.  Also I believe very 
strongly that there is a real threat to the well 
being of all human beings through global warming, 
and as you probably know, President Obama and his 
predecessor, President Bush, attempted to work 
with other nuclear powers on reducing arsenals, 
and that they have been monitoring very closely 
the agreements that have been signed by these governments.

I think the United States has not been adequately 
strong in its potential leadership in addressing 
the global warming issue.  Cuban officials, since 
I’ve been here, have pointed out me that the old 
city in Havana is in danger of destruction
 I 
have been to Bolivia to meet with Evo Morales, 
and maybe Bolivia will be the first country that 
will have major damage to its economy, because 
the glaciers in the mountains of Bolivia are 
melting
their source of drinking water.  So I’m 
hoping that in the future, this issue, and the 
global warming issue, can be addressed by my 
country and all nations, and I know that Fidel 
Castro is addressing this now, at least in his 
Reflections.  I talked to him about inviting 
 
more definitively about his actions at present, 
as related to the United States 
 what goes on in 
current affairs, and he wants to use his voice as 
a senior statesman for the well being of all 
humankind.  We’ve had good conversations, we 
basically agree on many things, and above all, we 
also talked about global warming, and I believe 
that there might be a possibility between our two 
countries.  Now I’m afraid I have to leave, to 
get on my airplane, I don’t have an Air Force One any more.

Rodríguez: I’m very grateful for your 
time.  Thank you.  Every time you come to Cuba, 
hope is awakened, although the blockade continues 
to make relations so difficult.

Carter: Espero que podemos volver otra vez, 
muchas veces.  En la oportunidad traer toda mi 
familia.  Hay muchos de nuestra familia.  Tenemos 
treinta y seis miembros
 [I hope that we can 
return again, many times.  I'd like to bring all 
my family.  There are a lot of us.  We have 
thirty-six members...] grandchildren, great 
grandchildren, spouses, children, we’d like to have all of us come to Cuba.

Thank you very much.

Rodríguez: Thank you, Mr. Carter, very much.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the 
international network of translators for 
linguistic diversity: http://www.tlaxcala-int.org




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