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<font size=3>Freeing the Truth: International Colloquium for the Cuban
5 <br>
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<a href="http://www.antiterroristas.cu/index.php?tpl=./interface.en/design/reading/special-article.tpl.html&aNews_lang=en&aNews_obj_id=1002182" eudora="autourl">
http://www.antiterroristas.cu/index.php?tpl=./interface.en/design/reading/special-article.tpl.html&aNews_lang=en&aNews_obj_id=1002182<br>
<br>
</a></font><font size=3> Diana Block <br>
2009-12-01 <br>
<br><br>
Less than 100 miles from Guantanamo , 200 delegates from 54
nations and all seven continents converged in Holguín , Cuba between
November 19-23rd. The occasion was the Fifth International Colloquium
dedicated to five Cuban political prisoners who have been held for eleven
years in prisons across the United States . I was one of the U.S.
participants who gathered to bear witness to decades of terrorism that
have been unleashed against the Cuban people by organizations based a
mere ninety miles away in Miami . We came together to accelerate
the struggle for the freedom of the Five – Fernando Gonzáles, René
Gonzáles, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino - at a
particularly strategic moment in the case. <br><br>
According to Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, president of the Cuban National
Assembly, who opened the plenary session of the Colloquium, the reduction
of Antonio Guerrero’s sentence on October 13, 2009 from life plus
10 years sentence to 21 years and 10 months, was a result of the global
movement in solidarity with the Five. This movement effectively
complemented work in the legal arena to force the U.S. government to
re-examine the excessive sentences that had been given to three of the
Five. In the next period, the role of international solidarity activity
will become key to freeing the Five if the legal tactics to win complete
freedom for all five men are exhausted. <br><br>
The global corporate media has imposed a nearly total information
blockade about the case. When they do write about the Five they
work hand-in-hand with the U.S. Government to invert the truth and label
them as spies. In reality, the Five were defending Cuba against the
violent attacks which had increased during the nineties. They were
gathering intelligence about Cuban exile extremist groups in Miami ,
including the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), Brothers to the
Rescue, and Alpha 66 to prevent further destruction and loss of life in a
period when Cuban tourism was targeted by these forces who hoped to
further isolate the island. The intelligence that the Five were
able to collect about their activities was shared with the U.S.
government, yet the U.S. failed to act against those who had perpetrated
the violence and ironically turned around and prosecuted the
Five. These facts have been deliberately kept from the American
public and need to be widely disseminated in order to build popular
pressure demanding their freedom. Alarcón urged the delegates not
to ignore “any space that we can utilize from denunciation to prayer” in
order to defend the Five. <br><br>
While
Alarcón’s presentation provided an analytic framework for understanding
the aggressive activities launched against Cuba , family members who had
been directly impacted gave testimony that enabled delegates to
understand the physical, psychological and emotional damage these acts
caused. Giustino DiCelmo, the father of an Italian tourist who was
killed in the 1997 bombing of the Copacabana Hotel in Havana , painfully
expressed what it meant to lose a son in such a brutally random
manner. Odalys Pérez Rodriguez is the daughter of the pilot
of Cubana flight 455 which exploded while flying from Barbados to Jamaica
in 1976, killing all 73 people on board. She spoke angrily of Luis
Posada Carriles, the CANF leader who has boasted of his responsibility in
the bombing. The U.S. government refuses to prosecute him and his cohorts
so he continues to live in freedom in Miami where he is able to continue
his activities against Cuba with impunity. A group of delegates
also visited the small town of Boca de Samá , meeting some of those who
had resisted an attack by the anti-Cuban group Alpha 66 (supported by the
CIA) on October 12, 1971 in which two people were killed and several
others were injured. <br><br>
The
strong presence of the mothers, wives and daughters of the Five
throughout the Colloquium demonstrated the courage and commitment of
these women despite the fact that their loved ones have been locked up
far away in U.S. prisons for so long. Olga Salanueva, René’s wife,
and Adriana Pérez, Gerardo’s wife, explained that the U.S. government has
denied their requests for visas on nine separate occasions preventing
them from visiting their husbands. An International Commission for
the Right of Family Visits, with members in 27 countries, has been
established to expose the illegality of the U.S. policy and to build
popular support for the inarguable right to family visits. <br><br>
One of
the most moving aspects of the Colloquium were the trips that delegates
made to surrounding communities – Gibara, Báguanos, Rafael Freyre and
Calixto Garcia. In each town, community members put together an
educational and cultural program followed by a culinary feast. These
local events showed the breadth and depth of community support for the
Five and their families. They are recognized by young and old as national
heroes for defending the right of Cubans’ to live in peace. Community
members expressed resounding appreciation for the solidarity that the
international delegates offered. They emphasized again and
again that they held the U.S. government responsible for the terrorist
activities of the extremist groups but only felt friendship for the
American people, especially those who opposed their government’s policies
regarding Cuba . <br><br>
At the
final plenary, a unitary declaration was released on behalf of all of the
participants which summarized the demands of the Colloquium and laid out
a plan of action to be implemented over the next year. An end to
U.S. logistical and financial support for anti-Cuban terrorist
organizations, the prosecution of Luis Posada Carriles, and the right to
family visitation were included as key demands. The central demand
- to free the Five - was directed at President Barack Obama since he has
the legal and constitutional power to release them and a moral,
political, and judicial obligation to do so given their innocence.
Their unconditional release would clearly demonstrate a changed direction
for U.S.-Cuban relationships and open up opportunities for friendship in
Latin America as a whole (see
<a href="http://www.icap.cu/">www.icap.cu</a> for full text of the
statement). <br><br>
The Colloquium was very successful in mobilizing the next stage of global
solidarity with the struggle to free the Five. Delegates from Latin
America and Africa in particular emphasized their belief that the
incarceration of the Five was an attack against all freedom loving people
around the world. And the message for progressive people within the
United States was crystal clear. It is time for us to insist
unequivocally that the U.S. end its 50-year economic and military war
against Cuba by ending the blockade and freeing the Five. <br><br>
On December 8th, Ramón Labañino and Fernando Gonzáles will be appearing
in a Miami court for re-sentencing. To get updates on the case and
become involved please go to
<a href="http://www.thecuban5.org/">www.thecuban5.org</a>. For a
full history of the Five see the Counterpunch series by Ricardo Alarcón:
The Untold Story of the Cuban Five. <br><br>
<b><i>Diana Block is a member of the International Committee for the
Freedom of the Cuban Five. She is also on the Advisory Board of the
California Coalition for Women Prisoners.<br><br>
<br><br>
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