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<h2><b>Another visit with Gerardo Hernandez
</b></h2><font size=3>Wednesday, 27 October 2010 10:29 <br>
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<br>
</font><font size=3><b>By Danny Glover and Saul Landau<br><br>
</b>We sat in the waiting room with eight other people, all black or
Latino, while prison authorities “counted” -- presumably -- the
prisoners. An hour and a half later we went through the “screening”
machine while our shoes got x rayed -- the airport has moved to the
prison; or was it vice versa?<br><br>
A guard put an invisible stamp on our wrist; a heavy metal door opened
electronically and we entered another room where a guard with a hand-held
machine read the invisible stamp with some sci-fi machine. Another
massive portal opened as if by dint of fairy magic and a guard barked
orders to wait in the open-air passageway between the entrance building
and the prison visiting room.<br><br>
Inside, the well lit -- no passing secrets or contraband -- visiting room
we went and a guard pointed to one of many small, cheap plastic tables
with three plastic chairs -- amidst the other plastic accommodations in
the room. Inmates and families conversed. We waited. After 10 minutes,
Gerardo Hernandez appeared, hugged Danny and thanked him for making the
You Tube video (look it up) explaining the case of the Cuban
five.<br><br>
Then he hugged Saul who said he’d just returned from Cuba and brought
greetings from people who knew him<br><br>
“How are people responding to the new reforms?” he wanted to know,
referring to the economic changes – re-opening some of the private sector
shut down by the 1968 “revolutionary offensive” and partially reopened in
the mid-1990s, and to the massive layoff (500,000) of “superfluous” state
workers as Raul Castro called them.<br><br>
Saul reported people seemed anxious, but also dealing with the new
reality. Gerardo nodded. “It was necessary,” he opined.<br><br>
He had read newspapers and watched TV news related to next week’s
election. “Will the Democrats lose one House or both?” he asked.<br><br>
We didn’t know. Danny and Saul had watched CNN in the airport waiting
room before we boarded the plane to go to Southern California and heard
Wolf Blitzer and the other CNN “anchors” vie for fast-talk-say-nothing
medals. We remarked on how cable news needs to create conflict (news?)
24/7 as its life’s blood. If no issue exists, create one. But crises
arise. Sometimes even Lindsay Lohan and Wynona Rider don’t get caught
taking drugs or shop lifting and CNN has to create conflict between gay
former army officers and members of Obama’s staff over “Don’t ask, don’t
tell.” This was part of CNN’s “election coverage.”<br><br>
The prison authorities deny Gerardo access to email or computers,
although convicted murderers and rapists don’t have those restrictions.
He is able to talk to his wife on the phone. “Imagine, I can’t even send
her an email,” he laughed sardonically.<br><br>
Gerardo also can’t email his lawyers who recently filed a new appeal
focusing on government documents showing payments made to Miami-area
journalists who wrote articles designed to make the already “pervasive
community prejudice” worse so that a Miami trial would become an
impossible venue for Gerardo and his four mates to get a fair
trial.<br><br>
One Miami-based journalist, Pablo Alfonso, received $58,600 during the
Five’s detention and trial period, but he only wrote 16 damaging articles
[while he worked for El Nuevo Herald, Miami’s most important newspaper in
Spanish]. Other government-paid journalists did negative TV and
radio shows about the five men who had admitted their mission involved
spying – but not on the U.S. government. Gerardo explained that Cuban
Intelligence sent the men to Miami to penetrate violent exile groups who
had planted more than a dozen bombs in one year (1997) in Cuban tourist
sites.<br><br>
The FBI did not arrest the bomb plotters, but rather grabbed the very
people who had furnished the Bureau with evidence of terrorist activities
based in South Florida.<br><br>
A May 2005 United Nation’s Human Rights Commission concluded the original
trial “did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality”
required for fair trials. The Commission’s report called for a new
trial.<br><br>
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a previous appeal from the Five. But now,
in addition to the bribing of journalists, appeal lawyer Leonard
Weinglass has found the prosecutors had “withheld evidence that would
have demonstrated [Gerardo’s] innocence.” Indeed, the government,
Weinglass says, withheld “satellite imagery which would have shown
that the shoot down on Feb. 24, 1996, occurred in Cuban airspace and not
in international airspace. The key agency of the United States government
which maintains satellite data has, up to now, refused to admit or deny
that they are holding such data.”<br><br>
On that day, three Brothers to the Rescue airplanes flew into Cuban air
space after receiving multiple warnings not to do so. Cuban MIGs shot
down 2 of the planes, killing pilots and co-pilots. This fact, reasoned
Weinglass, would have given the Five and the MIG pilots a clear-cut
defense to the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. (Radio interview
with Bernie Dwyer
<a href="http://www.thecuban5.org/BDInterview.html">
http://www.thecuban5.org/BDInterview.html</a>)<br><br>
Ironically, the government never established Gerardo’s connection to the
shoot down. They showed a communication commending him for his role
in “the operation.” But Gerardo explained, “the operation” related to his
helping another agent leave the country, not the shoot down. “They had
other documents they didn’t show to the defense that would have shown I
knew nothing about the events that day.” Weinglass included this in his
new appeal.<br><br>
Gerardo asked Danny about meeting his wife, Adriana, in Paris. Danny told
him about the emotional encounter and Gerardo’s face lit up.<br><br>
An inmate took photos of us. We said good-bye. Gerardo gave us the “keep
the faith” fist in the air. We waved, left and began our drive south
toward the Ontario airport passing the rows of unsold and empty houses in
Victorville and the seemingly endless signs advertising chain stores and
restaurants.<br><br>
“Wow,” Danny said as he drove. “What an inspiring guy!”<br><br>
Saul agreed. It was so worth the round trip, airport hassle, rent-a-car
drive and wait in the prison – all the ugliness – to see how many inner
resources one man could employ to keep his spirit high, and use them to
inspire others.<br><br>
<br><br>
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