[FONT=Arial]Cuban Five: Ten Years of Institutionalized US Terror [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana] September 12 marks the 10th year of arbitrary imprisonment of five Cuban men, who have been submitted to institutionalized terror by the US government; which proclaims itself a leader in the war on terror. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana] In a premeditated action and with information provided by the Cuban government on terrorist activities by Florida-based anti-Cuba groups, FBI agents turned against the five men by raiding their homes and arresting them in the early morning of September 12, 1998, instead of acting against the Cuban-American mafia groups.
Once in the Federal Detention Center a long wait for absent justice began for Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert, Ramon Labañino Salazar, Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez and Fernando Gonzalez Llort, internationally known as the Cuban Five.
The most recent decision on the case, issued last September 4 by the 11 Circuit of Atlanta’s Court of Appeals, rejected a request by the defense attorneys to reconsider a verdict issued last June 4 by that same court, which upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five.
On that occasion the court affirmed the sentences given to Gerardo Hernandez (two life terms plus 15 years) and Rene Gonzalez (15 years) and ordered Miami-based judge Joan Lenard to issue new sentences against Ramon, Antonio and Fernando.
In the judicial arena, the defense attorneys have the resource of appealing to the US Supreme Court in a term expiring December 1st, 2008.
Obviously, the long string of delays in the process reveals the evil political intention to disregard the real activities carried out by the Cuban Five in US territory, which was that of collecting information on criminal and terrorist actions usually designed by Cuban American mafia circles in the United States against Cuba .
The Cuban Five were in the United States to warn Cuban authorities about those activities and prevent the loss of human lives both in Cuba and in the U.S. The record of such terrorist actions unleashed from US territory reveals the death of over 3,400 Cubans, the injury of another 2,099 and nearly 400 sabotage actions against people and facilities in the United
States.
The arrest in 1998 of the Cuban Five and their further trial and incarceration, were part of a blackmail plan to have them issue statements against their own country. But once such intentions were thwarted, US authorities began to expand their punishing web against the Five.
They were sent to the so-called “hole”—extreme imprisonment conditions, combined with maneuvers to delay all justice-related actions within the labyrinth of US penal system. The Five were held in small prison cells for 17 months, without any justification. Such a punishment astonished honest jurists, who could not explain such an arbitrary action in the country that proclaims itself the champion of Human Rights.
Then restrictions and denials of family visits followed. Access by defense attorneys to documents and records and to interviews with their clients were also limited. Meanwhile, the mainstream media in the U.S. and around the World turned a deaf ear to the situation in a open way to silence everything about the case so that public opinion had no information on the gross violation of justice that was taking place in Miami.
After two years and nine months in prison, including long months in “the hole”, a biased trial held June 8, 2001 in Miami , found the Five guilty. The sentences totaled four life terms plus 77 years. Nine days later, June 17, the Five sent a message to the US people, though it was also silenced by the media.
In their message the Five say that they neither transgressed the law nor endangered the safety or security of the US people; though they did help expose terrorist plans and actions against their people, and avoided the killing of innocent Cuban and American citizens.
Over the next months and years following that statement, the defense attorney and the prosecution have come up with several appeals. The prosecution, for its part, has acted according to orders from the top levels of the US government, marked by bad political intentions to put up hurdles and prolong the undeserved punishment given to the Five.
At this point in time, the Cuban Five are still waiting for their freedom and honoring their principles, as they have said in several messages they have sent to the Cuban people.
Meanwhile, a huge international movement involving renowned world personalities, activists and people from all walks of life continues to demand that justice prevails and the Cuban Five be released immediately.
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