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Cuban Embassy Statement about the Five Antiterrorist Fighters Imprisoned in the United States.

THE BAHAMAS, September 1st, 2011.- On 1998, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González were arrested by the U.S. government and tried in Miami on charges of conspiring to commit espionage and other illegal activities in the United States. But, the truth is that the Cuban Five are being punished for something for which they are absolutely innocent. They were monitoring Miami’s Cuban terrorists community, not spying on the U.S. government. 

On December 2001, the Cuban Five were sentenced to varying prison terms: two life terms for Hernández, to be served consecutively; life for Guerrero and Labañino; 19 years for Fernando González; and 15 years for René González.

The coming weeks will be critical in the upcoming closure of the Habeas Corpus process for Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, his last resource, since the US government continues to deny Gerardo his basic right to be heard by the justice system.

A press conference held on June 2, 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., attended by a variety of national and international media, revealed new evidence uncovered by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five that the U.S. Government had covertly paid tens of thousands of dollars to Miami journalists working for major media outlets who, during the federal government's politically-charged Miami prosecution, published often incendiary stories about Cuba and the five Cubans.

Many of the articles and commentaries by the government-paid journalists were highly prejudicial and biased, with the obvious aim to negatively influencing the Miami public and the jury, convicting the Cuban Five, and depriving them of the fundamental right to a fair trial. This obstruction of justice by the government is one of the arguments Gerardo plans to present at the hearing.

On April 25, U.S. prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the federal court of Miami to reject his extraordinary Habeas Corpus appeal.

Amnesty International criticized the US Government treatment of the Cuban Five as human rights violations, when the wives of René Gonzáles and Gerardo Hernández were denied  visas to visit their imprisoned husbands in the United States. 

“I believe that there is no reason to keep the Cuban Five imprisoned; there were doubts in the U.S. courts and also among human rights organizations in the world. Now, they have been in prison 12 years and I hope that in the near future they will be released to return home”, said former President James Carter.

Cuba believes that it is very important that the International Movement of the Solidarity with the Cuban Five around the word and in especial in US, breaks the iron-clad censorship that the western mass media have imposed on this case.

The President of the United States Barack Obama can use his executive powers, outlined in the U.S. Constitution, to liberate the Cuban Five.

It's time for him to listen to international demands and end this injustice.

We want to thank the Bahamian Committee for the release of the Cuban Five for helping us to break the silence walls joining 10 Nobel Prize winners, thousands of artists and intellectuals, parliaments and governments who have requested that the U.S. government should make the right decision to allow the return of the Five to their families.

The United States Government manipulates its Antiterrorist Fight.

On August 18, 2011 the US State Department included Cuba, for the thirtieth time, in the bogus list of "states sponsors of international terrorism," with the sole purpose of discrediting Cuba and continuing to justify the cruel and repudiated policy of blockade against Cuba.

The United States Government does not have the slightest moral or any right to judge Cuba, which has an unblemished fight against terrorism and has also been consistently the victim of this scourge.

Since 1959, some 3,478 Cubans have been killed and 2,099 have been maimed as a result of terrorists actions, organized, funded and perpetrated from U.S. territory, often with the very complicity of the government the United States. 

Cuba condemns all acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Likewise, it condemns all actions aimed at encouraging, supporting, financing or covering up any terrorist act, method or practice.

Cuba was one of the first countries to publicly condemn the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11th, 2001, in the United States, and conveyed its readiness to provide medical and humanitarian assistance to the victims.  In this spirit, Cuba has cooperated, even actively, with the Government of the United States.

The Cuban Embassy kindly requests all honest people in The Bahamas to send messages to officials of the US Government, demanding that it punishes the real terrorists who now reside in U.S. territory, frees the Cuban five anti-terrorist heroes and ends the policy of blockade and hostility against Cuba which threatens the legitimate interests of both peoples. (Cubaminrex-Embacuba Bahamas)

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