International Demand for Release of Cuban Five Increases

Havana, Sep 19 (Prensa Latina) Over four thousand international intellectuals and professionals have thus far signed an open letter to the US Attorney General, demanding the release of five Cuban antiterrorist fighters.

The artists, writers and academics, along with political and social activists describe continued detention of The Five as an unfair, unjustifiable and inconceivable kidnapping.

The letter reminds US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that the US Appeals Court annulled the trial that condemned Gerardo Hernandez, René Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez in Miami.

It highlights that the imprisonment of the Cuban Five has also been declared illegal by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Among the most recent signers are the outstanding Argentine writer David Viñas, author of Hombres de a Caballo ( Men on Horseback), 1967 Casa de las Americas prizewinner, and Prontuario y Jauria, as well as the essay Indios, ejercito y frontera ( Indians, Army and Frontier).

Viñas suffered personally from terrorism when his children, Maria Adelaida and Lorenzo Ismael, disappeared during Operation Condor in the 70s. Operation Condor was a terrorist action involving the US government and South American dictatorships.

The demand letter was signed in Spain by singer-songwriter Luis Eduardo Aute, and Jose Luis Sampedro, an intellectual of the country.

Hispanic-French Paul Estrade and distinguished US political-scientist Michael Parenti, known for his essays: The Terrorist Trap, Democracy for the Few, To Kill a Nation and Against Empire, also singed the letter.

Sargento Garcia, a top figure of the French alternative music scene, whose discs Sin fronteras y La semilla escondida express new paths of cultural miscegenation in the last five years, joined from France.