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US and the Cuban Five: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

By Roberto Perez Betancourt

CUBA, June 4, 2009. The US President can end, whenever he wants, the unjust punishment inflicted on five Cuban antiterrorist fighters for the last ten years.

That statement was recently made by the President of the Cuban parliament Ricardo Alarcon. It is an obvious reality: if the US Head of State wants, he can order the release of the Cuban Five and end the premeditated injustice committed by the former administration.

Why should he do that? In the first place because Obama promised to exercise a policy of change regarding the misconduct that characterized the W. Bush administration, and the injustice against Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Rene Gonzalez is proof of that policy.

In addition, because there is documented proof, and testimonies, already in the public domain, that the federal prosecutor following orders, falsified information, lied, hid evidence, discriminated and denied the defence access to the evidence, and for ten years has manoeuvred with legal chicanery to stop the truth from being known.

There is also no evidence on the charges of the “spying,” of which the Cuban five have been accused and there are clear contradictions between the prosecutors and judges.

Also, because the double standards of the US government regarding terrorism rebound when two real spies allied to the Israeli government are released and self confessed assassins are walking the streets in Miami, while at the same time it is trying to stop the Supreme Court from reviewing the case of the five Cuban political prisoners.

The attitude sustained by the current administration falls into the category of corruption, signifying either the malicious non compliance or culpable ignorance of the function of public officials. It is also the miscarriage of justice by a judge or magistrate, recalled Alarcon.

The US Supreme Court is expected to make an announcement later this month on the decision to accept, or not, a revision of the case of the Cuban Five.

For its analysis, the high court has the main reasons put forward by the attorneys, in addition to the twelve Amicus Curiae (Friends of the court) signed by ten Nobel Prize winners, prestigious international jurists and parliamentarians of the world. They also have the manipulated evidence of the district attorney’s office and the response of the defence.

In this context, whether there was malevolence, and with it the sacrifice of justice, it must now give way to change in favour of the truth. The US executive has the legal capacity to decide how to balance the scales of justice, knowing that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

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