CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Gerardo

By Deisy Francis Mexidor

There is no need of last names. By just mentioning their first names the world knows who they are: Gerardo, Antonio, René, Fernando and Ramón. They are five and one at the same time. They are five men who represent the magnitude of all we believe and love.

Today is the birthday of one of them, and he is far away. Far away because of the hate and the twisted policies of a government that continues to shelter terrorists, while men like Gerardo and the Cuban Five, who have fought to preserve human lives, are physically imprisoned. Their ideas, however, are free.

He was born on June 4th, 1965. He has spent the last ten years of his existence in US jails, but his dignity, his love and his sense of humor haven’t changed at all, not even after that horrible September 12, 1998, when he was taken prisoner. "I virtually didn’t have the chance to get out of bed that day. When I woke up I was surrounded by people carrying machine guns and wearing helmets (…) I was arrested, they took me out of bed, I was handcuffed, and they looked into my mouth. Apparently, they had watched too many James Bond movies, and they thought I might have cyanide in my mouth. They checked my mouth to be sure that I wasn’t going to poison myself. I asked them why I was being arrested, and they said, "You know why". They put me in a car and took me to the FBI general headquarter in South Florida, which is located on Avenue 163, in Miami."

Gerardo is in jail, bearing the burden of his undeniable innocence. In addition, he’s not even allowed to receive visits from his daughter Adriana. In April, she applied for a visa again at the US Interest Section in Havana. She is still waiting for an answer from the State Department.

Meanwhile, Gerardo and Adriana rise and stand their grounds. And although they are making efforts to put out the shine in his eyes, depriving him of the love of his wife, they will never succeed.(Cubaminrex- Granma)

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