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Cuba
Va! > Frige
de Fem > Uttalande
10th
September, 2004
Statement by the Swedish-Cuban Association
www.svensk-kubanska.se
On Sunday
the 12th of September it will be six years since five Cubans
were in the USA robbed of their freedom. Their crime was that
they had exposed terrorists belonging to the extreme right
in Miami. Tomas Widén, the leader of the hunger strike
in Stockholm, Sweden, during July this year, which demanded
that these Five Cubans must immediately be set free, writes
about this judicial scandal in the statement below. He shows
how these Five, who had exposed terrorists, have in the USA
been subjected to a deliberate judicial crime. At the same
time, a few days ago, in breach of the law, four notoriously
extremely dangerous terrorists have been pardoned in Panama
och released from that country's prisons as a result of pressures
exerted by forces in the USA.
CRIME
AGAINST JUSTICE!
Six years since the USA jailed the
Five Cuban anti-terrorists
In June 1998 representatives of the authorities for justice
of Cuba and of the USA met in Havana. The Cubans asked their
North American colleagues if they could consider cooperating
for the purpose of combatting sabotage and acts of terror
directed against Cuba, which ultra-rightist groups based in
Miami, Florida, were responsible for planning and executing.
The North
American delegation answered that they were interested in
cooperating. The activities of the terrorist groups were as
a matter of fact also against the laws of the United States.
The Cubans
handed over a huge amount of documentation which was based
on the work done by the terrorism-combatting Cuban agents.
The delegation from the USA accepted the documentation with
thanks, promised to take measures, and then returned home.
But the
tentacles of the Miami terrorists into the federal police
FBI of the USA were long, and resulted in the FBI, in the
early morning hours of the 12th of September, arresting and
putting into jail those very Cubans who had collected the
information exposing the activities of the extremist terrorist
groups. The information which the Cuban authorities had handed
over was utilised to strike against those five Cubans who
struggled against terrorism.
Gerardo
Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero,
Fernando González and René González were
condemned to harsh prison sentences, after having been kept
in isolation cells for 18 months, and after a trial which
had developed itself into a witch-trial, orchestrated by a
campaign of hate led by the right-wing groups which control
the Miami media. Hernández, Labañino and Guerrero
were all given life imprisonment, and the first of these three
was given double life imprisonment. Fernando González
received 19 years and René González 15 years
imprisonment.
They were
accused of being spies, but as the prosecuting attornies were
not able to point at a single piece of evidence showing that
any of the Five had in reality committed espionage, they were
instead condemned for having conspired to commit espionage,
and for having possessed false identity documents. In the
case of Hernández, he was also charged for the horrendous
accusation of having "knowingly and wilfully conspired
to commit murder". This was about two aeroplanes, which
the 24th of February 1996, under the command of the terrorist
José Basulto, in spite of warnings and instructions
by the Cuban authorities, had refused to turn around, but
instead continued flying towards Havana. According to Cuban
documentation they were shot down in Cuban airspace. It was
therefore not a question of murder, and anyway Gerardo Hernández
did not in any way have any influence on the development of
these events.
And concerning the accusations of preparations to commit espionage,
the North American defence lawyers had during the trial, and
in the appeal process after the trial, very clearly shown
that their clients were not guilty. Neither should the possession
of incorrect identity papers and omittance to register themselves
with the United States authorities as agents, be considered
as a crime, as protection of their true identities was necessary
for them to be able to do their work, work which had the purpose
of preventing exceedingly more serious crimes. In this case,
according to United States law, the lesser breach of the law
should be regarded as negligible. The convictions and prison
sentences are nothing less than politically inspired intentional
judicial crimes.
The five
Cuban fighters against terrorism are now locked up in five
different prisons in different parts of the USA. At the same
time a few days ago four terrorists - sentenced to prison
for possession of explosives intended to be used in the Panama
University Hall when Fidel Castro was to have spoken there
- were given amnesty by the president Mireya Moscoso of Panama,
a few days before she was leaving her post. Luis Posada Carriles,
Pedro Crispín Remón, Guillermo Novo Sampoll
and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo have shot, bombed and murdered.
Their terrorism has been directed against Cuba. Carriles'
most notorious deed was the bombing of a Cuban civilian passenger
plane in 1976, which resulted in all 73 persons on board being
killed. He has always been backed up by the right-wing of
the USA, whose authorities have through the years given the
terrorist Cuban exiles either active support or discreetly
tolerated them. Since the Cuban revolution 1959 the terrorism
against Cuba has cost Cuba 3.478 human lives. The terrorists
who have now been released, have through their murderous activities
been guilty of a part of this.
Cuba's
right to defend itself against this terrorism, which is either
officially or unofficially backed up by the authorities of
the USA, cannot be put to question by any decent person. And
every decent person who has aquainted themself with the case
of the convicted and sentenced five Cuban fighters against
terrorism, are obliged to demand that the planned judicial
crime committed against the Five must be obliterated.
Tomas
Widén
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Swedish-Cuban Association, Box 450 65, SE-104 30 Stockholm,
Sweden
Achim Rödner, Organisation Secretary. Phone and fax:
+46-(0)8-31 95 30
E-mail: svensk.kubanska@swipnet.se
For more information about the Swedish part of the international
campaign Free the Five Cubans, Political Prisoners in the
USA.! please see the home page: www.svensk-kubanska.se
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