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From October 4th to 11th - Solidarity Tour in the United States

2006-09-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

ON THE 8th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARREST OF FIVE CUBAN ANTI-TERRORIST FIGHTERS IN THE U.S., AND THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOMBING OF A CUBAN COMMERCIAL AIRLINER IN MID-AIR JOIN Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, James Petras, William Blum, Saul Landau, Michael Steven Smith, Michael Parenti, Leonard Weinglass, Nadine Gordimer, Wayne S. Smith, and others, in the presentation of the book Superpower Principles published by Common Courage Press.
From October 4th to 11th, Salim Lamrani will make several presentations in the U.S. Lamrani, a researcher from the Denis-Diderot University in Paris, is the editor of Superpower Principles. This book, a compilation of essays written by Zinn, Chomsky, Gordimer, Weinglass, Parenti, and others, reveals the lies told by the Bush administration to the people of the U.S. about the so-called "War on Terrorism" with relation to Cuba. Superpower Principles is a unique book that addresses the case of the Cuban Five. The case of the Cuban Five, a disquieting history censured by the U.S. media Mark your calendar: October 4th : Bluestockings, New York, featuring Leonard Weinglass and Salim LamraniOctober 5th : John Jay College, New York, featuring Rev. Luis Barrios, Rev. Lucius Walker, Leonard Weinglass and Salim Lamrani.October 6th : Massachuttes Institute of Technology, Boston, featuring Noam Chomsky, Michael Avery, President of the National Lawyers Guild, and Salim LamraniOctober 9th : Sonoma State University, Santa Rosa, CA, featuring Peter Phillips, of Project Censored and Salim LamraniOctober 10th : Black Oak Books, Berkeley, CA, featuring Michael Parenti and Salim LamraniOctober 11th: Stanford University, Stanford, CA, featuring Salim Lamrani

Letter dated 16 January 2004 to the UN Secretary-General

2006-08-31T06:55:00.000-07:00

Fifty-eighth sessionAgenda items 117 and 156Human rights questionsMeasures to eliminate international terrorism
Letter dated 16 January 2004 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General
I have the honour to transmit to you, enclosed herewith, the statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning the denial of visas to Olga Salanueva Arango and Adriana Pérez Oconor, spouses of René González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.
Such repeated conduct by the Government of the United States of America constitutes a systematic and flagrant violation of the human rights of René González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo and their relatives.
I have the honour to request that you circulate this letter as a document of the General Assembly under agenda items 117 and 156.
(Signed) Orlando Requeijo GualAmbassadorChargé d’affaires a.i.
Annex to the letter dated 16 January 2004 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-GeneralStatement by the Ministry of Foreign Affaire
On 23 December 2003, the United States Interests Section in Havana delivered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a diplomatic note returning the passports and visa applications of Olga Salanueva Arango and Adriana Pérez Oconor, spouses of René González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo. The note stated that such applications would no longer be accepted through the offices of the Ministry and that henceforth the two comrades would have to submit their applications in person.
The new visa request had been made on 7 December 2003, after the United States Interests Section had advised, in mid-November, that its authorities had again decided to deny visas to the two comrades.
What excuse was used by the United States Government to put up these new obstacles and refuse to accept that the visas of Olga and Adriana had been requested through the usual offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?
With astounding cynicism, United States officials argued that the statements made by both Olga and Adriana against the constant denial of their visa requests and in defence of their spouses made them think that the reasons why they wanted to travel to the United States were “no longer humanitarian”, because they had become actively involved in a “political campaign” against the United States Government.
It is impossible to imagine a greater absurdity.
Actions such as these prove how relentless the United States authorities have been in denying visas to Olga and Adriana on three occasions during the past two years and, in fact, limiting the elemental right to maintain relationships with their spouses, even under the harsh conditions imposed by their unjust and illegalconfinement in United States jails.
With this new decision, the United States Government is continuing to violate the human rights of René, Gerardo and their relatives. It is vainly seeking, through actions of unfettered cruelty, to punish the gallantry shown by our five comrades and their families throughout this whole rigged process.
Olga and Adriana have the right both to demand justice for their spouses and to visit them. Any denial constitutes a violation of international law and also of United States laws.
This decision by the United States authorities violates their international obligations as contained in the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under AnyForm of Detention or Imprisonment; and the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, among others.
The United States Government has sought to justify these denials with the ridiculous argument that Olga and Adriana “constitute a threat to the national security of the United States”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has continually requested the United States authorities to reconsider these arbitrary denials and comply with their international obligations by allowing Olga and Adriana to exercise the inalienable right to visit their spouses and little Ivette to see her father.
Furthermore, the relatives who have been able to visit our Five Heroes have had to wait months to receive their visas and, as a result, our comrades have not received visits from their families for long periods.
At this time, several relatives of our comrades are still waiting for their visas, although they were requested from the United States Interests Section in August and September 2003. The time that has elapsed is already much longer than the eight weeks required, according to the United States authorities, to process visas for travel to the United States.
Moreover, in violation of the obligations and duties set out in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Department of State has continued to place obstacles in the way of Cuban consular officials complying with their duty and their right to provide consular assistance to these Cuban citizens. On two occasions theyeven went so far as to deny travel permits to our officials for consular visits to René González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo during 2003. Everything indicates that in 2004 the pressure will be stepped up and the obstacles will increase.
In addition, the Department of State has begun to question, hedge and deny the possibility for officials of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington to accompany the relatives of our Five Heroes during their visits to the United States.
The relatives have to travel long distances to reach the places where their loved ones are imprisoned and to stay in alien environments during their visits. They deserve all necessary support, out of an elemental sense of humanity. And it is precisely this support which the United States authorities are questioning and blocking.
A few examples will suffice:
– On 17 June 2003, the Department of State informed the Interests Section that it would not authorize the travel of a Cuban official during the entire stay in Colorado of Antonio Guerrero’s mother and son, and that he had to return to Washington on the days when there were no prison visits.– On 27 July and 6 August, a similar decision was conveyed with regard to the official who was supposed to accompany Ramón Labañino’s family to Beaumont, Texas and Fernando González’s family to Wisconsin.– On 8 August, an official in the Cuban Interests Section was denied a permit to accompany René González’s daughter on her road journey from Miami, Florida to Edgefield, South Carolina.– On 17 December, a Cuban diplomat who was supposed to accompany relatives of Gerardo Hernández to Lompoc, California was denied a travel permit.
It is clear that the United States authorities are seeking, in violation of international law, to intensify their actions to prevent or block consular access to our Five Heroes and support for their relatives. They are seeking to punish the example of heroism and patriotism which radiates from them in an obvious attempt to satisfy the most irrational whims of the Cuban mafia in Miami.
Cuba demands that the United States Government put an end to the attacks and hostility against our Five Heroes and their relatives, stop the manoeuvres with regard to the legitimate rights of our comrades, and comply strictly with its international, legal and moral responsibilities.
Havana, 13 January 2004

2006-08-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

JUST one year after the decision of a panel of three judges in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, who unanimously overturned the Miami trial of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters and annulled the sentences handed down, the plenary of that judicial instance has just announced its decision on a reconsideration of the finding of August 9, 2005.
Close to half of the Court document’s 120 pages are devoted to the arguments of the 10 judges who acted against the defense and the rest to the two others – both from the August 9 panel last year – who reaffirmed their points of view.
The ruling will have to be closely studied but what stands out a priori is that the full panel ratified the decision of the Miami court where our compatriots were tried and sentenced and rejected the application for a retrial, and decided to send back to the three-judge panel the rest of the questions that they did not discuss. Thus they have returned to the three-judge panel its analysis of issues such as the charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and the erroneous application of the Classified Information Procedures Act, among others.
Without any doubt, this ruling extends and makes indefinite the imprisonment of five men who will have completed eight years of an unjust incarceration on September 12.
Five men who tried to save Cuba and the United States from acts of terrorism promoted by individuals like Luis Posada Carriles, confessed killer and active terrorist, for whom a whole show is being prepared on this August 14, in an attempt to grant him U.S. citizenship in virtue of the criminal acts he perpetrated under orders of George Bush Sr.
The news came out shortly after the August 9 edition of the “Informative Roundtable.” This new decision has been awaited since the hearing before the full 12-judge panel on February 14, when the two sides put forward their verbal arguments. Six months have gone by and 12 since the earlier ruling until the current decision.
This is an unprecedented decision in that country’s legal history.
By accepting the reconsideration of the previous appeal ruling, delivered in that instance in the interest of justice, the incorrect conduct of the case by the prosecution has been legitimated and what we have reiterated ad infinitum has been confirmed: that this has been a political case since the very beginning and in the legal proceedings against the Five all the hatred and desire for revenge has been heaped on these combatants.
But all this is taking place in an unprecedented manner at a point when there are calls in Miami to do away with a sovereign nation, invoking terrorism and bloodbaths and proclaiming political assassination and genocide at the top of their lungs in the media.

The road could be long...

2006-08-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Having Leonard Weinglass at the Round Table -- a prestigious U.S. jurist and the defender of difficult causes, usually more political than criminal -- was extremely interesting for the Cuban audience, especially since Weinglass is one of the lawyers who represents The Five antiterrorist fighters sentenced by a Miami-Dade court to long prison terms.
Weinglass does not appear to be a man who turns wishes into realities. His experience has taught him to be objective. For that reason, throughout his appearance at the Round Table of Friday, Aug. 18, he pointed out that "the road could be long" in the process of freeing The Five.
Among other issues, he stated: "The more than 200 pages of contradictory rulings on the case of The Five demonstrate that it is impossible to see the case from a legal point of view, in terms of U.S. law, because this is an essentially political trial and, in particular, a trial of U.S. policy against Cuba."
When analyzing the ruling issued Aug. 9 by part of the plenum of the 11th Circuit Court of the Court of Appeals of Atlanta, Weinglass said that in reality there had been two rulings. Two of the judges held on to their opinions, issued one year earlier, declaring the Miami trial as null and void because the city's environment did not permit an impartial trial. However, ten judges ruled the opposite.
The lawyer described that position as "a tragedy and a monument to the use of the law in a superficial manner to achieve purposes that are not those of justice." Let us remember that it was Judge Charles Wilson, a former Miami prosecutor, who wrote the majority opinion.
Those ten judges were blind to reality, Weinglass said. "They did not see the case in a substantial manner. It was a mechanical analysis that did not take into account the atmosphere or the reality of what happened in Miami; only what happened in the courtroom. In 68 pages, they don't talk about Miami. They focus on the atmosphere in the Court, not in the city, as if the trial were being held in New York."
The lawyer also described as extraordinary -- because of the impact and because of its rarity -- the 52 pages of the document written by the two dissenting judges who, "abiding by the best tradition of the U.S. judicial system," invited the defense lawyers to take the case to a higher court and insisted that any analysis must take into account the circumstances surrounding the trial of The Five.
In another appearance at the Round Table, Weinglass said the document issued by the ten judges in the Court of Appeals in Atlanta represents a violation of "the sacred right every defendant has to a fair trial."
He also said he trusts that, in the long run, The Five will be freed. "The United States cannot be an accomplice to a crime and at the same time try the people who oppose it. You cannot support a war against Cuba and at the same time try those who attempt to oppose it," he said.
However, and with all due respect to the opinions and convictions of this prestigious lawyer, that's exactly what the successive governments of the United States have been doing since 1959. And it doesn't seem that the administration will change its stance, if we judge its behavior in other legal processes that involve true, self-confessed terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles and other persons, such as Santiago Álvarez, Osvaldo Mitat and Robert Ferro, who at this point are in prison, awaiting trial.
Or the way in which justice has dealt with the confessions of José Antonio (Toñín) Llama about the plans by members of the Cuban American National Foundation to commit terrorist acts in Cuba in the 1990s.
Or, more recently, the interview granted by Orlando Bosch to a Spanish newspaper, in which he says his fondest wish was to kill Fidel Castro and that a Cuban airliner, a civilian aircraft, is a military objective. Bosch referred to the Cubana de Aviación airplane blown apart by a bomb over Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976, with the deaths of 72 passengers and crew. Luis Posada Carriles is sought by Venezuela for that crime.
It is the same double standard that has characterized the famous war on terrorism, in the wake of the abominable terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, whose fifth anniversary will be commemorated in a few days.
But the double standard has been present before, in previous U.S. administrations. Who created Osama bin Laden or the death squads in Central America? Who spawned the Operation Condor in South America in the 1970s and '80s? Who backed military dictatorships in Latin America throughout most of the 20th Century? Where did Latin American and other military officers learn the techniques of torture? It was at the notorious School of the Americas, once based in Panama but now located on U.S. soil, with another name.
To the Bush administration, there is a "good" terrorism -- the one promoted by it and other administrations -- and a "bad" terrorism -- the one engendered by its own worldwide political hegemony. The terrorism that arises as a result of oppression, humiliation, exploitation and despair, along with factors of a religious or ideological nature, as in the case of Islamic terrorist groups that in many cases were organized by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Talibans in Afghanistan are a good example, though not the only one.
Returning to our topic, it is evident that Leonard Weinglass is not counting on miracles. He knows that the White House's policies obstruct justice and that The Five antiterrorist fighters cannot be released so long as the U.S. has a government that promotes state-driven terrorism in all its manifestations and supports other governments that also practice it, such as Israel.
The victim of this double standard is, of course, the prestige of the United States and of its people, who have seen their freedoms diminished by the so-called Patriot Act and has been the target of surveillance and espionage, in violation of the country's own laws on individual privacy.
If anything characterizes the current state of U.S. relations with the rest of the world is the almost total lack of credibility of U.S. politicians and institutions, the need to impose their interests by force, coercion or blackmail. And among the great powers, that method has never been a sign of strength but of weakness. U.S. allies in the European Union are experiencing more or less the same.
Despite all that, so far seven governments allied to the U.S. have refused to receive Posada Carriles as a political refugee, regardless of the pressures exerted on them. Even the government of El Salvador, a country that was Posada Carriles' base of operations, has refused to accept him.
What's happening? The refusals from Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Peru and El Salvador have many likely readings. Are the pressures exerted to find a refuge for Posada Carriles real, or does the White House prefer to hold him in a "golden cage" before it sends him to another country?
Some analysts say that Posada Carriles will die in prison, not because he's a notorious and self-admitted terrorist but because releasing him does not suit the interests of Doublya Bush. Posada knows too many secrets about Bush Senior's participation in delicate operations during his tenure as CIA director, Vice President and President of the United States.
Will the government deal similarly with Orlando Bosch, whom Bush Sr. granted a pardon and permanent residence in the U.S., practically free from surveillance and on occasion talking more than he should?
A few days ago, Posada Carriles' lawyer, Eduardo Soto, announced on TV that his client would be free in a few days, walking the streets of Miami, in what might become a new test of strength between the terrorist groups in Miami and U.S. justice on one side, and the Doublya Bush administration on the other. Anything can happen, because this is a visibly dirty game.
The same thing is happening in the cases of Santiago Álvarez and Osvaldo Mitat, for illegal possession of firearms and for bringing Posada Carriles into the U.S. illegally, aboard the yacht Santrina. And what can we say about Robert Ferro, the owner of the largest private arsenal in the U.S., who said the weapons were furnished to him by the government and belonged to Alpha 66. If the U.S. government decides to release these men, it would be admitting that they are protectors and promoters of terrorism against Cuba.
Meanwhile, the lawyers for The Five antiterrorist Cuban fighters weigh the next steps to take. There are still nine charges to be appealed to the Atlanta court and the bid for a change of venue must be raised to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is also dominated by conservatives. It is evident, as Weinglass said, that "the road could be long," but there is a conviction among The Five, the Cuban people and the defense attorneys (all of then U.S. citizens) that justice will eventually triumph. Let us hope so.

Declaration of the Commission on Constitutional and Judicial Affairs of the Cuban National Assembly of People's Power

2006-08-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Havana, August 15, 2006
The Commission on Constitutional and Judicial Affairs of the Cuban National Assembly of People's Power, expresses its indignation at the decision of the full Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, in ruling against the Cuban Five. By invalidating the unanimous verdict of a panel of three judges that dissolved the celebrated Miami trial of anti-terrorist Cuban fighters Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, René González and Antonio Guerrero, the court departs from legal principle.
This decision is once more evidence of the political character of the trial and the unjust measures adopted, along with the arbitrary nature of the U.S. government and its violations of its own laws and Constitution as well as the most elementary norms of law and, specifically, human rights.
The panel judges, whose sum total professional experience exceeds 80 years, declared in their 93-page ruling that to "empanel an [impartial] jury in this community [of Miami] was not a reasonable probability due to the existing prejudice in the same". "In this case a new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment, and extensive publicity both before and during the trial, merged with the improper prosecutorial references".
The ruling adopted by the Atlanta court does not take into account the atmosphere of violence and intimidation that exists in Miami, nor the most recent things that have occurred in the city and been reported by the local press, including the occupation of armories for the purpose of using weapons against Cuba, and public statements by terrorists who with total impunity admit to their crimes. This confirms the need to monitor such groups – work that the Cuban Five were carrying out in Miami to detect the violent actions planned against Cuba that have resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, and that provide new and dramatic evidence in their defense – especially the universal principle of defense being a state of necessity.
Also ignored was a decision by the U.N. Human Rights Commission Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions that stated that in view of the facts and circumstances in which the trial took place along with the accompanying charges and the severe sentences meted out, the trial did not take place in a climate of objectivity and impartiality necessary for the norms of a fair trial as defined in Article 14 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and declared their imprisonment arbitrary requesting that the U.S. government immediately adopt such measures necessary to remediate the privationsto which these men are being submitted.
We condemn this infamous and ignominious decision and call on parliamentarians across the world, along with all those who care for justice, to unite in this noble and just cause. We call upon and demand of the U.S. government that the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters immediately be freed. They fought for the life and peace of the people of Cuba and the United States itself, and in September will have completed eight years of unjust imprisonment. Great limits are imposed on their family visits where two of them have not even been allowed to see their spouses.
The International Days for the Freedom of the Five, that will take place between September 12 and October 6, should be used to continue and increase the fight for truth and justice for our brothers and for the development of a large movement in parliaments and the law community so that the universal principles of law make possible the return to Cuba of these compatriots.

2006-08-25T12:12:00.002-07:00

Two associates of confessed terrrorist Luis Posada Carriles avoided detention after a federal judge in Texas decided not to jail them for refusing to answer grand jury questions on whether the Cuban exile militant sneaked into the United States by land through Mexico or by sea with Miami friends' help.
José ''Pepín'' Pujol and Rubén López Castro appeared Tuesday at the U.S. courthouse in El Paso to face contempt charges for declining to answer grand jury questions. Friends said Pujol, 77, and López Castro, 67, had expected to be arrested but were not. A third Posada associate, Ernesto Abreu, 43, was arrested July 6 and remains in detention after also declining to answer grand jury questions.
Pujol's attorney, Luis Fernández, declined to comment because the federal judge in the case had issued a gag order.
But friends of Pujol and López Castro confirmed that both had appeared in court and were not jailed because the judge concluded that detention would not coerce them into talking.
López Castro's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Shana Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio, declined to talk about the matter.
Posada has told U.S. officials that he sneaked in by land across the Mexican border. Cuba has claimed that Posada was smuggled into Miami from Isla Mujeres, Mexico, aboard a boat called Santrina.
The shrimping vessel is owned by a foundation linked to Posada's chief South Florida benefactor, Santiago Alvarez, now in jail and scheduled for trial next month on weapons charges.
Posada asked a federal magistrate Monday to free him from immigration custody in El Paso. Pujol and López Castro were at the hearing. Magistrate Norbert Garney said he would issue his decision soon. Source: Miami Herald 17.8.06

2006-08-25T12:12:00.001-07:00

2006-08-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Times published a significant article Aug. 19 on the Cuban Five.

2006-08-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Articles appeared in other press from Reuters and AP articles, including the Miami Herald.
The L.A. Times article, the Miami Herald and other articles reflect the efforts of their appeals attorneys, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the National Lawyers Guild, and many other organizations, to help win their freedom.
Anti-Castro Disclosures Could Help 'Cuban Five'
Convicted in Miami on espionage charges five years ago, the exiles may still win a new trial.
By Carol J. WilliamsTimes Staff Writer
August 19, 2006
MIAMI Attorneys for five Cubans convicted of espionage are hoping new disclosures about exile-sponsored plots to kill Fidel Castro could win a new trial for the men, now serving sentences of 15 years to life in maximum-security prisons.
More than five years after their convictions, the case of the Cuban Five - or the Five Heroes, as they are known throughout Cuba - remains a cause celebre on both sides of the Florida Straits. Havana authorities cast the five as victims of exile vengeance. Many Cuban Americans here see them as Castro emissaries bent on undermining U.S. security.
The Cubans fought the federal charges of conspiracy to commit espionage during their 2001 trial by arguing that they were here to infiltrate radical Cuban exile groups that had devised and executed dozens of missions to topple the Communist government in Cuba, or at least its bearded leader.
Among the developments is the admission by Jose Antonio Llama, a 75-year-old exile, that he financed a 1997 mission to kill Castro for which he had already been tried and acquitted.
In addition to Llama's admission, Robert Ferro, a Cuban exile in Upland, Calif., said in April that he collected 1,500 guns and grenades for an assault on Cuba during U.S. military exercises in the Caribbean in May. Ferro was charged with illegal weapons possession. And trial begins next month in the case of Miami developer Santiago Alvarez on charges of amassing guns last year for an attack on Castro.
"We are following these new developments and when we feel we are closer to having the full story, we will be bringing it to a court's attention," said Leonard Weinglass, the civil rights attorney handling appeals for Antonio Guerrero, who is serving a life sentence in Colorado. "But it's not quite ripe for action yet."
The New York-based National Committee to Free the Cuban Five has conscripted high-powered legal help from the National Lawyers Guild and announced a Sept. 23 march in Washington to demand that President Bush free the Cubans.
"The Five should never have been arrested. They were fighting terrorism," said Gloria La Riva, committee coordinator. "New terrorist plots have been revealed since their convictions in Miami which give further weight to the arguments that Miami was a place where they should never have been tried."
Earlier this month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejected a new trial sought on grounds that the men's 2001 process was conducted in a tainted venue: emotionally charged Miami after the Elian Gonzalez custody battle. The Aug. 9 ruling was a setback, but "not the end of the case ? far from it," said Weinglass.
He noted that the appeals court had yet to rule on nine challenges to the Miami federal court conviction.
Llama confirmed anti-Castro actions in interviews in recent weeks, including with The Times, in which he accused five different exiles of selling $1.4 million in equipment he bought for the 1997 operation.
The group planned to "eliminate" Castro during his visit to Venezuela's Isla de Margarita that year, but the Puerto Rican Coast Guard intercepted Llama's cabin cruiser ferrying four men and the weapons. Llama said his fellow plotters sold a cargo helicopter, 10 aircraft, seven boats and weapons while he was on trial in San Juan. He was later acquitted, for lack of evidence, of conspiracy to murder a head of state.
"I understand the implications" for bolstering the defense of the Cuban Five, Llama said of his admissions.
Richard Klugh, who represents Fernando Gonzalez, serving a 19-year sentence at a federal prison in Wisconsin, says the newly emerged anti-Castro actions could justify a new trial but alluded to growing disillusionment among defense attorneys.
"It all adds up, and it really should be filed," Klugh said of the potential grounds for a new trial. "But I'm exhausted. I hate to complain. I pick up my paycheck. But this case really saps the life out of you." Klugh points out the five were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage without ever having spied. No evidence was presented suggesting any of the five had obtained classified information.
Three are serving life sentences, including alleged ringleader Gerardo Hernandez, found guilty of murder conspiracy based on allegations he provided intelligence to Havana that led to the deaths of four exiles shot down by Cuban MiGs in 1996.
"Were they here to hurt the United States, or were they here to protect Cuba from crime and violence?" Klugh asks of the five. "It really goes to the core of the case."

Injustice against the Five and impunity for terrorism

2006-08-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

BY ORLANDO ORAMAS LEON— Granma daily staff writer—
GERARDO, Ramón, René, Fernando and Antonio are still behind bars in the United States, three of them in maximum security prisons, and all of them subjected to the hateful revenge of those in Washington who have made them the target of reprisals against the Cuban Revolution.
The "hole," lack of communication, and psychological pressures are some of the weapons that have been used to try to break their integrity, in addition to the unjust and rigged trial that put them in jail.
Recently Gerardo has been informed that his correspondence will be delayed for several months. What a paradox, while at the same time terrorist Orlando Bosch, who is enjoying a pardon granted by the United States, is openly proclaiming his crimes, including the sabotage of a Cubana Aviation passenger plane in October 1976 and several assassination attempts against President Fidel Castro.
Thus, when the U.S. 11th Court of Appeals of Atlanta has decided not to accept the considerations of three judges regarding the need for a retrial for the Five due to the biased atmosphere of Miami, Bosch is making makes statements to the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia boasting of his crimes.
This is further evidence of the double standard of the Bush administration’s supposed global crusade against terrorism, which holds the five Cubans as political hostages while turning a blind eye to the confessions of anti-Cuba terrorists recently published in the U.S. press.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, published in California near where Gerardo is serving two life terms plus 15 years, Carol J. Williams maintains that conspiracies such as those of Robert Ferro (caught with more than 1,500 weapons), the purchase of arms and helicopters revealed by José Antonio Llama, and other anti-Cuba plots should help the judicial cause of our brothers.
In other words, those conspiracies confirm Cuba’s need for these patriots’ mission to infiltrate Miami criminal groups in order to prevent terrorist attacks against the island, given that more than 3,000 people have already been killed along with a similar number of wounded and incapacitated, superseding the tragic balance of those killed in the attack on the Twin Towers.
The statements of Bosch, the doctor of death, were corroborated in the Times article.
He confirmed to La Vanguardia that "there were many attempts" to kill Fidel. He also told of the plan to assassinate the Cuban president in Chile in 1971, as well as the attempt on the Cuban ambassador in Buenos Aires. "Afterwards we did a thousand things," gloated the man pardoned by George Bush Sr.
He also bragged about the Barbados crime. "For me (that plane with 73 passengers on board) is a war target," and he continued "Communists all of them. The athletes were wearing five gold medals for fencing… it was Fidel’s glory…"
It would never occur to anyone in the United States to publicly admit to plotting a bomb attack, or to having done so in the past. It would mean prison for sure, unless the target was Cuba, which the White House has a permanent need to destroy.

IADL's Statement on the ruling of the 11th Circuit in the case of the Cuban Five

2006-08-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

antiterroristas.cu

2006-08-16

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DEMOCRATIC LAWYERS
Office of the President 17, Lawyers Chamber, Supreme Court, New Delhi-110001, INDIA Tel:+00 91 11 2338 2271 Fax:+00 91 1214 410 2963 e-mail <jsharma@vsnl.com>

STATEMENT ON THE RULING OF THE 11TH CIRCUIT IN THE CASE OF THE CUBAN FIVE
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers,(IADL)a non-governmental organization of Jurists with National Affiliates on all continents, and in consultative status with ECOSOC, expresses its grave disappointment that the majority of the 11th Circuit Judges ruled to deny a new trial to the Cuban Five.
The Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, were arrested in 1998, denied bail and convicted in 2001 based on politically motivated charges stemming from their work to prevent terrorist or other attacks on Cuba. Gerardo Hernández was given two life sentences. Antonio Guerrero, and Ramón Labañino, were given life sentences. Fernando González, and René González were given sentences of 19 years and 15 years respectively.
IADL proclaims that these are unconscionable sentences; The evidence on which the Five were convicted does not support the verdicts; and Miami was the wrong venue in which to try these cases. IADL points out that in May of 2005, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the Human Rights Commission found that the trial and the convictions of the Five were in contravention to Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which provides that "everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law" The panel of 11th Circuit Judges who heard the oral arguments in February of 2004 received argument on the lack of evidence to support the charges and the claims that the trial judge erred in not changing venue, and ruled that a new trial was required because the trial should not have taken place in Miami which the panel characterized as a "perfect storm of prejudice". IADL submitted an amicus brief emphasizing the denial of a fair trial when the Judge refused to move it out of Maimi. IADL states unequivocally that the findings of the original panel of Judges were factually and legally sound. The en banc ruling is a travesty of justice. It evidences no concerns for the rights of defendants' to a fair trial. The Majority of the 11th Circuit Judges ignored the findings of the original panel with respect to prejudice. The dissenting Judges, who were the members of the original panel, commented on this "omission of fact" in the majority opinion. Given the overwhelming evidence of community prejudice against anyone supportive of the Cuban Government, the failure of the majority to even mention this prejudice is gravely disturbing . IADL, therefore, believes this to be a politically motivated decision designed to appease the Cuban community in Miami. This community has been involved in terrorist acts against the Cuban government and the Cuban people for many years. The work of the Cuban Five was aimed at preventing further actions and to defend Cuba. The information that they gathered from public facts and developed was used by the Cuban government to support its protests to the US State Department against illegal overflights by such groups as "Brothers to the Rescue". Instead of attempting to curb this illegal activity the FBI turned its spotlight on finding those who were providing the evidence of illegal actions. This ruling is not the end of the appeal process. The decision of the 11th Circuit at Atlanta may be appealed to the US Supreme Court. The panel still has not ruled on the errors in the trial other than venue which have been raised in the Appeals of the Cuban Five and these must be ruled upon. The lawyers for the five will make that determination. IADL will continue to support the Cuban Five in their efforts to get justice, be freed from prison, and to get their convictions reversed. Jitendra Sharma President
Ms.Jeanne Mirer Secretary General
Issued on August 12, 2006

An inspiring exhibition

2006-08-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

ONES prison cell is no workshop for an artist. It is not that unlimited space in view, full of light and, centrally, of freedom. Antonio (Tony) Guerrero, a man of exceptional will and sensibility, has overturned that idea.
In his indefatigable intellectual restlessness (poems, letters and a plea to the court of high-flying ethics and aesthetics)Tony, one of the five Cubans incarcerated for nearly eight years now in U.S. jails, has initiated his entry into the world of visual arts.
The result is an exhibition Mensaje de cubanía (An Essentially Cuban Message), comprising 14 pastel portraits in the Carmen Montilla Gallery, which came into the hands of Eusebio Leal, city historian, via Guerrero’s family.
They are portraits of heroes and martyrs of Cuban struggles in the 19th and 20th centuries and Tony himself, in a beautiful letter to Leal (March 28, 2006), explains how he became interested in painting in the first place and then was able to create them.
"Last year an inmate arrived at this prison with excellent skills in pastel painting… At one point he showed me one of his works and I was impressed by what could be done with pastels. He offered… to give classes… I decided to be part of the group… the class never began."
That was not an obstacle. Tony tried by himself. Self-taught. Drawing and "thanks to a book and a magazine that a dear friend from New York sent me."
In his letter to Leal, reproduced on the exhibition leaflet, he explains that after managing to get hold of "a bit of paper" he decided to do a portrait of Che Guevara. As a guideline, he took "a photo of a magnificent painting that Aliucha (Che’s daughter) had sent me… it contained the color contrasts that would make my initial attempt easier. Thus came this portrait, which is the last, historically, of the series, the first one that I did, for the first time in my life, using pastels."
After searches through magazines and in other ways – "… a postcard that a friend from Cuba sent me with a painting of José Martí. That was my second work…"and his sister Maruchy sent him "the Cien Años de Lucha (One Hundred Years of Struggle) series of stamps from 1968" – concluded the series.
In a very detailed and organized way, Tony notes in his letter the order in which he painted the portraits: Che, Martí, Ignacio Agramonte, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Antonio Maceo, Máximo Gómez, Frank País, Rubén Martínez Villena, Julio Antonio Mella, Antonio Guiteras, Abel Santamaría, José Antonio, Calixto García and Camilo (Cienfuegos).
Of great intellectual stature this young man, an engineer by profession, writes: "Sincerely, I think that artistically speaking, this isn’t about meritorious quality. Just from the little that I have been able to see… however, with that, I can see that I have still many, many things to learn in terms of pastel drawing… But more, Eusebio, the greatest value of this work is that it is another demonstration of the patriotic values of the 5 (because everything that we do represents us as five brothers and sons of a heroic and worthy people)."
Painting in pastels is an innovation, never mind trying portraits and drawing, as María Eugenia (Maruchy) confided to this publication in an aside during the inauguration.
"Tony started in prison. He told us that one day they gave him a cellmate who was a young guy of Puerto Rican-U.S. origin who painted portraits, and he asked him to teach him the technique, using pencil, and the first thing that he did, with a portrait of our mom, was to draw her face lightly in back and white; then he did our grandmother, our dad. Then he got to know another prisoner who did pastel paintings and that is the history of these 14 portraits."
Maruchy, who was allowed to visit her brother recently after more than six years without seeing him added that, "before that, he did a series of Cuba’s 21 endemic birds; we have them at home because he wanted us to keep them."
(from Granma International )

Unprecedented Decision in Atlanta on Cuban Five Case

2006-08-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

Is not the end.

Exactly a year after a three judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of Atlanta unanimously overturned the convictions in Miami of five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters, the full court ruled Wednesday on the prosecution’s request to reconsider the August 9, 2005 decision.
In a 120-page document the full 12-magistrate court decided, with two judges dissenting, against the defense request for a change of venue and a new trial and sent the case back to the three judge panel for consideration of remaining issues.
In their ruling a year ago the judges had limited themselves to addressing the Cuban Five’s contention that pervasive community prejudice against the Cuban government and publicity surrounding the case prevented them from receiving a fair trial.
In throwing out their convictions and sentences the three-judge panel had unanimously agreed that pretrial publicity combined with pervasive anti-Cuba feeling in Miami didn't allow for a fair trial. The US government then asked the full appeals court to reconsider, ending in yesterday’s decision and a return to square one.
The ruling means a further dragging out of the case and continues the indefinite imprisonment of the five Cubans, who will reach eight years behind bars on Sept. 12.
The Cuban Five maintain their efforts were restricted to gathering information on violent Miami-based rightwing groups, some of whom have carried out terrorist actions against the island for over four decades.
The goal was to keep Cuban and US citizens from being the victims of terrorist acts promoted by individuals like Luis Posada Carriles, a confessed assassin accused of being behind the blowing up of a Cuban airliner killing 73 persons.
Posada Carriles is currently under US government protection and a hearing on his request for US citizenship is scheduled for consideration on August 14. Posada believes he deserves US citizenship for services rendered in the US army and with the CIA under George Bush Sr.
The news on the Atlanta court ruling came shortly after the nightly Cuban television Round Table program had updated viewers on the Cuban Five case. The panelists in the program noted that six months had gone by since the full court had listened to oral arguments from the defense and prosecution.
The full court’s very acceptance to reconsider the original unanimous decision of the three judge panel overturning the Cuban Five’s convictions was considered by many legal experts to be unprecedented in US law.
Cuba has repeatedly maintained that the bad faith demonstrated by the prosecution confirms the political nature of the case, filled from the beginning with hate and a desire for revenge against Cuba.
The ruling comes at a time of stepped up calls in Miami from Cuban-American extremists for a blood bath on the island, while advocating political assassination and genocide to destroy the Cuban Revolution once and for all.
(from Granma)

One Year Since the Atlanta Decision on the Cuban Five

2006-08-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

"These judges could not ignore the truth"

Says Ian Thompson of the U.S. National Lawyers Guild
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD
LAST year's decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturning a Miami court ruling against the Cuban Five was "historic" and "necessary," commented California Lawyer Ian Thompson who represented the US National Lawyers Guild at the oral hearing of the case in March 2004.
"These judges realized that, with all the evidence facing them, they could not ignore the truth and the injustice that had been perpetrated against these five Cuban men," he said in an interview with Granma. The National Lawyers Guild, to which Thompson belongs, represents nearly 5,00 attorneys in the United States.
The three judges announced their verdict on August 9th 2005.However the five Cubans are still locked up in five different prisons across the United States.
"It was an extraordinarily detailed opinion that delved into the massive irregularities in the trial of the Cuban Five and also the pervasive character of prejudice against the Cuban government and any of its agents or supporters in Miami," said Thompson.
"Also important was a long section in the opinion that discussed the long history of brutal and murderous terrorism against Cuba launched mostly from U.S. shores with U.S. government backing."
In their opinion, after much time and deliberation, the three judges demonstrated that the Five could not have received a fair trial in Miami for these reasons, explained the Californian Lawyer.
"They talked about the intimidation of the jury, the media bias, inappropriate witness statements from right-wing terrorists like (José) Basulto and more. All of this made the Five's case a very abnormal judicial spectacle at the time of the trial. This was hard for the judges to ignore."
August 9th, 2005, the three judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled to reverse the sentences of the Cuban Five. The court recognized the right of the five Cubans to be impartially judged in a non-hostile environment, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Many US lawyers were "surprised" and "dismayed" by the 11th Circuit's decision to review the opinion of this three judge panel. "A review of this type is granted very rarely," Thompson stressed adding that the Bush administration was "certainly upset" with the decision vindicating what the Five's lawyers had been saying for years: the Five couldn't receive a fair trial in Miami."
"The opinion of the three-judge panel should have been relatively unassailable because of its attention to the facts and details of the case," affirms Thompson. "It was over 90 pages long and took a dispassionate look at the objective situation facing the Cuban people and the climate of fear in Miami pushed by a small group of right-wing Cubans, who dominate the public discourse and silences others with differing opinions on Cuba."
It's not clear what the 11th Circuit will now do, comments the lawyer. The court has heard oral arguments and everybody is now waiting for a decision.
"The facts of the case have not changed, the outrageous nature of the charges pending against the Five have not changed; nor has the fact that they are still being held in maximum security prisons unjustly."
One year ago, the three magistrates concluded that the convictions should be overturned and that a new trial should be held. "Although that opinion legally cannot guide the 11th Circuit's deliberations, it is a material factor in the legal trajectory of the overall case of the Cuban Five." The National Lawyers Guild is working very hard to support the legal end of the Five's case, says Thompson.
He then emphasized the significance of a march that will take place on September 23 in Washington, D.C., to demand the release of the Cuban Five and an end to U.S. government-sponsored terrorism against Cuba. Heidi Boghosian, National Lawyers Guild Executive Director, will represent this organization at the rally.
The event, says Thompson, will be a great opportunity for lawyers, activists, and progressive pro-Cuba people to discuss strategies for expanding and amplifying support for the Five in the United States.
"We think it is important for all people in the U.S. who care about justice to get involved," he concluded.
The Five remain incarcerated in US penitentiaries despite this favorable decision of the Atlanta court and a May 27th, 2005 decision of the United Nations Human Rights Commission Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.
The UN panel of experienced jurists declared the imprisonment of Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González "arbitrary and illegal."
A March to the White House*
On September 23, the US National Committee to Free the Cuban Five will hold a March to the White House and a major public forum in Washington "to commemorate the victims of 1976 and to demand freedom for the Cuban Five."
September delineates eight years since the Cuban Five were arrested by the FBI. "For eight years the Five have been unjustly imprisoned for the "crime" of risking their lives in order to stop violent terrorist attacks from the U.S. on Cuba," recalls a message from the Committee.
It also marks the 30th anniversary of the car-bomb murder in Washington DC of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt by Cuban counterrevolutionaries working closely with the CIA.
Just two weeks after the murder of Letelier and Moffitt, the same terrorist network bombed a Cuban airliner in flight over Barbados, killing all 73 passengers aboard, on Oct. 6, 1976.
"It was to stop these kind of horrific attacks that the Cuban Five — Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González — came to south Florida and infiltrated the terrorist groups which operate there with impunity," says the Committee.
The march will be followed by a public forum with speakers including Leonard Weinglass, attorney for the Five; Francisco Letelier, son of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier assassinated in New York by Cuban mercenaries; Livio Di Celmo, brother of Fabio Di Celmo murdered in terrorist attack on Cuba; Gloria La Riva, Coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Five, USA; Andres Gomez, Coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade; and others

Gerardo Hernández’s message to the Cuban people

2006-08-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

Gerardo Hernández

2006-08-02

We have known about the health situation of our Commander in Chief and we are confident in his prompt recuperation.
To our people we say, that you in Cuba and we in the prisons of the Empire will continue forward with much more force.
Now we are more united that ever, together with Cuba and with you, dear Comandante.
The Five wish you a prompt recuperation.
I embrace you on behalf of my brothers Ramón Labañino, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and myself.
Gerardo Hernández, USP VICTORVILLECaliforniaUnited States

Terrorist's Best Defense

2006-07-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

If you're a Cuban-American caught redhanded in illegal activities, there's a great defense these days. Just claim that you're trying to kill Fidel Castro or overthrow the Cuban government. Proclaim that you're just loyally carrying out the policy that Washington has pursued ever since the Cuban Revolution. You might even threaten to subpoena government documents and officials. Or you could threaten to start revealing secrets about the government's terrorist activities.
For example, in 1997, four Cuban-Americans-Angel Manuel Alfonso Alemán, Angel Hernández Rojo, Juan Bautista Márquez, and Francisco Secundino Córdova--were on their way from Miami to assassinate Fidel Castro upon his arrival on Margarita Island in Venezuela for an Ibero-American Summit meeting. When their boat had mechanical problems, the Coast Guard arrived and became suspicious, suspecting drugs, because the men gave conflicting answers to routine questions about where they were headed and for what purpose. A search by the Coast Guard revealed, among other military materiel, two .50-caliber sniper rifles--long-range, armor-piercing weapons. Then Alfonso blurted out that the guns were to kill Fidel Castro and that he was planning to shoot Castro's plane when it landed. In this instance, the Coast Guard did not look the other way. All four were arrested. On August 25, 1998, they were indicted with three other Cuban-Americans—José Antonio Llama, José Rodríguez Sosa, and Alfredo Otero--on charges of conspiring to assassinate President Castro. But they need not have worried about getting convicted. Before their trial, Alfonso's lawyer threatened to demand access to every CIA and FBI document about decades of plots to kill Fidel Castro.
The prosecutor then decided that Alfonso's confession would not be used as evidence because its legality was so vague, he said, that it could pave the way for an appeal of convictions. That of course paved the way for no convictions at all. The fix was in. The lawyer's threat to base the defense on Washington's record of terrorism worked. All six defendants were acquitted on December 8, 1999, by the jury in Puerto Rico. (Márquez had been separated from the others because he was arrested in Miami before the trial for smuggling cocaine.) Now, seven years later, one of those defendants, José Antonio Llama, who was a member of the Board of Directors of the Cuban American National Foundation at the time of his arrest is describing in public how he and other leaders of CANF in 1992 had created a paramilitary group to kill Castro and overthrow the Cuban government.
Meanwhile, on September 12, 1998, less than three weeks after the indictment of the seven terrorists, the FBI arrested a group of Cubans who were in Miami to collect information about precisely this kind of terrorist plot. Although the Cuban-Americans were acquitted, five Cubans—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, and René González--who were trying to prevent such terrorism remain in prison to this day.
On April 14, 2006, another Cuban-American, this one from Upland in southern California, was found with an arsenal, a huge arsenal of 1,571 guns that includes one of those .50 caliber sniper rifles, Uzi submachine guns, handguns equipped with silencers, live hand grenades, a rocket launcher, and even a gun that looks like a walking cane. As the police searched his house in an affluent neighborhood, Robert Ferro immediately started explaining to investigators that he is a member of Alpha 66, which has a history of hundreds of attacks against Cuba. Alpha 66 denies he's a member, but Ferro's defense is that his weapons were for overthrowing Castro. He told agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that his Alpha 66 group has a hundred members ready to invade Cuba. As Fidel Castro remarked, Ferro had almost as many weapons as the mercenaries who invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. In 1992 Ferro was accused of running a paramilitary camp to train people for such an invasion. He was convicted then of possession of five pounds of C-4 plastic explosive and sentenced to two years. Now he is charged with three counts of possessing unregistered firearms and two counts of being a felon in possession of firearms.
Investigators lean toward the theory that his claims about Alpha 66 are a cover story for sales of illegal weapons, but Ferro is sticking to his guns, so to speak. The Los Angeles Times reported that Ferro said, "Those guns I had were very sophisticated weapons. It was for a fight. I was just trying to mimic what President Bush has done in Iraq, bring freedom to the country." He added, "I don't know why I'm in trouble for that."
The most notorious terrorist in the Western Hemisphere, Luis Posada Carriles, currently "in detention" in El Paso, Texas, is also wondering why he's in trouble. Posada definitely has a bona fide defense for carrying out terrorist acts as an agent of the U.S. government, and Washington is concerned about what Posada might disclose. Thus he is not charged with any of his terrorist crimes even though he is currently wanted in Venezuela on charges of blowing up a Cuban civilian jetliner, killing all 73 people aboard. He is not charged with bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian businessman and wounded several other people even though he bragged to New York Times reporters that he was the mastermind of that bombing campaign (see front-page stories July 12 and July 13, 1998). Posada became a CIA agent in 1960. He kills with impunity because, as he told those reporters, he has worked closely with both the CIA and the FBI. He said, "The CIA taught us everything-everything. They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage." But the only charge against him in Texas is for entering this country without inspection, a minor charge for which he was detained last year.
Posada is requesting U.S. citizenship and has filed a habeas corpus petition asking for release from detention. Posada's lawyer has an aggressive strategy for his client: After Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, he went to El Salvador where he helped deliver aid to U.S.-sponsored contras trying to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. At the time such aid was against the law, but some of Washington's highest officials were behind those unlawful activities, including sales of illegal guns and drugs. Posada's lawyer is threatening to subpoena some of those officials, including Col. Oliver North, who directed supply operations from his office in the Reagan White House. One reason that Jorge Mas Canosa, then the chair of CANF, put up the money for bribing Posada's way out of that Venezuelan prison in 1985 was Mas Canosa's fear that Posada would start talking about what he knew. Mas is dead but the current threat of subpoenas must have some people in Washington and Miami wishing they could shut this guy up permanently. It's bad enough that José Antonio Llama is telling what he knows, but that is nothing compared to what Posada could tell.

‘War against terror’ conceals record of deceit, corruption, incompetence

2006-07-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

When governments wage “wars” against nouns, like drugs and war, rather than against nations, they confront an obvious problem. Neither drugs nor terrorism will surrender. How then will the Bush Administration convince the public that it is “winning” these “wars”?
Creative script writing? Instead of hiring top lawyers to prosecute criminals, the Justice Department may have contracted spin-meisters to scare the public – or at least engage a sector of it in sardonic laughter. In other words, the 9/11 (tragedy) has evolved into a preposterous undercover operation (farce).
Last week, the White House accused the New York Times of committing journalistic treason by publishing the story on how the Bush Administration secretly tracked U.S. bank accounts, as if cunning terrorists wouldn’t have thought of this possibility. Even more bizarre, the Justice Department staged a Miami sting, designed to show that Homeland Security stands between us and fanatical terrorists operating under our noses, and to frighten the TV watching masses.
Attorney General Alberto “Tap ‘em and torture ‘em” Gonzalez announced that his raid nailed seven black men -- five U.S. citizens, one legal Haitian and one Haitian apparently illegally in the United States. They face life in prison if convicted of plotting to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and committing other violent acts against the United States – even though an agent provocateur provided the ideas and offered the weapons to the group.
To suck the gullible into a preposterous melodrama, the Justice Department used the eager media, which serve as the equivalent of the 19th Century shills who helped convince rubes to buy miracle cures for snake bite and syphilis from traveling hucksters. Indeed, modern advertising continues to lure suckers into buying products to stop the aging process, if not death itself.
Gonzalez, ringmaster for the new act in the terrorism circus, announced this publicity center piece in Bush’s terrorism war. The newly arrested septet does, however, provide the public with a clearer notion of the “t” word – at least in Bush’s dictionary: “terrorist equals inarticulate and gullible black Muslim or Christian.”
A lawyer would charge “entrapment” and point to an FBI provocateur luring seven vulnerable men into a trap. He convinced the group to swear an oath to Al Qaeda -- on camera. Imagine people who would believe an Al Qaeda rep doing a talent search in an Afro American neighborhood in Miami! What’s in it for the FBI?
Well, Bureau officials still carry their poor pre 9/11 performance burden. They failed to heed Agents’ memos that might have stopped the actual airplane hijackers before they struck. Instead of protecting the public, they targeted, for publicity’s sake, men who possessed neither money nor explosives -- nor ability to use them.
Even deputy FBI director John Pistole admitted the “plans to attack the Sears Tower were aspirational rather than operational.” Hey, like thousands of other men, I “aspired” for decades to become a major league shortstop! Like the arrested men, I lacked a few needed components for success.
Albeit in the “aspiration stage,” Pistole insisted the seven illustrated “the threat posed by small groups without connections to international terror networks.” He warned that “these are members of a homegrown terrorist cell. Their goal was simple: to accomplish attacks against America.” Yes, Pistole admitted, the group had no real connection to Al Qaeda, but the FBI sting man convinced them to take a televised oath -- although none of them knew to whom they were pledging “eternal loyalty.”
The FBI plant convinced the leader of these “aspirational” Jihadists, Narseal Batiste, that he represented Al Qaeda and could provide Batiste with “boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios and vehicles.” The gullible Batiste even asked for bulletproof vests and $50,000.
To plant explosives in the Sears Tower why would he need most of these items? The FBI claimed that the seven had even given their boot sizes to the Bureau operative. When the synchronized raids took place at a Miami warehouse and at other places where the men resided, the raiders found no weapons, bombs – or material to make them.
Yet, Gonzalez insisted the Bureau had saved the country, it had “identified and disrupted a terrorist plot before any damage could be done.” He claimed that “these individuals wished to wage a full ground war against the United States.” One suspect supposedly told the FBI infiltrator that he wanted to “kill all the devils we can.”
Handcuffed and shackled, the men who appeared in court on June 25, did not coincide with the “danger” portrait. Not Arabs, Muslims, nor men with serious prison records! The mother of one arrested man, a construction worker, said she got his weekly paycheck and that he knew nothing of Islam and bore no grudge against his country. A sister of one man said he couldn’t spell “Al Qaeda.”
Why, one would ask, did the media give such prominence to such a poorly scripted police comedy? Or does the Homeland Security gang feel so insecure that they must manufacture a U.S. version of “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight?”
Since the Bureau over-orchestrated the media publicity on the danger of the men whom they had “stung,” Gonzales later contradicted his preliminary assessment of the “homegrown terrorism cell” by saying they posed “no immediate threat.”
Having shown their alertness at finding the non-plotters, the Homeland Security police studiously ignore real conspirators. In Miami, anti-Castro activists, even as senior citizens, pursue their youthful projects: to assassinate Fidel Castro and launch an invasion of Cuba. Since 1959, the U.S. government has aided and encouraged them to collect piles of guns and bombs. Over three decades, the CIA has also provided Castro’s violent enemies with sophisticated technology, like poison in his cigars and wetsuits in the 1960s and a pistol in a TV camera designed to shoot the Cuban leader at a press conference in Chile in 1971.
When Jimmy Carter briefly withdrew support for such efforts, some Castro-haters blew up a post office and attacked other U.S. government installations. Reagan however, resumed encouragement of the violent anti-Castro groups. They have continued to conspire and occasionally boast about plotting assassination and bombings of Cuba. Luis Posada Carriles, for example, boasted to New York Times reporters Anne Bardach and Larry Rohter that he had plotted the bombing of a Cuban hotel, by describing them “as acts of war intended to cripple a totalitarian regime by depriving it of foreign tourism and investment.” One tourist died. “Posada described the Italian tourist’s death as a freak accident, but he declared that he had a clear conscience, saying, ‘I sleep like a baby.’”
In 1976, an FBI cable identified Posada as responsible for successfully plotting to blow up a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados. Seventy-three passengers and crew members died. Posada, now 77 and in prison for violating immigration rules, has yet to be charged with terrorism. More recently, other geriatric anti-Fidelistas claimed that the U.S. government encouraged them to proceed with violent plots.
In April, outside of Los Angeles, Robert Ferro got busted by local authorities for possessing some 1,500 weapons, including explosives and rocket launchers. Ferro claimed the government knew about the weapons and had encouraged him to use them to train an army to invade Cuba. Authorities had arrested Ferro in 1992 in Pomona, California, where he claimed to be training a group of Mexicans to invade Cuba and again in 1995 in Miami, with a large load of weapons. Inexplicably, Ferro faced no major charges and even got his weapons back.
In Miami, Jose Antonio Llama stated that serious assassination plotting had taken place with U.S. government knowledge. Authorities had arrested Llama and four other anti-Castro exiles in Puerto Rico in 1997 on charges of conspiracy to assassinate Castro, who was preparing to attend an Ibero-American Summit on Margarita Island, Venezuela. The men told a U.S. Customs officer that U.S. officials had given them the go ahead to kill Castro.
“We were impatient with the survival of Castro’s regime after the fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp,” said Llama. He claimed to have put his own money into a plot in the early 1990s. “We wanted to accelerate the democratization of Cuba using any possible means to achieve it.” A jury acquitted them after a federal judge threw out one of the defendants’ self-incriminating statements. Indeed, Miami juries have consistently refused to convict violent anti-Castro plotters.
Serious terrorism merits public concern and dialogue. Thousands of Cubans died as a result of U.S.-backed terrorist attacks from the early 1960s on. Similarly, hundreds of real assassination plots against Castro took place – none successful of course. In the Middle East and other places, lots of actual plots are underway. Indeed, each day in Iraq, bombs explode and people die.
When the Department of Justice stages stings that no self respecting Hollywood producer would ever use in a film, it indicates a level of desperation inside the government. How long can the Bush Administration use the “war against terror” to conceal a record of deceit, corruption and incompetence?

The Truth is Ours

2006-07-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

Fernando Gonzalez Llort, one of the Cuban Five anti-terrorists held in US prisons shares his views with Granma.
Five years ago, in June 2001, five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters were the victims of a rigged trial in a US Court in Miami which sentenced them to long prison terms.

Five years have gone by since the message sent by "The Five" to the people of the United States was heard in Miami. As a reprisal they were put back into solitary confinement without any of their personal belongings, neither letters, photos, poems, nor even the smallest piece of a pencil with which to write.

Five years have elapsed since former US Attorney General John Ashcroft visited the ultra right wing conservatives in Miami to celebrate our five brothers having been found guilty.

Coincidentally, it was in June 1998, on the 16th and 17th of that month, when Cuban state Security authorities hand delivered –during an exchange with FBI representatives- 230 pages of documents containing a detailed record of terrorist activities against Cuba organized from the US.

The mass of material included five videocassettes of TV programs broadcast by US-based television networks containing talks between participants, and news reports dealing with criminal actions against Cuba. The Cuban authorities also handed over to the FBI eight audio cassettes with two hours and forty minutes of recordings of telephone calls by Central American terrorists detained in Cuba who were speaking with their mentors in Miami.

The FBI admitted being impressed by the quality of the evidence and told their Cuban counterparts that they would provide an answer about everything in two weeks.

Nevertheless, as it is well known, the only response given by the US was the arrest on the 12th of September 12, 2001 of the possible messengers.

These are the reasons why today Granma offers this analysis of the issues raised by Fernando Gonzalez Llort. In doing so, we had the invaluable cooperation of his wife, Rosa Aurora Freijanes Coca, who passed on our questions, and was a faithful interpreter during this exchange of information.

Five years have elapsed since the message you addressed to the people of the United States was made public. What mention does this deserve and has what you stated in that text changed in any respect?

It is true that five years have gone by since we addressed to the American people. In that message we told them that we are five innocent men. We said that due to our love for our homeland and humankind we undertook the mission of confronting the enemy on the
front line by infiltrating terrorist organizations. These groups had been protected and granted impunity by successive US administrations to execute their murderous plans against our nation from South Florida.

The saddest thing is that the situation which we told the American people about five years ago is exactly the same as today. In the first place, today Americans still know nothing of the nature of our struggle. As a matter of fact, they know nothing about who we are, because a mantle of silence has been woven around our case. This is something done with great effectiveness by the mass media, which by doing so responds to the US government's interests. In second place,
it clearly demonstrates that what we said at that time about terrorism against Cuba was not history, as a matter of fact continues in the present.

Over the past several months we have seen events which confirm what we have just mentioned. Many people will be astonished, but we –who have been deep inside the terrorist rings and knew about their plans and their sick aspiration to defeat the Cuban Revolution - know very well what they are capable of doing.

In California, Robert Ferro was arrested and later stated that he was a member of Alpha 66. US authorities captured him with the largest ever weapons cache ever found in the possession of an individual. He affirmed those arms were to be used to launch actions against Cuba, something that apparently relieves terrorists from having to face justice.

But also, at the end of 2005, Santiago Alvarez, the same person who helped Luis Posada Carriles enter the United States illegally from Mexico, was captured with a load of weapons. Another of his partners, Osvaldo Mitat, was also arrested for the same reason and both are awaiting trial for those crimes.

At this very moment information is being published saying that terrorist activities are being carried out in Miami, possibly to distract the public's attention from other matters. But they rarely discuss Cuban-American or Cuban-born terrorists from the Cuban American National Foundation, Alpha 66, F4 Commandos, Brothers to the Rescue and so many other organizations. These individuals are simply referred to as "anti-Castro militants."

In my statement to the court, when I was unjustly sentenced to 19 years in prison in December of 2001, I stated that there is no "good terrorism" or "bad terrorism;" there is just terrorism, and it has to be fought. However, when it comes to Cuba things are different, and that is why individuals like Orlando Bosch, Rodolfo Frometa, Jose A. Llama enjoy total impunity.

Related to this topic, Llama, known in the Miami Mafia's small world as Tonin, has created a scandal because he was swindled by the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). Just for the record, CANF denies being a terrorist organization, though Llama's accusation demonstrates that in Miami there are people devoted to the planning of criminal actions against our nation. All this reinforces the need for our people to defend themselves from those macabre schemes.

As we have seen, they are trying to receive a pardon from President George W. Bush for Luis Posada Carriles. Former president George H. Bush granted a pardon to terrorist Orlando Bosch, even though US authorities had described him as extremely dangerous. Posada Carriles is just as dangerous. Posada's case is shameful. And they are doing everything in complicity with this country's authorities.

US intelligence agencies are well aware of most of the Cuban-American terrorists who are currently undertaking terrorist acts against Cuba; in fact, they were part of those agencies. From them they learned methods of operation and how to use equipment. This is what I said in my statement to the court, and I maintain it.

For a long time Cuba has been denouncing what is going on today in Miami.

If that were not enough, all the questions The Five posed in our message to the American people have been answered through the scandal in which Tonin was involved.

Why do Cubans have to fulfill the honorable duty of defending their country far from their families and beloved ones? Why do they have to put off enjoying life with their people in order to do their duty?

Why are US authorities so tolerant in allowing terrorist acts against our country? Why don't they investigate terrorist plans protested against by Cuba and take actions to stop them? I wonder why they don't try to prevent the numerous plots to assassinate our leaders.

Why are the self-confessed masterminds of these and others terrorist acts walking around South Florida, as it was proved in our trial?

Who trained them? Who granted them immunity?

Who are the ones who really put US security at risk?

The best service anyone could render to the American people would be to save them from the influence of the extremists and terrorists who do so much damage to that country by plotting to violate its laws.

What special message on behalf of The Five would you send to those who read this interview?

A person who acts according to their principles comes to their own when faced with any difficulty. We are going through difficult moments, but we know that justice will win sooner than later. Truth is on our side. We say that we are innocent. We are just men who out of love for life, the human race and our nation, were able stop criminal plans.

My brothers Gerardo, Antonio, Rene and Ramon, and I were always aware of the danger of our mission. The American people -who have a great history - must know that by carrying out this mission, we were also protecting them.

My brothers and I are men educated by a revolution whose light reaches millions of people around this planet and gives them hope. We are the children of a revolution of which we are proud, as we are proud of our endless loyalty to our country and to our leader Fidel Castro, who five years ago said he was confident that we shall return. And we, The Five, are confident we shall return.

History Justifies the Mission of the Cuban Five

2006-07-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

Titled "Plan to Assassinate Castro Uncovered," the Miami-based Spanish language newspaper El Nuevo Herald provides details regarding a recent scandal involving leading members of terrorist Cuban-American organizations based in that US city. The explicit revelation was made by Jose Antonio Llama, the former board member of the Cuban American National Foundation, in which he acknowledges the creation of a paramilitary group with the objective of carrying out terrorists actions to destabilize Cuba and kill President Fidel Castro.

In his statements, the "regretful" Llama, alias Tonin, gave a detailed explanation of purchases of an arsenal which included "a cargo helicopter, 10 ultralight radio-controlled planes, seven vessels and abundant explosive materials."

According to the close colleague of former CANF Director Jorge Mas Canosa, the initiative was organized in the early 1990's, at the same time as the fall of the former Soviet Union and the disappearance of the socialist community in Eastern Europe. At that time the collapse of the Cuban Revolution was predicted to occur within weeks. The assassination plot failed after the Tonin's yacht, "Esperanza," was captured when it was on its way to the Venezuelan island of Margarita, the site of the Ibero-American Summit in which the Cuban leader was to participate. To the surprise of the US Coast Guard which intercepted the vessel on the high seas, rather that finding drugs on board, they discovered a powerful 50caliber rifle and other weapons to be used in the planed attack. It is worthwhile to recall that Tonin and his four fellow crewmembers were arrested and tried in 1997 by a federal court in Puerto Rico, accused of conspiracy to assassinate President Fidel Castro. However, in one of those unusual cases of the US justice system when it comes to Cuba, the accused were exonerated due to "lack of evidence."

One must ask why this horrifying tale --more suited to a crime novel has exploded after almost 10 years to only strengthen terrorist acts and the violation of US law. Simple. Everything becomes clear when we learn that Llama is in deep trouble due to the fact that this whole operation was financed by a personal loan he secured to the tune of $1.47 million. No one has been able to explain the proposed uses of the funds which were extended, and everything indicates that there is no intention to return the money.

El Nuevo Herald describes the scenes in which an outraged and ruined Llama was "surrounded by a number of boxes with files within which were meticulously organized documents, meeting notes and newspaper clippings." These proved the fraud which he had been subjected to by his former partners.

This episode provides evidence --from the mouth of one of the perpetrators-- of the terrorist and illegal character of these counter-revolutionary organizations, particularly the Cuban American National Foundation with its official front of a lobbying group. This also shows the moral shadiness of these fellows who have made the anti-Castro issue a million dollar industry, using the traditional Miami-Dade approach of "passing the buck" and accessing the money of the US taxpayers.

Finally, we should not forget, this raises two questions which we will leave for the readers:

Doesn't this story demonstrate Cuba's right and need to have infiltrated right wing Cuban-American terrorist organizations to learn about plans and protect the Cuban people?

Isn't it unjust that five anti-terrorist fighters have been imprisoned in the US for almost eight years, serving long prison terms for espionage and "constituting a danger" to US national security?

An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon

2006-07-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

The US Tramples the Charters and Laws It Wrote
By SAUL LANDAU

Landau: How do you compare Bush's discourse with that of past presidents? And how do you compare them with his deeds? Alarcon: Words are not his strongest quality. I think that there are discrepancies in his second inaugural address. He talked about carrying the fire of freedom throughout the world. Without sounding rude, I'd say this is, at the very least, an over-statement. He isn't going to carry anything much further. He's already having difficulty in maintaining this fire in Iraq. If he wants to do that around the world he will not succeed. Indeed, he's not succeeding in Iraq.
Cuba is one of the places mentioned, not by him but by [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice the day before. I advise them not to try. It will cost a lot of lives if the Americans would attack us, more than those dying in Iraq, because this is not a divided country or society that has been suffering under a dictatorial regime. The opposite is true. You will find here a free society, finally emancipated from half a century of oppression and corruption imposed by the US. We attainted our independence in 1959 -- from US domination. That is a fact of history. From an ethnic or cultural point of view we are a unified country, an island on which a common culture and common identity has evolved. We are prepared to make life impossible for an invader.But more important, what is the meaning of this policy? It is not just irrational, a product of arrogance or impulse, not just the product of a person that doesn't read many books. That explains only his strange selection of words.
Consider Bush's simplistic view of the world; or better, take the more analytical and conscious way the CIA views it. A CIA document published a couple months ago and another in December 2000, forecasts based on research and analysis, consider scenarios of war, peace, turmoil and catastrophes. But there is a common denominator expressed in one sentence: "US influence will continue to decline." By the way the CIA does not call for a change of policy, but simply states as a fact that US influence is less today than 20 or 40 years ago.
The US is not going to rise above the rest of the world. It is the sole superpower in cold war terms. But the US cannot exercise complete power over the rest of the world. Russia continues to have nuclear weapons. Economically, for example, China has emerged as a power. Recently the Chinese president toured Latin America and discussed granting Argentina a credit line of $20 billion. 40 years ago, at time of the Alliance for Progress, Kennedy offered the entire continent $20 billion -- over ten year period. Cuba criticized this modest offer at the time because it was too little.
Remember, at that time this little island had established relations with that big country China. The other countries in the Latin America followed the US line and refused to recognize the existence of China. Now, 40 years later, that once non-recognized country's head of state travels throughout the region and offers much more than the US could when it was at its peak. And the US must accept that China plays that role in the world. The Vice President of China was doing a similar same thing in Africa. Although the US remains the biggest military power, it has trouble controlling a rather small country like Iraq, which it almost destroyed by bombing and an economic embargo before the war. The reality is that US is only the most powerful entity in one area: information and communication.It was the only dominant force at end of the Second World War, the only nuclear power. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by the way, are the only cases in which nuclear power has been used destructively. They were not employed by a terrorist state, but by the US democracy -- allegedly to defeat Japan. At that time and later, during the Marshall Plan, the US was at the top. Since then it has been declining. That does not mean it is a country in disarray, but it is going downward.To answer this downhill slide, in my opinion, came the neo-cons who believe that by using the United States' comparatively limited economic and large military resources, but especially by exploiting their advantage in terms of communication technology and near monopoly of information media, they can reverse the trend. That is impossible. The US cannot turn the world back to 1945 and reappear as the only power in the world. The US needs to learn to live in a diverse world with different players, different ideologies and interests and not to pretend to be the owner of the planet.Those times are gone forever. That is the way history moves. But the new conservative trend departs form traditional conservatism and tries to reverse the world's movement by being interventionist, by sending troops here and there. It is an irrational approach. It's obvious that they will not succeed but their missionary and mythological approach could lead to mistakes even more grave than Iraq.Landau: In 1945, the US wrote the Nuremburg laws prohibiting aggressive war and also drafted the UN and OAS charters that prohibit intervention. How do you explain US behavior, initiating those laws and then violating them?Alarcon: The US wrote all those important documents that became the foundation of the international order when it was the most important power in the world. Now that the world has been undergoing change those documents have become obstacles to US interests. At the same time, US officials try to manipulate these documents, like the Human Rights Covenants. If you listen to US officials, they are fulfilling a mission of spreading human rights throughout the world. The ideals of freedom and democracy are in the UN charter, but together with the principle of nonintervention, prohibition of war.
The only thing the UN Charter recognizes as a legitimate reason for war is self defense, a nation subjected to external aggression. Even in those circumstances you have to ask the UN to intervene. Nobody else can intervene. It's a peaceful ideal. The Charter lacks some important points. It doesn't mention colonialism, nor recognize the right of colonial people to self-determination and independence. But the UN was transformed because after WW II, no one could stop the emancipation of those countries. People became independent and then UN members. It was one of the factors that helped transform the world. How to explain how the US changed its mind after essentially drafting these documents?Those exercising power were not happy with what happened. The reality problem is a serious one. Psychiatrists help those who have trouble dealing with reality. If you do not acknowledge reality you may be suffering from a serious disturbance. I sometimes feel that some American politicians need professional help to remember that they conceived the UN and its structure. Some American politicians now refer to the UN as something to ignore or despise. Do they forget that it was a US creation? To weaken or break this organization, which is what Bush did, was a terrible thing. The UN does not exist any more because of what happened in Iraq. This is a very serious problem. It is not true that it will reconstruct itself on new bases. I don't want to sound rude, but that is exactly what Hitler did. He was angry with the League of Nations, with reality, after WWI. During the period between the two world wars, Germany became the European superpower, economically, technologically, militarily.When Hitler set the goal of conquering Europe in the mid 1930s, his dream matched the reality of Europe more than who Bush seeks to conquer the entire world with the current level of US power. Hitler's irrational dream was more rational than the discourse you hear now from American leaders. Hitler made a very big mistake, trying to conquer the USSR. Stalin committed many crimes. He was a dictator, but the Soviet people stopped Hitler. It was the same mistake that Napoleon made, to try to conquer the East. If he had remained the master of western and central Europe maybe he would have continued to hold power. But he overextended himself. But fascism was rejected by most people. And resistance to Nazism arose in many places. Our Yugoslav brothers and sisters offered heroic resistance in that period. The Nazis never conquered that country. Later on it was made to explode, not by the Nazis but by western democracies.Landau: You use history as a guide.Alarcon: History is important. Those who believe they can turn history back should remember the origin of previous wars. The Germans didn't accept Versailles and that was the origin of Fascism.Saul Landau teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University, where he is the director of Digital Media Programs and International Outreach, and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. His new book is The Business of America.

The Cuban Five Remain Locked Up in US Prisons: A Mockery of Justice

2006-07-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

ANDRÉS GÓMEZ

2006-07-03

July 3, 2006, published by CounterPunchLast May 27 marked one year since a United Nations Human Rights Commission Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions ruled that the imprisonment of five Cubans, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, was arbitrary and contravened Article 14 of the International Convention for Civil and Political Rights. The Group urged the U.S. government to adopt measures necessary to seek a solution to the situation. One of the special mechanisms by which the U.N. Human Rights Commission works, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions was established in May of 2005 and comprises experts from Spain, Hungary , Iran, Paraguay and Algeria. Thus, three of the experts came from countries whose governments are U.S. allies. The Group adopted the measure in response to a petition that the families of the five men made personally in Geneva in 2003, after evaluating arguments brought by both relatives and the U.S. government. The U.S. government rejected the Working Group's opinion, once again making a mockery of justice in its application in the case of the Cuban Five.The men have now been unjustly incarcerated for eight years after an arrest and trial that were based on false accusations. It's now been more than 10 months since a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to reverse the sentences of the Five and ordered a new trial, but they remain in prison.Using a complicated appeals process that is nothing short of derisory, the five innocent men remain behind bars under arduous conditions. The decision by the Working Group is extremely important because it is the accepted mechanism by which member states of the United Nations evaluate criteria on aspects of international law in relation to such cases. Upon what was the U.N. group's decision based? The following is quoted from its opinion relating to the Five: - "Following their arrest, and notwithstanding the fact that the detainees had been informed of their right to remain silent and had their defense provided by the Government, they were kept in solitary confinement for 17 months, during which communication with their attorneys, and access to evidence and thus, possibilities to a adequate defense were weakened, ... - "As the case was classified as one of national security, access by the detainees to the documents that contained evidence was impaired. The Government has not contested the fact that defense lawyers had very limited access to evidence because of this classification, negatively affecting their ability to present counter evidence ... - " the Government has not denied that even so, the climate of bias and prejudice against the accused in Miami persisted and helped to present the accused as guilty from the beginning. It was not contested by the Government that one year later it admitted that Miami was an unsuitable place for a trial where it proved almost impossible to select an impartial jury in a case linked with Cuba. - "The Working Group notes that it arises from the facts and circumstances in which the trial took place and from the nature of the charges and the harsh sentences given to the accused, that the trial did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality which is required in order to conclude on the observance of the standards of a fair trial, as defined in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States of America is a party. - "The Working Group concludes that the three elements that were enunciated above, combined together, are of such gravity that they confer the deprivation of liberty of these five persons an arbitrary character. - " the Working Group requests the Government to adopt the necessary steps to remedy the situation, in conformity with the principles stated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." This opinion agrees with and confirms the essential arguments of the Cuban Five defense team and the decision of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that in August reversed their sentences and annulled their trial. We all know the response of the United States government before this distressing proof of iniquity, which clearly demonstrates its utter lack of respect for law and justice. Andrés Gómez is a Cuban-American resident in the United States and director of the magazine Areitodigital.

Revealed in the Miami press details of terrorist actions organized in that city against Cuba

2006-06-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald published today, June 22, 2006, the unusual confession of a former member of the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) recognizing, with a lot of details, the terrorist actions organized in Miami by this anti-Cuban organization in the 90’s.
Jose Antonio Llama, a former board member of the Cuban American National Foundation says he and other CANF leaders created a paramilitary group to carry out destabilizing acts in Cuba and do away with Cuban ruler Fidel Castro.
The Miami Herald
BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLAwcancio@ElNuevoHerald.com
A former board member of the Cuban American National Foundation* says he and other CANF leaders created a paramilitary group to carry out destabilizing acts in Cuba and do away with Cuban ruler Fidel Castro.
Jose Antonio Llama, known as Toñin, told El Nuevo Herald that the arsenal to carry out these plans included a cargo helicopter, 10 ultralight radio-controlled planes, seven vessels and abundant explosive materials.
''We were impatient with the survival of Castro's regime after the fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp,'' said Llama, a key financial backer of the plot in the early 1990s. ``We wanted to accelerate the democratization of Cuba using any possible means to achieve it.''
The plans failed after Llama and four other exiles were arrested in Puerto Rico in 1997 on charges of conspiracy to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American Summit on Margarita Island, Venezuela. A jury acquitted them after a federal judge threw out one of the defendants' self-incriminating statements.
Llama, a close associate of the late CANF leader Jorge Mas Canosa, left the group's board in 1999. He said he quit CANF because it refused to pay his codefendants' legal defense costs after the trial. Llama also went bankrupt.
CANF spokesman Alfredo Mesa -- speaking for members and leaders -- told El Nuevo Herald: ``In this case, we consider that it is extremely irresponsible for a press organization to echo what clearly represents an extortion and defamation attempt.''
CUBA'S CLAIMS
The Cuban government has long claimed CANF planned armed attacks on the island, but up until now, none of its claims have been documented. Llama has been handing out pamphlets in Miami detailing the purported plot. On Wednesday, Granma -- Cuba's government newspaper -- published a story on the pamphlets.
Llama -- who says he made his fortune building air conditioners for Soviet vehicles -- said he's going public because he contributed $1.4 million of his own money to the cause and several CANF members bilked him.
He is currently writing his memoirs, titled De la Fundacion a la fundicion: historia de una gran estafa (From the Foundation to Meltdown: Story of a Big Swindle).
''This is the truth -- The only thing I have left at this point in life is the truth,'' said Llama, 75. ``I am asking for what's due to me, nothing more and nothing less, to take it to bankruptcy court. Where are the vessels and planes I financed with my money? Where did they end up? Who has the original titles?''
Llama said he is also going public because his statements don't affect old friends who are implicated in the plot, such as exiles Arnaldo Monzon Plasencia, Raul Lopez and Manuel ''Nolo'' Garcia, who have died.
PERSONAL FUNDS
According to Llama, between 1994 and 1997 he personally spent more than $1.4 million to finance the purchase of radio-controlled planes and other supplies, under the cover of Florida-registered Nautical Sports Inc. and Dominican Republic-based Refri Auto.
Llama showed El Nuevo Herald financial records used to buy the equipment.
Llamas paid Nautical Sports $869,811. The purchase of the seven vessels equipped with satellite radio and phones, including the Midnight Express fast boat, was guaranteed through this front corporation, created in 1993, he said. That 40-foot motorboat was meant to take Mas Canosa to Cuba if Castro died or there was a sudden change of power, he added.
Another vessel, La Esperanza, was confiscated by the Treasury Department in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, after the 1997 federal indictments against its crew.
Llama remembers that the project started to take shape during CANF's annual meeting in Naples in June 1992. He said businessman Miguel Angel Martinez of Puerto Rico proposed the idea of ''doing more than lobbying in Washington'' to overthrow Castro. About 20 of the foundation's most trusted leaders agreed and designated Jose ''Pepe'' Hernandez, the current CANF president, and Mas Canosa to choose the armed group.
''It was agreed that since this was a delicate matter, details about the paramilitary group would be discussed in petit comite [a small committee],'' Llama said. ``At the meeting that board members and trustees held the following year [1993] in Puerto Rico, the chosen ones started to meet and consider everything that needed to be bought.''
The foundation's general board of directors didn't know the details of the paramilitary group, which acted autonomously, Llama said. He added that current CANF board chairman Jorge Mas Santos was never told of the plan.
''It was debated whether the group should be led by Miguel A. Martinez or Pepe Hernandez,'' the activist said. ``We chose Pepe for his known record as a fighter in the 2506 Brigade and the Marines.''
Among the group members, Llama said: Elpidio Nuñez, Horacio Garcia and Luis Zuñiga, who left the Foundation in 2001 to establish the Consejo por la Libertad de Cuba (Council for the Liberation of Cuba, or CLC); Erelio Peña and Raul Martinez, all of Miami; Fernando Ojeda, Fernando Canto and Domingo Sadurni of Puerto Rico; and Arnaldo Monzon Plasencia and Angel Alfonso Aleman of New Jersey.
Former CANF members Garcia, Zuñiga and Nuñez declined to comment. Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a CLC spokeswoman, said the three men have referred the matter to attorneys.
Llama also gave this account of the operation:
The 10 small remote-control planes were financed by Llama for $210,000 through the International Finance Bank of Miami, which paid Flight Rescue Systems, a company owned by Luis Prieto and Rafael Montalvo. The equipment was stored in a Miami-Dade warehouse to be used against Cuban economic targets or against Castro. Llama said Pepe Hernandez sold them after 1997.
Sadurni donated the cargo helicopter, but Llama said he financed $85,360 for it through Republic National Bank, per instructions from Hernandez. The helicopter would be used as an operation base for the small planes and was parked at the International Flight Center in southwestern Miami-Dade.
EXPLOSIVES
To buy explosives, the group used businessman Raul Lopez, an anti-Castro exile involved in infiltration operations in Cuba in the 1960s, Llama said. Lopez owned a company authorized to purchase explosives to open up sewage canals for South Florida's sugar industry.
Eulogio Amado Reyes, alias ''Papo,'' a retired car mechanic, said he assembled the ultralights in a Miami-Dade warehouse with the help of a Texas instructor whose last name was Graham.
''All that was said was that it was a foundation project,'' said Reyes, 73.
Jose Pujol, a veteran sailor, said that in 1993 the foundation started using him as an advisor to purchase vessels.
''El Pelican [a vessel] was put in my name,'' said Pujol, 76. ``The procedure was that I would look for vessels, Toñin made the down payment and Elpidio Nuñez was the backer.''
According to Llama, most of the explosives were kept in Miami, but late in 1996 they were dropped to the ocean bottom from a vessel at a reef near the Bahamas. The shipment was being transported by ''Nolo'' Garcia in Nuñez's yacht when a Bahamian patrol boat approached them so they feared a search.
''For logical reasons, they threw the shipment into the ocean,'' Llama said. ``Soon after we went there to recover it but didn't find it.''
* The CANF, formed by some of the most reactionary sectors of the Cuban exile in Miami, was created in 1981 by US President Ronald Regan. Its board members have strong links with the present government, the same ones that they had with the Bush Sr. Administration.

The Cuban Five in Atlanta

2006-06-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

"The sun of justice shall rise,bearing salvation on its wings"
(Malaquías, 4, 2)
On 9th August last, 28 months after the defendants had filed their arguments, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta finally handed down its verdict reversing the unjust convictions imposed over four years ago by a Miami Court on five young Cuban anti-terrorism fighters. The decision of the Atlanta Court was in no way a precipitated one. The process enabling the defendants to exercise their right of appeal was long, complex and hazardous. They had to face a whole series of obstacles that breached principles and rules of both American and international law, which forced them to a defense in conditions that defy imagination. It seemed their case would never actually reach the superior court for its necessary review. Then, the judges in Atlanta in order to do justice dedicated to the case four times the period used by the shameful farce in Miami. (1).
The Atlanta decision has a truly historical significance.
To understand it, it is necessary to put it in context and to go over - albeit briefly - the events leading up to it.
On September 12th, 1998, the FBI arrested Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González. They were accused of being unregistered agents of the Cuban government, whose mission was to infiltrate - with the aim of revealing their criminal plans - the terrorist groups that operate with impunity out of Miami. None of the men had criminal records; none had ever been accused of breaking any law or infringing any rule or regulation. They were unarmed and had never been involved in acts of violence or disturbances of any kind. They were nonetheless denied the possibility of applying for a release on bail.
On the contrary, from the very day of their arrest, they were put in solitary confinement - locked up in the infamous "hole", where they remained for a continuous period of 17 months. They were subjected to an entirely illegal punishment regime, restricted by US law to dangerous criminals who commit acts of violence inside the prison, and to a maximum of 60 days. They were prevented from mounting their defence while a massive, ruthless press campaign was unleashed in Miami with the participation of the prosecution, the FBI officials and the local authorities, portraying them as dangerous enemies guilty of the worst crimes, including the attempt "to destroy the United States". (2). Condemned in advance without trial or possibility of defence, they were subjected to a barrage of slander and threats.
But that was not enough for their accusers. To make quite sure that justice could not prevail, the government (with the agreement of the Miami Court) classified as secret the alleged "evidence", much of which belonged to the defendants themselves and included family photographs, personal correspondence and recipes. The defendants and their attorneys were thus denied access to the material, while the government was able to arbitrarily use and manipulate it. The defence is still now awaiting permission to view this "evidence". It has vainly claimed it time and again before the Miami Court and appealed in this connection to the Atlanta Court; it has still received no reply.
These were the circumstances in which the "trial" opened, on November 27th , 2000. 26 months had gone by since the day of the five men's arrest. And let us not forget that they spent 17 of those 26 months buried in the "hole".
The Miami judicial farce ended in June 2001 when a submissive, frightened jury, which had announced in advance the date and precise hour at which it would deliver its verdicts, found them guilty on all 26 counts, after deliberations lasting just a few hours and without asking a single question or expressing the slightest doubt. To cap it all, it found Gerardo Hernández guilty of something - the infamous Charge 3, first-degree murder - that the prosecution itself, in the knowledge that it could not be proved, had applied to withdraw it. (3).
Surprisingly, having arrived so quickly and easily at the desired verdict, the judge took six months to pronounce the sentences. She took as long as the "trial" itself. Why? Was she about to change or amend in some way the conduct of the jury? Was she trying to distance herself at least to some extent from the prosecution's request?
Nothing of the sort. The disproportionate sentences were exactly those the government had proposed. Was it necessary to delay half a year to respond? Why the long wait?
At the end of the trial, the judge announced that she would proceed to sentence in September. While she took vacation, the five were returned to solitary confinement. This time, they remained in the "hole" for 48 days, and got out only after several efforts by their attorneys. This further arbitrary treatment had a clear purpose: to make preparation of their statements - their only opportunity to address the court - as difficult as possible. When the time came, instead of apologizing or seeking clemency, as convicted prisoners generally do, the five vigorously condemned the farcical proceedings and exposed the terrorists and the Government that supports and protects them.
But something else happened in September 2001. The odious crime committed on the 11th had shaken American society and the whole world; the judge decided to postpone the sentencing sessions. It was an unusual deferral: three months. It was not mourning of or homage to the victims of that atrocity which caused the delay. Rather, it was quite the opposite.
Her reasons were utterly different. What she and the government were proposing to do was, among other things, a gross affront to the victims of that fateful day. They needed to separate the two events by as large an interval as possible, and gain enough time to ensure maximum impunity, relying on the customary cooperation of the information-suppressing mass media.
The government was going to bring to a climax a manoeuvre designed to support and protect the terrorists with whom the Bush family has close and longstanding links, and to whom the current tenant of the White House had promised reward in kind for the scandalous fraud by which he obtained the presidency in 2000.
That was why, after seeking maximum sentences, the prosecution shamelessly introduced in court proceedings its immoral and illegal theory of "incapacitation": in addition to the exorbitant sentences imposed on the accused, they were to be subjected to very specific restrictions after their release, such that they could never again attempt any action against these murderers who are close friends of the Bush family and behave as if they owned Miami, from where they organize and openly vaunt their misdeeds against the Cuban people.
They could never again be free men. Beyond the years in prison, which included four life sentences, they were to suffer a special regime, a sort of unusual apartheid designed to protect the terrorists. Places were defined which they could not go near, locations they could not visit, streets they would be forbidden to walk in.
The agency tasked with enforcing these spurious, unconstitutional prohibitions would be the FBI. The same FBI that pursued them, mistreated them and fabricated the infamous accusation against them. The same FBI, incidentally, under whose nose most of the terrorists who attacked the American people on September 11th lived, freely moved about and were trained in the use of aircrafts as monstrous weapons.The judge naturally welcomed the government's request and in the sentences pronounced on René González (15 years imprisonment) and Antonio Guerrero (life, plus ten years), both US citizens by birth, expressed the restrictions in the following terms: "As a further special condition of supervised release the defendant is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists, members of organizations advocating violence, and organized crime figures are known to be or frequent". (4).
The defence attorneys immediately notified their intention to appeal to the relevant superior court. But, again, the long wait.
All 2002 went by before the Miami Court sent the case file to Atlanta, a prerequisite for the opening of the appeal process by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In that year something happened that can only take place in Miami. In June, the US government appeared as defendant, before that same federal court, in a suit for an alleged employment discrimination which was indirectly related to Cuba (Ramírez vs. Ashcroft). Precisely a year before, this Court had condemned the five men after having tried them there, on the insistence of the prosecution who had claimed that Miami was a cosmopolitan centre where a fair and impartial trial for our heroic compatriots was possible.
Twelve months later, the same prosecutors unblushingly claimed the exact opposite: it was impossible to hold a proper trial of any case related to Cuba in Miami. They successfully requested that the proceedings be moved to another city. The same concession denied to the five men, who had applied for a change of venue time and again and invariably received the same cynical denial from those who, a little later and when it suited them, handed down a quick and easy decision that admitted the truth. It is hard to find more conclusive proof of the fraudulent, gangster-like attitude of Miami's judges and prosecutors.
In response to this clear example of misconduct, the five men again applied for annulment of the trial against them and moving the case away from a venue now recognized - by judges and prosecutors - as entirely unsuitable. Incredibly, this defence motion based on the same logic and arguments as those advanced by the government was opposed by the prosecution and denied by the judge. All of them, remember, were Miami-based. For that reason, the Court of Appeals finding of August 9th, 2005 is largely based on this defence motion and censures the manifest injustice implied by its denial.
It was not until January 2003 that the case file arrived at the end of its long and eventful journey to Atlanta. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals set April 7th as the date on which the five men were to file their appeals.
While the papers gathered dust in Miami, the defendants were transferred from there to the maximum security prisons where they have been held since the beginning of 2002 and where they remain to this day. The authorities that were so tardy when it came to sending the documents to the principal city of a neighbouring state, which is also one of the US's main centres of communication, lost no time in dispersing the five men to the remotest corners of American territory. Each in a different prison, in five different states, as far separated as possible from one another, from their attorneys and from their relatives.
Their families reside in Cuba and require American visas to visit them, visas that only have been granted after annoying and slow procedures. Unlike any other inmate, that elemental right has been denied to the Five: for three of them the visits have not been weekly, but one in a year, and the visas of Adriana Pérez, Gerardo's wife and Olga Salanueva, René's wife, have been systematically denied. Consequently, Ivette, Olga and René's daughter, could not visit her father either.
These were the conditions under which they were to prepare their appeals. All, naturally, in a foreign language. Without access to the "evidence", without the possibility of consulting each other, while communication with their attorneys was extremely limited. And subject to the severest prison regime under which, among other things, they were required to work to pay with their wages for the rigged trial they had undergone.
But, as the Bible says, "Our eyes can never see enough to be satisfied; our ears can never hear enough".
While the five defendants were immersed in this difficult, complex task, under the most hostile conditions vindictively imposed by the federal authorities, the latter's thirst for revenge and desire to obstruct justice were still not satisfied.
For such purposes, there was the "hole", and within that, the "box". And that is where they were confined from February 28th until March 31st , 2003. Each of them, in their five prisons, in the decisive month for their appeals, again in solitary confinement without any contact with the outside world. Moreover, they were now denied any communication with their attorneys, even by telephone or letter, while all writing materials were confiscated - not a sheet of paper or a stub of pencil. One was left without clothes, in the middle of winter, and subjected to physical torture (noises, lights and shouting flooding the "box" twenty-four hours a day).
This time there was not even an attempt to disguise the government's purpose. The men were denied access to their legal documents and their attorneys were not allowed to communicate with their clients. These measures were controlled directly by the South Florida District Attorney's office. It was only international denounce and the tireless efforts of the defence attorneys that forced the authorities to "ease" these measures: Leonard Weinglass, Antonio Guerrero's attorney, was able to visit his client, but under such appalling conditions that he was barely able to verify the gross violations of the right to a defence. Weinglass denounced the situation before the Court of Appeals and requested more time for submitting Antonio's arguments which, because of the situation described, he had been unable to complete. In granting this request, Atlanta acknowledged that these measures had seriously infringed the rights of the accused and their defence attorneys. (5).
In outline, that was the long path travelled by the five men, to reach Atlanta. Getting there was a truly heroic deed.
What came afterwards were another two years of waiting. The three judges took that time to assess the appeal arguments of both sides, study the trial records and all the other material relating to the Miami farce, review the relevant legislation, hold a hearing (on March 10th, 2004) which exposed the shaky foundations of the government's arguments, seek additional information from prosecuting and defence lawyers, working towards their final conclusion revoking convictions and annulling the Miami "trial".
Their decision was announced on August 9th, 2005, but the five men are still being held in the same maximum-security prisons. They are locked up with people presumably convicted of various crimes, while they themselves are different from the rest of the inmates, being the only ones now without any conviction.
It is of no consequence to the US government that the Atlanta Court of Appeals has pronounced them free men against whom no legal sanction now remains. It was unmoved also in May of this year when a working group on arbitrary detention set up by the UN Human Rights Commission declared the incarceration of the five men since September 1998 arbitrary and illegal.
Two weeks have passed, out of the three the law allows the government, to request the Atlanta Court to revoke its finding. So far, Washington has not said whether it intends to do so. Indeed, it has just asked the Court for another month to decide whether to make the request.
Meanwhile, the five men remain isolated in five prisons for convicted criminals. They are suffering all the rigours of that situation, despite their false culpability had already been annulled by three honorable judges.
Now they are five kidnap victims of an administration that rides roughshod over the law everywhere. Not just in Abu Grahib and Guantánamo. Within US territory as well.
What is to be done? The time has come to shout it from the rooftops. To go on demanding their immediate release until it happens, unconditionally. Freedom now for the Cuban Five. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada is Cuba's Vice President and President of its National Assembly.
NOTES
(1) District Court No. 98-00721-CR-JAL. The document issued by the Atlanta Court is 93 pages long. The court's decision to reverse the convictions of the Miami Court and annul the previous "trial" was based on Miami's denial of the various requests to have the trial moved to another venue. In arriving at its decision, Atlanta found it necessary to "review the totality of the circumstances surrounding the trial", including the "evidence" submitted and other aspects of the earlier proceedings. The length of the document and the exhaustiveness of its coverage are unusual, as were the time taken to produce it and the complete unanimity of the three judges concerned. While what took place in Miami was a charade that shames the American legal system, Atlanta produced an example of professional ethics and rigour that goes beyond the bounds of the normal appeals process, to demonstrate the innocence of the five accused and expose the colossal injustice to which they fell victim.
(2) The employment of this argument, obviously false and aimed at pressuring the jury and encouraging and exploiting the hostility and prejudices of the Miami community against the accused, was one of the examples cited by the Atlanta judges to demonstrate the fraudulent conduct of the South Florida District Attorney's office. The then DA, Guy Lewis (now retired) published an article in the Miami Herald on August 18th repeating the same foolish slander: he still insists that the five men "had vowed to destroy the United States".
(3) In its "emergency petition for writ of prohibition" to the Court of Appeals on May 25, 2001, the U.S. Attorney's Office recognized that "in light of the evidence presented in this trial, this presents an insurmountable hurdle for the United States in this case, and will likelly result in the failure of the prosecution on this count" (page 21) since it "imposes an insurmountable barrier to this prosecution" (page 27). The government was afraid of the fact that "it is highly probable that the jury will request further elaboration on this issue" (pages 20 21). (Emergency Petition for Writ of Prohibition). Nevertheless, although the court rejected the Government's petition, nothing alike happen. Without any question, without hesitation, all the jurors declared Gerardo guilty in the first degree of the alleged crime.
(4) Transcript of Sentencing Hearing before the Honorable Joan A. Lenard on 14th December 2001 (pp. 45-46). In the same session, the judge herself had recognized that "the terrorist acts committed by others could not excuse the wrongful and illegal conduct of the defendant and the other accused" (p. 43). In other words, the Miami-based anti-Cuba terrorists are protected by the federal government and the judges who punish - with four life sentences over 75 years' imprisonment and the unusual prohibition mentioned above - those who fight terrorism. So that they should never again fall into such "wrongful and illegal" conduct, Miami invented "incapacitation", which it unveiled three months after the atrocity of 11th September 2001, when Bush was already attacking Afghanistan, was preparing to attack Iraq and was declaring an alleged war on terrorism to be waged everywhere - except Miami, of course.
(5) Weinglass was able to gain permission to visit Gerardo Hernández on March 16th, and he described his visit in this way:
"Gerardo is being most severely punished in his prison, confined in what is known as "the Box"-a hole within the "Hole".
He is confined in a very small cell barely three paces wide, with no windows and only a slot in the metal door through which food is passed. His clothes were taken from him and he is allowed to wear only underpants and a T-shirt, but no shoes.He cannot tell if it is day or night. His is the only cell where the lights are on 24 hours a day and the incessant cries of other prisoners, many of whom suffer from mental health problems, prevent him from sleeping.He is allowed no printed material, nothing to read. Signs saying that no one is to have contact with him are posted outside his cell. He is the only prisoner kept in this kind of solitary confinement who is not allowed to use the telephone to date he has received nothing - not even correspondence from his attorneys"
Two days later he outlined in this way his meeting with Antonio:
"He showed up at the visit in leg irons and handcuffed. They were removed during the visit. The corridors were cleared when moving him. The visiting facility was abysmal. It was a very small cubby with a thick glass between us and a telephone which we had to use to communicate. The space was so small that my associate counsel and I could not fit in it together. He had to stand behind me and share the one phone on our end. Antonio was locked in on his side and we, the attorneys, were also locked in on our side! There was no slot for passing documents and we were invited to give them to the guards who would bring them around the back to Antonio. I did this with one document and then decided to abandon this and hold the papers up to the glass. It was very awkward. The visiting conditions were much worse than those I experienced with Mumia Abu Jamal on death row. We protested these conditions but they refused to bring the warden down for a meeting or any other ranking official"
"Only in Miami", Editora Política, La Habana 2004, Pages 109-110 and 111 112)

Inocent Men

2006-06-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

First of all, I would like to introduce my blog as a new mean to make justice to take the truth as far as I can , for the Five Cuban Countrymen's defense.Besides ,I'll publish all the articles that reaffirm their rights of freedom, and a fair opinion.
Freedom
Primero que todo me gustaria introducir mi blog como un nuevo medio de justicia creado con la idea de llevar la verdad sobre los Cinco Heroes Cubanos prisioneros del Imperio,tan lejos como los lectores sean capaz de llevarla.Publicare numerosos articulos que den a conocer su condicion actual, asi como sus derechos a ser libres y a un juicio justo.
Libertad
History
Five Cuban men, were arrested in Miami, Florida in September, 1998 and charged with 26 counts of violating the federal laws of the United States. 24 of those charges were relatively minor and technical offenses, such as the use of false names and failure to register as foreign agents. None of the charges involved violence in the U.S., the use of weapons, or property damage. The Five had come to the United States from Cuba following years of violence perpetrated by a network of terrorist made up of armed mercenaries drawn from the Cuban exile community in Florida. For over forty years these groups have been tolerated, and even hosted, by successive U.S. Governments.Cuba suffered significant casualties and property destruction at their hands. Cuban protests to the United States Government and the United Nations fell on deaf ears. Following the demise of the socialist states in the early 90's the violence escalated as Cuba struggled to establish a tourism industry. The Miami mercenaries responded with a violent campaign to dissuade foreigners from visiting. A bomb was found in the airport terminal in Havana, tourist buses were bombed, as were hotels. Boats from Miami traveled to Cuba and shelled hotels and tourist facilities. The mission of the Five was not to obtain U.S. military secrets, as was charged, but rather to monitor the terrorist activities of those mercenaries and report their planned threats back to Cuba.. The arrest and prosecution of these men for their courageous attempt to stop the terror was not only unjust, it exposed the hypocrisy of America's claim to oppose terrorism wherever it surfaces.Nothing reveals this more than the contrast between the U.S. government's handling of the Five's case with that of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Both Bosch and Carriles were members, even leaders, of the Miami terror network and self confessed terrorists, who planted a bomb on a Cubana airline in 1976, which exploded in midair, killing 73 people. When Bosch applied for legal residence in the United States in 1990 an official investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice examined his 30 year history of criminality directed against Cuba and concluded, "...over the years he has been involved in terrorist attacks abroad and has advocated and been involved in bombings and sabotage." Despite that official finding he was granted legal residence by the then President of the United States, George Bush Sr.
The case of Posada Carriles' is no less revealing. A fugitive from justice, he "escaped" from a Venezuela prison in 1985 (with the help of powerful "friends") where he was accused and prosecuted for master-minding the 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner. Twice Posada publicly admitted that he was responsible for a series of bombings in Havana in 1997, in which an Italian tourist was killed and dozens of others were wounded . He was convicted by a Panamanian Court in 2000 for "endangering public safety" by having several dozen pounds of C-4 explosives in his possession, which he intended to use at a public gathering at the University in order to kill President Fidel Castro (along with what would have been hundreds of others, mostly students, who attended that meeting). His long career in violence and terror is undeniable.
He, too, however, became the recipient of inexplicable hospitality from the government of the U.S.. His presence in the United States, following a fraudulent pardon by the outgoing President of Panama, was an open secret, but he was reluctantly taken into custody only after giving a televised press conference. He's now housed by American authorities, not in a prison, but in a special residence inside a detention facility. He faces no prosecutions, only an administrative procedure for not having appropriate residential documents, which could lead to his deportation to a country of his choosing. Meanwhile the U.S. has refused to extradite him to Venezuela where he is facing charges related to terrorism.Contrast that treatment with that of the Five who were arrested without a struggle and immediately cast into solitary confinement cells reserved as punishment for the most dangerous prisoners, and kept there for 17 months until the start of their trial. When their trial ended 7 months later (more on the trial to follow) they were sentenced three months after 9/11 to maximum prison terms, with Gerardo Hernandez receiving a double life sentence and Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labañino getting life. The remaining two, Fernando Gonzalez and René Gonzalez, got 19 and 15 years respectively.
The Five were then separated into maximum security prisons (some of the worst in the U.S.), each several hundred miles from the other, where they remain today. Two have been denied visits from their wives for the last 7 years in violation of U.S. laws and international norms. Protests from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have been rejected.The Five immediately appealed their convictions and sentences. Their appeal was to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal which sits outside of Florida, in Atlanta, Georgia. After a thorough review of the proceedings, on August 9, 2005, a distinguished 3 judge panel of the Court released their opinion, a comprehensive 93 page analysis of the trial process and evidence, reversing the convictions and sentences on the ground that the Five did not receive a fair trial in Miami. A new trial was ordered. Beyond finding that the trial violated the fundamental rights of the accused, the Court, for the first time in American jurisprudence, acknowledged evidence produced by the defense at trial revealing that terrorist actions emanating from Florida against Cuba had taken place, even citing in a footnote the role of Mr. Posada Carriles and correctly referring to him as a terrorist. This panel decision stunned the Bush administration. Miami, with its 650,000 Cuban exiles who provided the margin of victory for Bush in the 2000 presidential election, was officially found by a federal appellate court to be so irrationally hostile to the Cuban government, and supportive of violence against it, as to be incapable of providing a fair forum for a trial of these five Cubans. Moreover, the behavior of the government prosecutors in making exaggerated and unfounded arguments to the twelve members of the public who heard and decided the case, exacerbated that prejudice, as did the news reporting both before and during the trial. The Attorney General of the United States, Albert Gonzalez, Bush's former counsel, then took the unusual step of ordering the filing of an appeal to all 12 judges of the Eleventh Circuit, calling on them to review the August 9th decision of the 3 judge panel, a process rarely successful, especially when all 3 judges were in agreement and expressed themselves in such a scholarly and lengthy opinion. To the complete surprise of the many lawyers following the case, the judges of the 11th Circuit agreed on October 31st to review the decision of the panel. That process is now ongoing.It is also worth noting that prior to the August 9th decision of the 11th Circuit panel, a panel of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also concluded that the deprivation of liberty of the Five was arbitrary and called on the Government of the United States to take steps of remedy the situation.
The record of the Miami trial was mammoth. The process took over 7 months to complete, making it the longest criminal trial in the United States during the time it occurred. Over 70 witnesses testified, including two retired generals, one retired admiral and a presidential advisor who served in the White House, all called by the defense . The trial record consumed over 119 volumes of transcript. In addition there were 15 volumes of pre-trial testimony and argument. More than 800 exhibits were introduced into evidence, some as long as 40 pages. The twelve jurors, with the jury foreman openly expressing his dislike of Fidel Castro, returned verdicts of guilty on all 26 counts without asking a single question or requesting a rereading of any testimony, unusual in a trial of this length and complexity. The two main charges against the Five alleged a theory of prosecution that's ordinarily used in politically charged cases: conspiracy. A conspiracy is an illegal agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime. The crime need not occur. Once such an agreement is established, the crime is complete. All the prosecution need do is to demonstrate through circumstantial evidence that there must have been an agreement. In a political case, such as this one, juries often infer agreement, absent evidence of a crime, on the basis of the politics, minority status or national identity of the accused. This is precisely why and how the conspiracy charge was used here. The first conspiracy charge alleged that three of the Five had agreed to commit espionage. The government argued at the outset that it need not prove that espionage occurred, merely that there was an agreement to do it sometime in the future. While the media was quick to refer to the Five as spies, the legal fact, and actual truth, was that this was not a case of spying, but of an alleged agreement to do it. Thus relieved of the duty of proving actual espionage, the prosecutors set about convincing a Miami jury that these five Cuban men, living in their midst, must have had such an agreement. In his opening statement to the jury, the prosecutor conceded that the Five did not have in their possession a single page of classified government information even though the government had succeeded in obtaining over 20,000 pages of correspondence between them and Cuba. Moreover, that correspondence was reviewed by one of the highest ranking military officers in the Pentagon on intelligence who, when asked, acknowledged that he couldn't recall seeing any national defense information. The law requires the presence of national defense information in order to prove the crime of espionage.Rather, all the prosecution relied upon was the fact that one of the Five, Antonio Guerrero, worked in a metal shop on the Boca Chica Navy training base in Southern Florida. The base was completely open to the public, and even had a special viewing area set aside to allow people to take photographs of planes on the runways. While working there Guerrero had never applied for a security clearance, had no access to restricted areas, and had never tried to enter any. Indeed, while the FBI had him under surveillance for two years before the arrests, there was no testimony from any of the agents about a single act of wrongdoing on his part. Far from providing damning evidence for the prosecution, the documents seized from the defendants were used by the defense because they demonstrated the non-criminal nature of Guerrero's activity at the base. He was to "discover and report in a timely manner the information or indications that denote the preparation of a military aggression against Cuba" on the basis of "what he could see" by observing "open public activities." This included information visible to any member of the public: the comings and goings of aircraft. He was also cutting news articles out of the local paper which reported on the military units stationed there. Former high-ranking US military and security officials testified that Cuba presents no military threat to the United States, that there is no useful military information to be obtained from Boca Chica, and that Cuba's interest in obtaining the kind of information presented at trial was "to find out whether indeed we are preparing to attack them".Information that is generally available to the public cannot form the basis of an espionage prosecution. Once again, General Clapper, when asked, "Would you agree that open source intelligence is not espionage?" replied, "That is correct." Nonetheless, after hearing the prosecution's highly improper argument, repeated 3 times, that the five Cubans were in this country " for the purpose of destroying the United States," the jury, more swayed by passion than the law and evidence, convicted.The second conspiracy charge was added seven months after the first. It alleged that one of the Five, Gerardo Hernandez, conspired with others, non-indicted Cuaban officials, to shoot down two aircraft flown by Cuban exiles from Miami as they entered Cuban airspace. They were intercepted by Cuban Migs, killing all four aboard. The prosecution conceded that it had no evidence whatsoever regarding any alleged agreement between Gerardo and Cuban officials to either shoot down planes or where and how they were to be shot down. In consequence, the law's requirement that an agreement be proven beyond a reasonable doubt was not satisfied. The government admitted in court papers that it faced an" insurmountable obstacle" in proving its case against Gerardo and proposed to modify its own charge, which the Court of Appeals rejected. Nonetheless, the jury convicted him of that specious charge.
The case of the Five is one of the few cases in American jurisprudence that involves injustice at home as well as injustice abroad. Like the trial of the Pentagon Papers concerning the war in Vietnam, it derives from a failed foreign policy, which it exposes. In order to achieve a political end, the criminal justice system was manipulated by the government which consistently violated legal norms.
The Five were not prosecuted because they violated American law, but because their work exposed those who were. By infiltrating the terror network that is allowed to exist in Florida they demonstrated the hypocrisy of America's claimed opposition to terrorism.
Leonard Weinglass is a defense lawyer and civil rights activist. He has represented Pentagon Papers defendants, the Chicago 8, Angela Davis, Jane Fonda, Mumia Abu Jamal and Amy Carter, daughter of President Jimmy Carter, among others. He is currently representing the Cuban Five.
This story originally appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique.

Violaciones contra los Cinco (cronología)
Del 28 de febrero al 19 de marzo del actual año los cinco patriotas cubanos prisioneros injustamente en cárceles de Estados Unidos han sufrido inmurables violaciones de sus derechos humanos, lo que demuestra el ensanchamiento contra ellos, asi como las arbitrariedades a que son sometidos
Febrero 28, 2003 - Gerardo Hernández fue sacado de su trabajo en la prisión de Lompoc, California, y trasladado hacia el “hueco”, y dentro de este a una celda de castigo conocida por “Caja”, sin recibir explicación alguna de lo que motivaba tal decisión. Desde entonces, sufre medidas especiales que lo diferencian de los otros presos en la misma área; solo a Gerardo se le prohíbe el uso del teléfono y su “caja” es la única donde las luces permanecen encendidas las 24 horas.
Marzo 3, 2003 - Fernando González fue enviado a confinamiento solitario en la prisión de Oxford, Wisconsin, donde se le niega el derecho a recibir visitas y contactos telefónicos. Las autoridades de la prisión alegaron que seguían instrucciones del Departamento de Justicia de los Estados Unidos.
Marzo 3, 2003 - Antonio Guerrero fue retirado de la clase que impartía en la prisión de Florence, Colorado, esposado y enviado al “hueco”, donde no recibe ni puede enviar correspondencia; no puede usar el teléfono; no tiene contactos con otros presos y se le han negado sus documentos legales.
Marzo 4, 2003 - Funcionarios de la Oficina Consular de Cuba en Washington se comunicaron con la prisión de Lompoc, donde se les informó que Gerardo Hernández había sido trasladado al “hueco” y que no podía tener comunicaciones telefónicas ni recibir visitas. Explicaron que no podían informar la causa de tal decisión.
Marzo 4, 2003 - La Oficina Consular de Cuba en Washington llamó a la prisión de Edgefield y supo que René González había sido trasladado al “hueco” debido a una indicación del Fiscal General relacionada con un cambio de su condición. Explicaron que no podían ofrecer más detalles.
Marzo 4, 2003 - La Oficina Consular de Cuba en Washington se comunicó con la prisión de Oxford y fue informada de que Fernando González mantenía su régimen normal y que se mantenía la autorización a la visita consular prevista para el 10 de marzo.
Marzo 4, 2003 - La Oficina Consular de Cuba en Washington intentó infructuosamente comunicarse con las prisiones de Florence y Beaumont para conocer la situación de Antonio Guerrero y Ramón Labañino, respectivamente.
Marzo 5, 2003 - Tras reiteradas solicitudes de la Oficina Consular de Cuba en Washington, un funcionario de la Oficina de Asuntos Cubanos del Departamento de Estado confirmó que los Cinco habían sido llevados al “hueco”, sin explicar las razones que motivaron dicha decisión.
Marzo 5, 2003 - En horas de la tarde, la Oficina Consular de Cuba en Washington confirmó con las autoridades de la prisión de Oxford que Fernando González había sido trasladado al “hueco”, pero que se mantenía la visita consular prevista para el 10 de marzo.
Marzo 5, 2003 - El abogado de Fernando González intentó verificar la condición de confinamiento de su defendido y concertar una conferencia telefónica con él para discutir sobre esta situación así como aspectos de la apelación. El Buró de Prisiones se negó a responder las preguntas relacionadas con la condición de Fernando, pero sí estuvo de acuerdo en facilitar una conferencia telefónica con él para el 7 de marzo del 2003.
Marzo 6, 2003 - Las autoridades de la prisión de Edgefield, donde se encuentra recluido René González, manifestaron haber recibido un documento con indicaciones de la Fiscal Asistente Carolina Heck Miller que orientaba medidas administrativas especiales consistentes en limitar el acceso y la visita de los abogados de la defensa y las visitas consulares. Informaron que el procedimiento para solicitarlas sería a través del envío de una carta-solicitud a la mencionada fiscalía y a la oficina del FBI en Carolina del Sur.
Marzo 6, 2003 - En horas de la tarde las autoridades de la prisión de Oxford, Wisconsin, comunicaron que la visita consular a Fernando González prevista para el día 10 quedaba cancelada, pues, según las indicaciones recibidas, era necesario que las solicitudes se enviaran a la prisión con no menos de 15 días de anticipación para considerar su aprobación. Afirmaron que no podían ofrecer otras precisiones sobre los motivos del traslado de Fernando al “hueco”, ni sobre las causas que motivaron este cambio de procedimiento.
Marzo 6, 2003 - La prisión de Lompoc informó al abogado Rafael Anglada que no podría realizar la visita legal a Gerardo Hernández, que tenía programada desde el 2 de marzo de 2003. Las autoridades de Lompoc indicaron que cualquier visita legal tendría que estar autorizada por la Fiscal Asistente Heck Miller y por el FBI.
Marzo 6, 2003 - El Departamento de Estado comunicó que en lo adelante el Buró de Prisiones aplicaría un nuevo procedimiento para las visitas consulares, según el cual las solicitudes debían ser presentadas por escrito 14 días antes de la fecha prevista para la misma. Afirmaron desconocer cuánto tiempo los acusados permanecerían en el “hueco”; cómo serían las comunicaciones entre estos y sus familiares, y de dónde procedía la orden que recibió el Buró de Prisiones sobre la aplicación del nuevo procedimiento de visitas consulares.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Las autoridades de la prisión de Florence se pusieron en contacto con el abogado Weinglass y rechazaron su solicitud por escrito de que Antonio Guerrero se comunicara con él por teléfono. El administrador local de la prisión le informó a Weinglass que el estatus de Antonio era resultado de una alerta de “seguridad nacional” y que no le podían decir cuándo terminaría. La llamada de Antonio a Weinglass no llegó a producirse nunca.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Steve Robinson, oficial de caso de Fernando González en la prisión de Oxford, le informó al abogado de Fernando que la conferencia telefónica estaba cancelada y que no se permitiría ningún contacto sin la aprobación de la Fiscal Asistente Carolina Heck Miller. El abogado preguntó si Fernando González había violado alguna regulación del Buró de Prisiones que justificara su confinamiento de castigo y se le informó que la causa de la sanción venía de fuera de la prisión, es decir, del Departamento de Justicia. El abogado está todavía tratando de obtener información básica relacionada con el traslado de Fernando González al “hueco”.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Fue cancelada sin explicación alguna la visita autorizada a Ramón Labañino por parte del Reverendo Geoff Bottoms, quien había viajado a Beaumont, Texas, desde Blackpool, Gran Bretaña.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Una visita programada por la ciudadana norteamericana Alicia Jrapko a Gerardo Hernández fue cancelada por las autoridades de la prisión de Lompoc, que le informaron que el prisionero estaba sujeto a nuevas medidas relacionadas con sus visitas y que seguramente ella no podría visitarlo más porque en lo adelante solo se autorizaría a los familiares.
Marzo 7, 2003 - El abogado Francisco Martínez, asociado a la defensa de Antonio Guerrero, solicitó a la prisión de Florence una visita legal para el 10 de marzo. La respuesta fue: “No hay visitas legales para el Sr. Guerrero. Estamos tomando nota de todas las visitas legales e informaremos.”
Marzo 7, 2003 - El abogado Weinglass reiteró su solicitud a la prisión de Lompoc para efectuar la visita legal para ver a Gerardo Hernández, programada para el 16 de marzo. Más tarde, conoció por un funcionario de Lompoc que el proceso de solicitud para las visitas legales había cambiado y que él no podría ver a Gerardo hasta tanto no obtuviera la aprobación de la Fiscal Asistente, Caroline Heck Miller.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Paul Mckenna, abogado de Gerardo Hernández, recibió la misma respuesta a su solicitud de realizar una visita legal a su cliente.
Marzo 7, 2003 - El abogado de Fernando González intentó infructuosamente discutir con la Fiscal Miller la nueva condición de su cliente y solicitar una visita legal.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Leonard Weinglass, abogado de Antonio Guerrero, trató, sin resultados, de comunicarse con la Fiscal Miller durante todo ese día para obtener una explicación acerca de la condición de su cliente.
Marzo 7, 2003 - Tarde en la noche la Fiscal Miller le informó al abogado Weinglass que no podía darle respuesta a sus inquietudes y que ella le informaría acerca de la condición de su cliente en horas de la tarde del 10 de marzo o en la mañana del día 11. Esta misma información la recibió Paul Mckenna, abogado de Gerardo Hernández.
Marzo 8, 2003 - Una visita consular previamente programada a Gerardo Hernández fue cancelada por el Buró de Prisiones.
Marzo 8, 2003 - El abogado Weinglass envió un fax a la prisión de Florence, Colorado, informando a las autoridades de la prisión su necesidad de reunirse con su defendido, Antonio Guerrero. No recibió respuesta. (Weinglass había enviado previamente 2 faxes solicitando comunicarse telefónicamente con su defendido y ambos fueron rechazados.)
Marzo 10, 2003 - Después de muchas solicitudes de información, el gobierno finalmente les comunicó a los abogados de la defensa que la actual prohibición de acceso a los acusados tuvo lugar como parte del programa de “Medidas Administrativas Especiales” (SAM) bajo la 28 C.F.R § 501. La carta del gobierno no ofreció ningún motivo o justificación para la acción ni precisó la naturaleza de las sanciones impuestas o la sección regulatoria específica sobre la cual se basó el gobierno para adoptar tal medida.
Marzo 10, 2003 - A las 5:00 pm la prisión de Lompoc informó que en lo adelante los accesos consulares a Gerardo Hernández que se aprobaran tendrían que efectuarse en los días de la semana que no hubiera visitas familiares, y en presencia de dos oficiales.
Marzo 11, 2003 - A las 6:30 pm, la Fiscal Asistente de Estados Unidos, Caroline Heck Miller, finalmente especificó que el gobierno había decidido imponer las “Medidas Administrativas Especiales” (SAM) en virtud del apartado 501.2 del Código Federal de Regulaciones, el cual es aplicable “para prevenir que se revele información clasificada”.
Marzo 11, 2003 - Las autoridades de la prisión de Lompoc informaron a la Sección de Intereses de Cuba en Washington que después de consultar con el FBI sobre la visita consular solicitada para Gerardo Hernández el próximo 26 de marzo, se había determinado que solo podía estar presente un funcionario consular; se podría efectuar entre las 9.00 am y las 12.00 am y solo se podría conversar en inglés. No obstante, esta visita fue suspendida, al igual que las solicitadas para visitar a Fernando, Antonio, Ramón y René.
Marzo 11, 2003 - Las autoridades de la prisión de Oxford informaron que era necesario cambiar una vez más la visita consular solicitada para Fernando González para el 31 de marzo, alegando que debía realizarse solamente martes, miércoles o jueves. No obstante, esta visita fue suspendida, al igual que las solicitadas para visitar a Gerardo, Antonio, Ramón y René.
Marzo 12, 2003 - Las autoridades de la prisión de Florence informaron oficialmente que la visita consular solicitada para Antonio Guerrero para el 15 de marzo debía ser cambiada, alegando la aplicación de medidas administrativas especiales por indicación del Fiscal General, las cuales establecen que las visitas consulares sean monitoreadas por el FBI y que se soliciten con 14 días de antelación. No obstante, esta visita fue suspendida, al igual que las solicitadas para visitar a Fernando, Gerardo, Ramón y René.
Marzo 14, 2003 - El abogado Leonard Weinglass recibió una carta de la Fiscal Asistente Carolina Heck Miller, en la cual le informa que el Fiscal General de Estados Unidos autorizó las Medidas Administrativas Especiales el 24 de febrero de 2003, y que las mismas se mantendrán vigentes por un año, plazo que podría ser extendido.
Marzo 16, 2003 - Después de múltiples gestiones con la Fiscal Asistente, Caroline Heck Miller, Weinglass logró que esta autorizara la visita a Gerardo Hernández que él tenía programada realizar desde el mes de febrero. Como resultado de su visita, Weinglass conoció que Gerardo se encuentra bajo la forma más severa de castigo en la prisión, la cual se conoce como “la Caja” —un hueco dentro del “hueco”, donde permanece desde el 28 de febrero y se le niega el acceso a contacto humano alguno, no se le permite usar el teléfono, ni el acceso a su correspondencia, incluyendo la de sus abogados.
Marzo 17, 2003 - Tras numerosas gestiones para lograr comunicarse con su cliente, el abogado Joaquín Méndez pudo hablar telefónicamente con su defendido Fernando González y conoció que este no había recibido ninguna de la correspondencia legal que le había enviado.
Marzo 17, 2003 - Las autoridades de la prisión de Florence, Colorado, advirtieron al abogado de Antonio Guerrero, Leonard Weinglass, que la visita que realizaría el 18 de marzo a su defendido tendría lugar bajo severas restricciones, sin contacto físico, a través de un cristal y sin poder revisar directamente con Antonio los documentos legales para la apelación.
Marzo 18, 2003 - Después de 15 días recluido en el “hueco” y en vísperas de la visita de su abogado, las autoridades de Florence, Colorado, informaron a Antonio Guerrero que permanecería en estas condiciones hasta el 24 de febrero de 2004, cuando podrían ser extendidas por otro año más.
Marzo 19, 2003 - Se produjo la visita de Leonard Weinglass a Antonio Guerrero bajo condiciones muy severas. Antonio llegó a la misma esposado y con grilletes en las piernas, aislado en todo momento de su abogado a través de un grueso cristal, sólo con un teléfono para comunicarse.
No había ni una ranura para pasar los documentos, los cuales solo podía hacerle llegar a Antonio a través de los guardias, procedimiento tan engorroso que Weinglass decidió abandonarlo y mostrárselos por el cristal. Según Weinglass, las condiciones de esta visita fueron mucho peores que las que experimentó con Mumia en el corredor de la muert