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A
SUN THAT WILL NEVER BURN OUT
By
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Early
in the morning of Saturday, September 12, 1998, the FBI informed Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz Balart, hornblowers for the Batistian
terrorist mob in Miami, that it had just arrested five purported
“spies” living there.
Although
the Florida Congressional Delegation comprises 25 individuals, none of the
others were given advance notice by the investigators. At the time, the
FBI had yet to ascertain the identity of three of the men arrested, while
the other two held U.S. citizenship. The above-mentioned “legislators”
do not occupy positions in Congress related to security or
intelligence matters. Why this privilege? Why share information with them
from an “investigation” yet
to be made public?
Formal
charges were not laid until four days later. But from the very beginning,
it was clear that this was a case of a political-repressive operation,
aimed solely at benefiting the most aggressive and violent sector of those
who had turned South Florida into the main base for their war on Cuba
since 1959.
The
various counterrevolutionary factions and politicians and officials
closely tied to them immediately unleashed a frenzied and hysterical
campaign to stigmatize the five prisoners. There in South Florida, where
almost all of the printed, radio and television media are controlled by
the anti-Cuban mob or operate under its constant threat, not a day went by
without the appearance of new articles or announcements, including
statements by officials, slandering and denigrating the five by portraying
them as dangerous enemies of society.
The
real reason behind their unjust imprisonment was hidden. Not a word was
published about the unblemished and honorable trajectory of their
exemplary lives, in Cuba and the United States, as students, workers,
fathers or citizens. Nothing was said about the selfless and admirable
sacrifices they made to protect their country and its people. Nor was
anything said about what had happened to them since the early morning
hours of that September 12, or about the brutal conditions they suffered
in one of the worst prison systems ever even imagined by humankind.
Gerardo
Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero and René
González are victims of an abominable injustice and of cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment that blatantly violates their human rights and is
irrefutable proof of the arbitrariness and illegitimacy of the legal
proceedings to which they were submitted. From the day of their arrest
until February 3, 2000, throughout 17 months, they were kept in solitary
confinement, isolated from each other and from other prisoners. They were
shut up the entire time in the “hole”,
a term used to describe the unspeakable treatment reserved for part of the
U.S. prison population. The legal representation for the five fought
tenaciously until the men were finally integrated into the regular prison
system. But the fact that this was accomplished in no way diminishes the
unjustifiable atrocity committed against them. What is more, their
treatment constituted a violation of U.S. prison regulations, which
establish the use of solitary confinement solely as punishment for
infractions committed in prison, and limit its length to a maximum of 60
days for the most serious cases, such as murder. They had obviously not
violated any of the prison’s regulations before being imprisoned, nor
had they ever killed anyone. Nevertheless, they were kept in total
isolation, and it is worth reiterating, throughout 17
months.
During
this lengthy period, it was impossible for them to maintain adequate
communication with their attorneys and prepare their defense with the
minimum guarantees of due process. If there were anything similar to
justice in Miami, then for this sole fact, the court should have ordered
their release and obliged the government to make adequate reparations.
But
in Miami, when it is a matter of Cuba, there is nothing that even remotely
resembles justice.
We
should mention the commendable work done, in spite of everything, by the
defense. The five defendants did not have attorneys of their own, nor the
financial resources needed to hire them. As a result, they were assigned
public defenders, with whom they had no prior relationship whatsoever.
When these lawyers came to know the men they were defending, however, they
were able to appreciate the purity of their motivations and the nobility
and heroism of their conduct. And despite the profound ideological
differences separating them – which they attested to in court – they
became convinced of the absolute innocence of the five, as reflected in
the personal effort they made to defend them, above and beyond their
professional skill.
While
the five heroes endured in the shadows and in utter solitude, their
cowardly enemies occupied cameras, microphones and newspapers day and
night to slander them and threaten their families and friends, as well as
to administer “justice” Miami-style. You could read up on all the details of
this so-called legal trial in the city’s slander sheets, including the
details of additional charges that the prosecution would formulate many
months later. This was how news came out, for example, of the most
aberrant, absurd and false accusation of all – conspiracy to commit
murder – presented for the first time by the prosecution in May of 1999.
This took place after the prisoners had already spent eight months in jail
in complete isolation, and following a shameful operation in the Batistian
terrorist mob-controlled press and public and private meetings between the
prosecutors and mob members, at which plans to put forward the fallacious
charge were openly announced.
Holding
a trial in this city with even the appearance of a normal legal proceeding
was inconceivable. That it was impossible had been fully demonstrated even
before jury selection. Yet the repeated requests made by the defense to
have the trial moved to another city were turned down by Joan Lenard, the
Miami federal judge to whom the case was assigned.
During
that same time, an event took place that earned notoriety in the
international press. Concerned over openly announced threats of violent
acts, the organizers of the Latin Grammy Awards decided to move the
ceremony originally scheduled to take place in Miami to Los Angeles. If it
was not possible to judge the work of some of Cuba’s finest musical
performers in peace in Miami, if they could not guarantee the safety of
the participants in a concert there, as was publicly stated by the
organizers, then who could possibly believe that a peaceful and impartial
trial could be held there for individuals subjected to the most ferocious
slander campaign imaginable and portrayed as “dangerous”
agents of the Cuban Revolution?
Ms.
Lenard offered no explanation as to why the trial had to be held there,
only there, and nowhere else. But she did say something to the press that
could provide the key to understanding her stubborn insistence: “this
trial will be much more interesting than any TV program,” she
proclaimed, erudite and severe, on March 16, 2000.
Of
course, local television turned out to be indispensable for following the
trial. It is only fair to acknowledge that the designated counsel
responsible for the defense were not locked up in the “hole”
along with the defendants, and unlike the latter, they were allowed to
read newspapers, watch television and listen to the radio. We must also
point out, however, that it was often through these media that the lawyers
received news, long before any official communication was made, of the
steps being taken by the prosecution, the purported “evidence” they
claimed to possess, the charges that could be laid, and even the motions
they raised in their obstinate efforts to introduce some semblance of
legality into the midst of such arbitrariness and fraud.
And
if all of the foregoing were not sufficient, there were numerous
violations of procedure during the court sessions that even further
vitiated a trial that was rigged and therefore nullified from the very
outset. The defense attorneys were not allowed access to all of the “evidence”
used to back the charges made. Instead, it was selectively doled out by
the prosecution, which on more than one occasion introduced hundred of
pages of new “evidence”
without prior notice, or prevented the complete examination of the
documents submitted, leading to repeated objections from the defense. The
defense was denied its request for the inclusion of evidence, including
official documents, that were fundamental for shedding light on the
accusations made against the defendants. A number of witnesses were openly
pressured by the prosecution, in front of the judge, right in the
courtroom, in view of everyone, under the threat of being charged
themselves if they revealed certain information. The court provided the
counterrevolution’s mouthpieces with over 1400 pages of documents
selected by the authorities which was blatantly manipulated by the local
press and thus served to fuel the incessant and spurious propaganda
campaign to demonize the accused. The media joined with the terrorist
groups that freely operate there to organize public demonstrations as a
means of pressuring the jury and the judge.
That
is because, in spite of everything, the mob came to be seriously worried
over the way the trial was unfolding. Fully aware of the absolute
falseness of the charges made, they feared a verdict contrary to their
purposes. They were particularly alarmed by the fact that the defense
attorneys, through their talent and high degree of professionalism, had
exposed the shady maneuvers of the prosecution and effectively put the mob
itself on trial.
The
evidence and arguments put forward by the defense were overwhelming. They
clearly demonstrated the terrorist activities carried out from Miami
against Cuba and the complicit tolerance exhibited by the U.S.
authorities, which make it necessary for the Cuban people to defend
themselves through the heroic efforts of men like the accused in the case.
They made it abundantly clear that the defendants had not sought out
information that would threaten the national security of the United
States, and had caused no harm to anyone. Testimony to this effect was
provided by officials from the FBI itself and the Southern Command, and
high-ranking military figures who had held major positions in the U.S.
armed forces. These included General Charles Wilhelm, former head of the
Southern Command; General Edward Atkeson, former US Army deputy chief of
staff intelligence; Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, former assistant deputy
chief of naval operations; and Colonel George Bruckner, who had occupied a
high-ranking position in the command of the U.S. Air Defense System. Even
General James Clapper, former director of the DIA (the intelligence agency
of the U.S. Department of Defense), called to testify as an expert witness
for the prosecution, acknowledged that the accused had not committed
espionage against the United States.
At
the end of five months of courtroom battle, in the most difficult and
hostile conditions imaginable, the total innocence of Gerardo, Ramón,
Fernando, René and Antonio and the guilt of their accusers had been made
abundantly clear.
The
accused had carried out no espionage activities whatsoever. They had
neither obtained nor sought any information related to the security,
defense or any other interest of the United States. They had done nothing
to cause damage to that country or its citizens. Not a single piece of
inculpatory evidence had been put forward. Not a single witness had uphold
the charges.
Their
selfless efforts had been focused, solely and exclusively, on infiltrating
terrorist groups and informing Cuba of these groups’ plans for
aggression against the island. They never hid this fact. During the trial,
it was thoroughly demonstrated that terrorist acts are carried out against
Cuba from Florida, and that the U.S. authorities do nothing in response to
these acts. As a result, in the exercise of its inalienable right, Cuba is
obliged to defend itself from these activities which, as was also clearly
demonstrated, have sometimes led to the loss of lives and serious damage
for the people of the United States as well.
The
most serious accusation, made against Gerardo Hernández – conspiracy to
commit murder, in connection with the incident of February 24, 1996 – is
a colossal outrage and unprecedented stupidity. There is a lengthy record
of the use of light aircraft taking off from Miami to carry out countless
and repeated violations of Cuban airspace and to perpetrate numerous
crimes, including shootings, bombings, and the dropping of chemical and
bacteriological substances. All of this was amply documented during the
trial. It was equally documented that before the date in question, Cuba
had warned that it would not tolerate further incursions into its
territory. Cuba’s defensive action against those who had once again
violated its airspace, and right in front of the center of its capital,
fully complies with international law. And independently of all of this,
Gerardo had nothing to do with the decision carried out by the Cuban air
force. He had no involvement whatsoever, in any way, with what happened
that day. Consequently charging him with first degree murder and
sentencing him to a second life sentence is quite simply the height of
both outrage and stupidity. Never before in the history of the US had
anyone been found guilty of first degree murder without a single witness,
without a shred of proof, without putting forward even circumstantial
evidence.
The
terrorist mob, in despair, publicly acknowledged its defeat and
intensified its virulent and strident campaign to intimidate the court as
the trial drew ever closer to its end.
This
was the setting in which the jury pronounced its decision. After
announcing, with unheard of precision, the exact date and time at which
this decision would be pronounced, with remarkable speed, in just a few
hours, without asking a single question or expressing a single doubt, it
reached a unanimous verdict: the five were declared guilty of each and
every one of the charges against them.
A
brief aside on the subject of the jury is called for. Right from the time
of the jury selection process, its members were subjected to the
relentless pressures and maneuvers typical of the poisoned atmosphere of a
city totally devoid of lawfulness. The counterrevolution’s mouthpieces
did not even attempt to hide it. On December 2, 2000, for example, El
Nuevo Herald, in an article entitled “Fear
of being jury member in trial of spies”, stated: “The
fear of a violent reaction on the part of the Cuban exile community if a
jury decides to acquit the five men accused of spying for the island
regime has led many potential candidates to ask the judge to excuse them
from civic duty.” And one of these citizens is quoted as saying, “Yes! I fear for my own safety if the verdict is not to the liking of
the Cuban community.”
This
fear was not unfounded. The members of the jury lived in a community that
had only recently suffered months of violence and anxiety, when a group of
criminals held Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old boy kidnapped, openly and
publicly, defying the federal authorities with firearms. These individuals
had burned the American flag, destroyed property, plunged the streets into
chaos and threatened to burn the city down, without one of them ever
facing trial for these acts. The members of the jury were also aware of
the physical and verbal attacks, the threats and bombs used against those
who dared to voice opinions contrary to the ones held by those who control
this “exile community”. If
they had done all of these things in broad daylight and in front of
television cameras from around the world, what would they not have done in
secret to bribe and control a dozen frightened people?
The
party got going in the courtroom itself, where prosecutors and mobsters,
FBI officials and terrorists merged in a confusing tangle of kisses and
embraces. They kept the celebrations going later in bars and taverns and
the headquarters of counterrevolutionary organizations, inundating the
radio waves, all of them together, with their brazen diatribes and threats
against anyone in Miami who opposed these anti-Cuban misdeeds. The head of
the local FBI office himself was honored with a public tribute on the
local “Cuban radio”
stations, which openly advocate war and terrorism on a daily basis; he
sang in perfect harmony with the most notorious criminals among them.
In
the meantime, the five men were once again locked up in the “hole”
from June 26 to August 13. They had committed no infractions whatsoever.
There was nothing to justify this new violation of their rights and of
prison regulations. It was an act of mindless vengeance to punish them for
their integrity, but it was also a form of torture, with the deliberate
purpose of breaking them down and preventing them from adequately
preparing for the next and final stage of the trial: the sentencing
hearings scheduled for the following month. The initial 17 months of
solitary confinement were aimed at making it impossible to organize their
defense; this further 48 days of complete isolation were meant to prevent
them at any cost from preparing for the only opportunity they would have
to directly address the court. For this reason, when they were finally
returned to their usual cells following insistent demands by their
attorneys, their access to telephone communication was restricted and they
had most of their belongings taken away, leaving them with barely a pencil
stub to write with. First they had tried to make it impossible for them to
defend themselves, now they were attempting to stop them from denouncing
the crime being committed against them.
Ms.
Lenard had originally planned to pronounce judgment during the month of
September. But then the atrocious attack on the Twin Towers took place on
September 11, and it was perhaps her high degree of sensitivity that led
her to allow a suitable amount of time elapse between this date and the
tribute that she, as a resident of a Miami herself, would be rendering to
the terrorists.
She
did it in December. She imposed the toughest sentences possible on all
five of the defendants, disregarding the potential mitigating
circumstances and incorporating the aggravating circumstances put forward
by the prosecution. She essentially acted like an echo of the anti-Cuban
hatred and prejudices that had poisoned the entire proceedings, clearly
expressing this in words and in the irrationally excessive sentences she
passed down. For Gerardo Hernández, two
life sentences plus 15 years;
for Ramón Labañino, a
life sentence plus 18 years;
for Fernando González, 19
years in prison; for René González, 15
years in prison;
and for Antonio Guerrero, a
life sentence plus 10 years.
Yet
their voices were not silenced. Their long, brutal and profoundly unjust
imprisonment did not intimidate them. Nor were they weakened by the
psychological tortures and pressures, or the absence of family and
friends. Nothing could break their indomitable spirit. Lacking the basic
necessities for organizing their thoughts and getting them down in
writing, they were able to rise above the filth that strove to crush them
and deliver the formidable statements published in this book.
Far
from following the Philistine American tradition of using this final
opportunity offered to the accused to grovel before the judges and beg for
clemency with a show of repentance, the five men denounced and exposed
their accusers, laid bare all of the illegitimacy and arbitrariness of a
trial that was fixed from the outset, and reaffirmed their unshakable
loyalty to their homeland, their people and their ideals.
At
the time these lines were written, the five heroes were once again
separated and isolated, newly shut away in some “hole”,
although their exact location is unknown. All that is known is that
Gerardo will be sent to the Lompoc penitentiary in California; Ramón to
Beaumont, Texas; Fernando to Oxford, Wisconsin; René to Loreto,
Pennsylvania; and Antonio to Florence, Colorado. A quick look at a map of
the United States makes it clear that they are being spread to the five
most distant and dispersed points in the country possible. As well as
distancing them from one another, this arrangement will also make it
extremely difficult for them to have any contact with family members
living in Cuba and with Cuban diplomatic representatives, who should be
allowed access to them, in accordance with international standards.
All
five are notoriously severe prisons, to which they undoubtedly send
inmates convicted of the worst crimes. Given the potential for brutality
demonstrated by the authorities in a place like the federal detention
center in Miami, where the five were kept from the time of their arrest
along with others awaiting trial, it is easy to imagine the cruelty they
will have to endure in the United States’ toughest prisons. It is
particularly outrageous, and should be denounced as vigorously as
possible, that Washington has completely ignored universally accepted
principles, standards and practices and failed to acknowledge the
political prisoner status of these five heroes of the Republic of Cuba.
The
brazenly treacherous conduct of the U.S. authorities in this case fully
reveals their genuine stance towards terrorism and the utter hypocrisy of
the campaign deployed after the horrific attack of September 11, 2001.
These five heroic Cubans are being punished precisely because of the fact
that they truly did fight against terrorism, even at the cost of their own
lives. Those who have taken away their freedom and sought to slander and
denigrate them have done so because they dared to combat the heinous
criminals who were created and continue to be protected by those very same
authorities. Every hour that they spend locked up in that living hell is
an insult to the memory of those who lost their lives on September 11 and
all other victims of terrorism. It is also an affront to all those who
believe in dignity and human decency. The Cuban people will fight
relentlessly until the five are freed and can return to their homes and
their homeland. In order to achieve this goal, the solidarity of all men
and women of good will around the world is urgently needed.
The
five speeches compiled in this book will give the reader an idea of
selflessness, nobility and idealism of Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando
and René.
They
are oratory works that will survive the test of time. Millions and
millions of people will read them, and feel both moved and grateful. Above
and beyond their obvious merits in style and content, they are even more
remarkable in view of the terrible circumstances in which they were
conceived. They give voice to the very best in all of humankind. They
bring a message of struggle, of hope and of victory. They are like a sun
whose rays manage to break through the utmost darkness. A sun that will
never burn out.
Havana,
Cuba
February
11, 2002
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