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From:>>> [log in to unmask] 03/15/04 03:53PM >>>
Hello everyone,
The regular meeting of the Madison-Camaguey Sister City Association will be
a little different in April in that we will not be meeting at the library.
Instead, we invite all of you to join us in attending a public presentation
by Mr. Andres Gomez. We will hear a first hand report from Mr. Gomez on the
history of US tolerated terrorism directed against Cuba, putting the case of
the Cuban Five case in context and also providing an important perspective
in judging the US war against terrorism. (Mr. Gomez's biography is below.)
Please mark your calendar for Wednesday evening, April 7. I will let you
know the exact location and other details as soon as possible. Mr. Gomez is
a speaker you won't want to miss.
BIOGRAPHY: For almost two decades, Andrés Gómez has been in demand as an
eloquent speaker about contemporary Cuba. At 13 he emigrated from Cuba to
Miami with his parents in 1960, after the triumph of the revolution. He
helped found the "Antonio Maceo" Brigade in 1977, a Miami-based organization
of Cuban-Americans which supports the achievements of the Cuban revolution.
Andrés Gómez was the long-time editor of Areíto, a Miami magazine giving an
open-minded Cuban-American perspective on Cuba. He has also been active in
the ATC, Alliance of Cuban Workers, a Miami-based organization of Cuban
workers who favor normalized relations with Cuba, and against the illegal
U.S. Contra war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
He has been a prominent voice in the struggle for open discussion in the
Cuban-American community, at great personal risk. He organized rallies in
Miami to end the U.S. travel ban and embargo of Cuba, and for the return of
Elian Gonzalez to his family.
Editor of Areíto, and now its successor, Areíto Digital,
www.areitodigital.com, since 1986. Areíto, now an online journal, was
founded in 1974 by Cubans in the U.S. related to Cuban reality, Latin
America, and U.S.-Cuba relations.
National Coordinator and one of the founders in 1977 of the Antonio Maceo
Brigade, which was founded by progressive Cubans in the U.S., in support of
the Cuban revolutionary process, including normalized relations with the
U.S., the end of the policy of aggression against the Cuban people, and the
establishment of a positive relationship between Cubans living abroad
(especially in the U.S.) and Cuban society.
Mr. Gómez can speak authoritatively and first-hand about the climate within
the Cuban-American community in the U.S. and Florida in particular. This
includes a terrorist element which has maimed and assassinated both
Cuban-Americans in the U.S. seeking to change U.S. policies, as well as
representatives of Cuba and its citizens. These actions, and the lack of
effective U.S. government response, created the need for the Cuban Five to
infiltrate these organizations in order to deter further attacks and
injuries to citizens of both Cuba and the U.S.
=====================================================
From : Art Heitzer <[log in to unmask]>
To : <[log in to unmask]>
Sent : Friday, March 12, 2004 1:01 PM
News issued by: Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba
633 W. Wisconsin Ave. Suite 1410, Milwaukee, WI 53203
(414) 273-1040 ext. 12 [log in to unmask]
Check out our website: www.CubaWiFriends.org
______________________________________________________
Below is a report on the oral argument before the 11th CIr. Court of Appeals
on Wednesday on the appeal of the Cuban 5.
And, please mark your calendars for Thursday April 8 in Milwaukee, and Wedn.
April 7 in Madison, to hear a first hand report from Andres Gomez on the
history of US tolerated terrorism directed against Cuba, putting this case
in context, and also providing an important perspective in judging the US
war against terrorism. For an attractive flyer, Andres' biography and the
Milwaukee schedule, see our website at www.wicuba.org.
Miami court hears case of `Cuban Five'
by Ann W. O'Neill and Vanessa Bauza
March 10, 2004
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - (KRT) - Known as the Cuban 5, the convicted spy ring
members are heroes at home and have gained an international following in
human rights and left-leaning circles. "Free the Five!" say the Web sites,
petitions and full-page newspaper ads.
On Wednesday, the spies finally had the collective ear of the three people
who can give them their freedom - a panel of appeals court judges in Miami.
Gerardo Hernandez Nordela, 38, Ramon Labanino Salazar, 40, Antonio Guerrero
Rodriguez, 45, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, 40, and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert, 47,
were convicted in June 2001 following a seven-month federal espionage trial.
They are serving terms from 15 years to life in federal prisons across the
country.
As members of what then was known as the Wasp Network, they were convicted
of failing to register as foreign agents and conspiring to spy on U.S.
military installations and the Cuban exile community in South Florida.
Hernandez, the leader, also was convicted of murder-conspiracy in connection
with a 1996 Cuban missile shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes
that killed four U.S. civilian fliers in international airspace off the
island.
Their supporters have long claimed the five are political prisoners who were
railroaded. In Cuba, they are lauded as anti-terrorists and the Castro
government has organized massive rallies on their behalf. Even the smallest
and most remote Cuban village has a humble monument commemorating the "five
heroes."
Cuba is waiting for justice, said Miguel Alvarez, adviser to the president
of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon. The trial was unfair, he
added, because "It was a very politicized hearing meant to please those
sectors in Miami that carry out a radical policy against Cuba."
Labanino's wife, Elizabeth Palmeiro, is waiting hopefully in Cuba. "I'm
firmly convinced that when the American people know what happened to our
husbands and companeros they will support this call for justice," she said.
Lawyers arguing on Wednesday before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
panel included Chicago 7 trial veteran Leonard Weinglass. He claimed
anti-Castro sentiment is so virulent and engrained in Miami it was
impossible to empanel an objective jury. The convictions should be tossed
out, he added, because the trial could easily have been moved 30 miles to
the north, to Fort Lauderdale, where attitudes about Cuba and Castro are
less inflamed.
"Here," in Miami, "you have a community made of up half a million people who
have lost their homes, their businesses and their livelihood to the
government that sent the five (to the United States)," Weinglass told the
judges.
Even though the jury included no Cuban-Americans, "half a dozen jurors, all
non-Cuban, said they were afraid to sit on this jury," Weinglass added.
"Why? They were not afraid of the defendants. They were afraid of their
neighbors. They were afraid of their co-workers. They were afraid of the
community."
In the years before the trial, passions in Miami were inflamed by two
incidents: The Cuban government's shoot-down of the two Brothers to the
Rescue planes and the international custody battle over Elian Gonzalez.
Attorneys noted that less than a year before the trial began, some 100,000
people took to the streets of Miami to protest the U.S. government's
decision to return Elian to his father in Cuba.
Judge Stanley Birch, leading the panel, honed in on another Weinglass
argument: A year after the Cuban spy trial, lawyers in the same U.S.
Attorney's office cited prejudice on Cuban issues as grounds to move a civil
trial over the government's raid to seize Elian.
The judges also grilled Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Miller on what
evidence linked Hernandez to a murder conspiracy. She pointed to coded
messages from Havana to Hernandez to make sure agents didn't fly with
Brothers to the Rescue during the period when the planes were shot down.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Richard Klugh argued it would take "an
extraordinary leap" for Hernandez to know Havana's intentions. Klugh also
argued that the life sentences for Hernandez, Guerrero and Labanino were
based on espionage that revealed information already in the public record.
Its impact, he said, was "nothing more than a flea on a pimple of the United
States."
For Weinglass, the issue was location, location, location.
"Miami is not the villain of this piece," he told reporters assembled at a
news conference after the hearing. On a table in front of him were stacks of
petitions, with a total of 50,000 signatures. Behind him was a banner with
the pictures of the five convicted spies.
"Miami is Miami. It is a city with its own history, a long and difficult
history. The trial should not have been in this city. The U.S. government
knew that. It selected this city to exploit its ongoing difficulties."
The court's decision isn't expected for months.
---
© 2004 South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
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