At the heart of their habeas corpus appeals is the stunning revelation that many Miami journalists who vilified the Five during their 2000-2001 trial were on the U.S. government payroll, the same government that was prosecuting the Five.

In the United States, after the direct appeals process is exhausted, habeas corpus allows prisoners to challenge their detention, particularly in light of exculpatory evidence that was not known during trial. However, because of Bill Clinton’s 1996 Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, defendants only have one chance confined to an arbitrary one-year window to exercise this right.

Secret government payments to Miami journalists revealed

Just the tip of the icebergIn 2006, Miami Herald reporter Oscar Corral broke a front-page story exposing 10 Miami journalists who received regular payments from the U.S. government for programs on Radio Martí and TV Martí, multi-million-dollar propaganda vehicles of the government whose purpose is promoting counterrevolution in Cuba. None of the reporters, employed by Miami’s most notable and influential media outlets, disclosed to anyone that they were receiving thousands of dollars from the government.

The exposure of a covert government-media operation in Miami is vitally important. From the very beginning of their case, the Cuban Five defense team fought to have the trial moved out of Miami-even without knowing about the government’s payments to journalists. Miami is a city so infected with anti-Cuba prejudice and hysteria that it was impossible for the Five to have a fair trial there. Of course, the Cuban Five should never have been arrested in the first place, as their mission was protecting Cuba from U.S.-backed Miami-based terrorism.

The prosecution, on the other hand, capitalizing on the tainted media environment, fought tooth-and-nail to make sure the Five were tried nowhere else except Miami for reasons that are now devastatingly obvious.

Habeas corpus appeals and the government’s absurd evasionsOn the heels of Oscar Corral’s revelation, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five conducted what is now a three-year struggle to further expose the connection between the U.S. government and Miami reporters in relation to the case of the Five.

Multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the National Committee and Liberation newspaper-with the pro bono legal assistance of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund-revealed a much wider and deeper connection than previously known. The directing agency of Radio and TV Martí is the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is part of the U.S. State Department. Thousands of pages of released contracts proved that the BBG has employed an entire staff of right-wing Miami journalists. The contracts show government payments of nearly $1 million to 27 journalists.

Crucially, the contracts showed that the payments stretched back to 1999, one year before the Five’s trial. In other words, the same Miami journalists who led an unprecedented media campaign against the Five before and during their trial were secretly being paid by the plaintiff in the case, the U.S. government! There is strong reason to believe that the payments go back even further but the BBG is refusing to give full disclosure.

This explosive revelation, unknown at the time of the trial, is a core part of all of the Cuban Five’s habeas corpus appeals. If it had been known during trial, there can be no doubt that the trial could not have taken place in Miami.

Gerardo Hernández, who is serving an unjust two life sentences, one for the false charge of conspiracy to commit murder, focuses his habeas corpus appeal on ineffective counsel and his actual innocence in the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes that invaded Cuban airspace. His appeal also refers to the U.S.-paid reporters.

Government argues the impossibleThe first step in the habeas corpus process was filing a writ, a formal notice of appeal. Then a memorandum filed by each of the Five’s appeals attorneys elaborated on the arguments.

The government’s response to Fernando and Ramón’s memorandums was submitted to the court at the end of 2011.

In the government’s response, rather than refute that a government agency was giving large sums of money to Miami journalists, U.S. Assistant Attorney Carolyn Heck-Miller simply claimed that the journalists were unaffected by the payments. “[Defendant's] speculative inference that the BBG payments for services to Radio Marti must have also influenced and shaped the journalists’ non-governmental publications is without any proffered evidentiary foundation.”

In Ramón Labañino’s Feb. 19 response to Heck-Miller, his attorney William M. Norris wrote: “The Government’s response to petitioner’s due process argument is, frankly, shocking. At no point does the Government ever acknowledge that it would be improper or inconsistent with basic norms of fair play for it to secretly pay journalists in the trial venue to publish articles asserting the guilt of an accused foreign agent..

“But every objective observer-from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitration Detentions to former U.S. Presidents to Amnesty International-has declared that the verdict in this case raises serious due process concerns for precisely this reason.”

Heck-Miller went on to claim that the payments were “modest” and therefore not capable of influencing the journalists’ views. Norris reminds Heck-Miller that “the payments were anything but modest–one journalist, Pablo Alfonso, received $58,600 during the trial alone from the Government (a total of more than $250,000 altogether), and he published articles directly about the trial, alleging the defendants’ likely guilt.”

In a particularly absurd argument of the government, Heck-Miller argued that the prosecutors and Justice Department could not have known of the State Department’s payments to Miami reporters. Norris’s reply once again refutes the prosecutor: “[I]t is likely that in a case of this profile, involving such complex foreign policy issues, the State Department (which oversees the Office of Cuba Broadcasting) was at least consulted prior to the Indictment being sought.”

Joaquin Méndez, Jr., counsel for Fernando González, went even further in his response to Heck-Miller, filed on Feb. 17: “This case was approved at the highest levels of the national government, not merely by a local prosecutor. And this case concerned not some discrete criminal incident, but merely one aspect of a particularly important national objective with regard to the Cuban government, dealing with matters that included…a purported espionage conspiracy; the agencies at issue [the BBG, the State Department, the Justice Department, etc.] were not mere ‘components of the same government,’ but were working toward the same end.”

In a case dealing with false charges of espionage conspiracy, for anyone to believe the U.S. prosecution’s claim that the State Department was not involved would also require a suspension of reality.

A new evidentiary hearing?After Heck-Miller argued that government prosecutors had no knowledge-and no responsibility to know-about government-paid Miami journalists, she illogically asserted that the Cuban Five and their attorneys should have known about it (!) and since they failed to raise the relevant facts during direct appeal, cannot raise that evidence now. This can be considered the grand finale of Heck-Miller’s jaw-dropping absurdity.

Fernando and Ramón’s attorneys took turns skewering Heck-Miller’s contradictory claim:

Joaquin Mendez said, “…to imagine that the defense would have known in 1999 or 2000 what the Miami Herald published as front page news about its own reporters in 2006 exceeds anything remotely addressed in the case law on which the government relies.”

William Norris, Jr. added: “The relevant information, i.e. that the government had paid these journalists, was not publicly available-the Miami Herald obtained it only through Freedom of Information Act requests-and when it was revealed [in 2006], it ‘unleashed a firestorm of protest from Cuban-Americans and others in greater Miami.’ The author of the original Miami Herald article received numerous death threats from anti-Castro activists, and had to be moved from his home. Clearly, the facts at issue were not mundane realities waiting to be cited.”

Whether the Five’s authoritative legal arguments, in correlation with mounting public support worldwide, will result in the granting of an evidentiary hearing where the issue of a government-media connection can be brought into fuller light is yet to be seen. The defense attorneys are waiting to hear whether Judge Joan Lenard will grant a hearing or not. Lenard was also the judge during the trial.

This is a long process. It has already robbed the Five of 13-1/2 years of their lives and time with their families, for the “crime” of saving lives.

It will take the continued and determined effort of the thousands of active supporters, the Five’s attorneys and the Cuban people to win their freedom.

In the meantime, the National Committee, Liberation newspaper and the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund will continue digging up more information and mobilizing the public, along with the worldwide movement, to fight for the Five’s freedom.

Chris Banks, the author of this analysis, is an organizer with the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five.

Please donate to support our continuing work! All the work of the committee is done by volunteers, and the funds we raise are used for organizing support for the Five: publicity, forums, protests, media publicity and press conferences, to pay for newspaper advertisements exposing the Five’s case, and much more. A very important project we are spearheading is research and investigation on illegal U.S. government violations, such as the secret payments to Miami journalists, who covered the Five’s trial in an extremely biased manner.

Donate here: http://www.freethefive.org/store.htm

Benedict, speaking aboard his plane to reporters as he flew to Mexico on Friday, said in reference to Cuba that “Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality.” Before offering the Roman Catholic Church’s help in “peaceful transition on the island”.

Corresponding papal criticism of Mexico’s system of governance was conspicuous only by its absence from the Pontiff’s pontifications. A curious reporter in the papal entourage might have wondered how Mexico’s performance under neo-liberalism compares to that of socialist Cuba? However the Pope’s comments were instead uncritically parroted by news agencies and mainstream media organisations without any analysis of how the two Latin American nations actually compare.

While the doctrine of papal infallibility is still accepted by the Irish Time et al, Cuba Support Group is happy to fill the information gap and provide the analysis that the mainstream media neglected to. Data is sourced from The United Nations Human Development Report

Human Development Index Mexico V Cuba

On analysis the UN data clearly shows that in comparison to their Mexican neighbours, Cuban’s live longer, have a higher literacy rate and have a lower infant mortality rate.

The political system that they have built spends a higher proportion of GNI on health and education, has the second highest level of female participation in Parliament in the world and protects its population more successfully, and more frequently from natural disasters than does Mexico’s neo-liberal system.

The nonexistence of homelessness in Cuban society, combined with the free provision of healthcare and education, and guaranteed provision of essentials means that the UN cannot measure poverty in Cuba as its traditional manifestations are not found on the island. Mexico’s level of asset poverty consistently hovers between 46% and 50% of the population.

The Cuban economic system produces less carbon emissions and greenhouse gases per capita than Mexico’s while also being more sustainable and less harmful to the environment.

The only category in which Mexico outperforms Cuba is in the generation of wealth, however despite being a richer, larger and more populous country, Mexico fails miserably to provide for the needs of its people. Perhaps because neo-liberalism ensures that the vast majority of this wealth goes into the pockets of Mexico’s tiny elite of Billionaires at the expense of its ordinary citizens.

In literally every other category examined by the United Nations Human Development Report Cuba’s performance is superior to that of Mexico when it comes to meeting the needs of its citizens.

If Pope Benedict were to acquaint himself with the facts then surely, as a Christian, he would be compelled to call for Mexico to adopt Cuba’s successful socialist model and abandon neo-liberalism and the inequities and injustices that are inevitably caused by it’s policies.

The Miami Five, are five men unjustly imprisoned by the United States government while infiltrating and gathering evidence on Miami Cuban groups who had carried out terrorist actions in Cuba.  Rather than acting on the evidence gathered by the men on the Miami-based terrorist groups, the US government arrested the five on espionage charges  and sentenced them to heavy sentences in different jails across the US.

A working group of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights said that ‘the trial did not take place in a climate of objectivity and impartiality’.  Amnesty International has described the treatment of the Five as ‘unnecessarily punitive and contrary both to standards for the humane treatment of prisoners and to states’ obligation to protect family life’. Eight international Nobel Prize winners and 110 MPs have written to the U.S. Attorney General calling for freedom for the Five.

One of the men, Rene Gonzalez, was released on probation in October 2011 but has to remain in the US for three years placing his life in grave risk from the groups he sought to expose.

The new mural aims to promote the campaign to release the Five and encourage greater efforts to have them set free.

———–

I wish to convey to all of you my most sincere appreciation for another year of company in solidarity with this struggle for truth and justice.

The year which will soon end is yet another year of significant efforts of all those, who in one way or another, contribute to the objective of making the freedom of the Cuban Five a reality.

We are aware of the activities and events that all of you organize everywhere in the world as part of the campaign for our freedom. To each one of you, in each place on the planet where you show the universal value of human solidarity, with the closing of the year 2011, receive my gratitude and my certainty that we will achieve victory.

May you have a happy and fruitful New Year, and that 2012 be another year of gains and victories for the causes that we defend.

Happy 2012!

¡Venceremos!

Fernando Gonzalez Llort

———–

Dear sisters and brothers,

This year 2011 is reaching an end, and we want to take this special time to send you all our love, with warmness and the gratitude of the Five, for all that you give every day for the cause of Cuba; that is our cause.

You are our greatest virtue, our strength and the main reason we can maintain our optimism that someday the big miracle of our freedom will happen and we will all celebrate together in victory.

With those of you who have always been there along our side for these 13 years of unjust imprisonment, we are fulfilling the prophecy that all work of love overcomes the adversity and in the end that will prove to be the case.

We wish you happy holidays, a 2012 with peace, love, health and victories.

The love of the Five is with you every second of the year and of life!

On behalf of our five families, of the Cuban people, and from each one of us, we wish you

!!!!!!!HAPPY 2012!!!!!!!

Ramón Labañino

————

Dear friends,

The second half of December has started.  I decided to share with you this message that I have sent to many friends, answering their words of solidarity and encouragement.

Rene is free, but it is a freedom with many conditions; it is a freedom where he is in constant physical danger; it is a freedom without being able to have Olguita and his daughters next to him; it is a freedom without freedom.

Gerardo continues under the terrible conditions of a penitentiary, something I know very well. His strength remains high against the injustice of the double life sentence despite not being able to receive visits from Adriana.

Our Habeas Corpus process is reaching its end. Perhaps in the beginning of next year we will receive an answer. I am wondering what Judge Lenard’s response will be?.

It gives us great strength to hear about the participation of many friends from all over the world who attended the VII Colloquium for our freedom in Holguin. Once again the success of this yearly event shows that the struggle for our cause is growing.

These are some of the things that 2011 ends with, in the middle of a world that cannot take it anymore and is dying of pain. It is a world that is asking us to run to help it in order to save humanity from so much selfishness; a world that is taking us, as Fidel affirmed, “in a relentless pace, towards a definitive and total catastrophe”.

For me, the recent visit of my two sons has been the most wonderful thing that has happened to me in this 13 years of imprisonment.

With great thanks for your support, on behalf of the 5, I wish you a Happy New Year 2012!
Peace, health, happiness and success in your goals.

We are always optimistic, and reiterate: !Venceremos!

Five embraces.

Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez

————-

Dear friends:

As another end of the year approaches with all the festivities and the symbolism that for each of us, from its place on our diversity, hold these days, the family spirit is renovated and our best wishes point to the immediate future; projecting our aspirations, dreams, realities and affections.

For the five of us, separated from our families and from our people for more than 13 years, the recurrent wish of seeing at last this injustice repaired will be again our greatest hope. All of you, who have being with us throughout all these years on an endless struggle to accomplish something as simple as the application of the laws, have shown to be sensible enough so as to feel on your own flesh the laceration inflicted by the denial of such an elemental aspiration on both us and on our loved ones; by giving space on your hearts to this battle that for enduring would have already made many people give up. For that perseverance we thank you and reiterate to all of you the assurance of our eternal gratitude.

A very important year is coming. It is probably a decisive one, when the last legal skirmish of this long and tortuous process can be elucidated. Such as it has been admitted by the prosecutors themselves, the weight of the solidarity is of no small effect, and the knowledge that we still count on your efforts gives us encouragement and sustenance. We have no doubt that we all will continue together on this struggle until we can be victorious, and that it will be thanks to the actions of people like you that in the end the reunification of our families will be achieved.

It is because of that reciprocal link that the happiness of yours is also our happiness, that we share your projects, that we enjoy your successes and that together we all project the optimism and the perseverance that make us one. With that spirit of fraternity and shared feelings we wish you the best New Year and lots of success on every one of your aspirations, which are also ours.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2012.

With affection.

Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert 

The members of Our America - Cuba's "greatest triumph"

A Union is Born: Latin America in Revolution

By Eva Golinger

While much of the world is in crisis and protests are erupting throughout Europe and the United States, Latin American and Caribbean nations are building consensus, advancing social justice and increasing positive cooperation in the region. Social, political and economic transformations have been taking place through democratic processes in countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil throughout the past decade, leading to a massive reduction in poverty and income disparity in the region, and a substantial increase in social services, quality of life and direct participation in political process.

One of the major initiatives of progressive Latin American governments this century has been the creation of new regional organizations that promote integration, cooperation and solidarity amongst neighboring nations. Cuba and Venezuela began this process in 2004 with the founding of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), that now includes Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Dominica, St. Vincent’s and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda. ALBA was initially launched in response to the US government’s failed attempt to impose its Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) throughout the region. Today ALBA is a thriving multilateral organization with member nations that share similar political visions for their countries and for the region, and includes numerous cooperation agreements in economic, social and cultural areas. The fundamental basis of trade amongst ALBA nations is solidarity and mutual benefit. There is no competition, exploitation or attempt to dominate amongst ALBA states. ALBA even counts on its own currency, the SUCRE, which allows for trade between member nations without dependence on the US dollar.

In 2008, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was formally established as a regional body representing South American states. While ALBA is much more consolidated as a unified political voice, UNASUR represents a diversity of political positions, economic models and visions for the region. But UNASUR members share the common goal of working towards regional unity and guaranteeing the resolution of conflicts through peaceful and diplomatic means. UNASUR has already played a key role in peacefully resolving disputes in Bolivia, particularly during an attempted coup against the government of Evo Morales in 2008, and has also successfully moderated a severe conflict between Colombia and Venezuela, leading to the reestablishment of relations in 2010.

Two hundred years ago, South American Independence hero Simon Bolivar, a native of Venezuela, dreamed of building regional unity and creating a “Patria Grande” (Grand Homeland) in Latin America. After achieving independence for Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia, and fighting colonialists in several Caribbean nations, Bolivar attempted to turn this dream of Latin American unity into reality. His efforts were sabotaged by powerful interests opposing the creation of a solid regional bloc, and eventually, with the aid of the United States, Bolivar was ousted from his rule in Venezuela and died isolated in Colombia several years later. Meanwhile, the US government had proceeded to implement its Monroe Doctrine, a decree first declared by President James Monroe in 1823 to ensure US domination and control over the newly-freed nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Nearly two hundred years of invasions, interventions, aggressions, coup d’etats and hostilities led by the US government against Latin American nations shadowed the 19th and 20th centuries. By the end of the 20th century, Washington had successfully imposed governments in every Latin American and Caribbean nation that were subordinate to its agenda, with the exception of Cuba. The Monroe Doctrine had been achieved, and the US felt confident in its control over its “backyard”.

The unexpected turn at the beginning of the 21st century in Venezuela, formerly one of Washington’s most stable and subservient partners, came as a shock to the US. Hugo Chavez had been elected President and a Revolution had begun. A coup d’etat attempt in 2002 failed to subvert the advancement of the Bolivarian Revolution and the spread of revolutionary fever throughout the region. Soon Bolivia followed, then Nicaragua and Ecuador. Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay elected socialist presidents, two of them former guerrilla fighters. Major changes began to occur throughout the region as the peoples of this vast, diverse and rich continent assumed power and made their voices heard.

Social transformations in Venezuela that gave voice to people’s power became exemplary for others in the region, as did President Chavez’s defiance of US imperialism. A powerful sentiment of Latin American sovereignty and independence grew stronger, even reaching those with governments aligned with US interests and multinational control.

On December 2-3, 2011, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was born and the overwhelming force of a continent nearly 600 million strong, achieved a 200-year dream of unity. The 33 member nations of CELAC all agree on the unquestionable necessity to build a regional organization that represents their interests, and that excludes the overbearing presence of the US and Canada. While CELAC will take time to consolidate, the exceptional commitment evidenced by the 33 states present at its launching in Caracas, Venezuela, cannot be underestimated.

CELAC will have to overcome attempts to sabotage and neutralize its expansion and endurance, and the threats against it and intents to divide member nations will be numerous and frequent. But the resistance of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean who have resumed this path of unity and independence after nearly two hundred years of imperialist aggression, demonstrates the powerful force that has led this region to become an inspiration for those seeking social justice and true freedom around the world.

About the Author

Eva Golinger, winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), named “La Novia de Venezuela” by President Hugo Chávez, is an Attorney and Writer from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of the best-selling books, “The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela” (2006 Olive Branch Press), “Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela” (2007, Monthly Review Press), “The Empire’s Web: Encyclopedia of Interventionism and Subversion”, “La Mirada del Imperio sobre el 4F: Los Documentos Desclasificados de Washington sobre la rebelión militar del 4 de febrero de 1992” and “La Agresión Permanente: USAID, NED y CIA”. Since 2003, Eva, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and CUNY Law School in New York, has been investigating, analyzing and writing about US intervention in Venezuela using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about US Government efforts to undermine progressive movements in Latin America. Her first book, The Chávez Code, has been translated and published in 8 languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Farsi & Turkish) and is presently being made into a feature film.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We don’t hear that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):

Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

How it began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.”

Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its eternally-declared enemy.

Extract: William Blum – http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer99.html

This is René González, first of the Miami Five to be freed in the United States, as he leaves Marianna prison in Florida, Friday, Oct. 7, 2011.  Watch the YouTube video below - it’s an emotional first encounter with his daughters, his father Cándido and his brother Roberto.  

René’s wife, Olga, is still banned form travelling to the USA to visit him by US authorities, continuing what Amnesty International called a “form of torture” which has been imposed arbitrarily on him for more than a decade.

“I am ready to continue fighting until I die,” were his first words after embracing and kissing his daughters, Ivette and Irmita, who filmed the moment that they met him as he left the prison.

“My love, my treasure. How are you? …they say that I’m looking great. Your older daughter is here filming. They are both beautiful,” he told his wife Olga Salanueva by telephone.

He added that on the eve of his release from the prison, he was confined to the “hole” (the punishment cell) by prison officials: “I remained in the hole the rest of the evening, I slept well and they woke me. I jumped up like a spring. Everything was very quick; from the time they opened the hole until I got out: 10 minutes,” René said.

One can also see René singing “El Mayor,” the song by Silvio Rodríguez, while he is with his daughters and brother Roberto in the car that takes him to where he will live in Florida, while he completes the three years of supervised release imposed by judge Joan Lenard.

“I am thinking of Gerardo,” says René, with the dawn of the morning light and the sounds of “El Necio,” in the car, also by Silvio.The Cuban anti-terrorist activist, together with his lawyer Philip Horowitz, appeared before the officials assigned to supervise his case. 

Video: René González Leaving Prison

Dublin, 12 September 2011. –  Free the Miami Five Campaign Ireland launched a series of forthcoming events as part of the international actions to mark the 13^th anniversary of the unjust imprisonment of the Miami Five.

Speaking from Leinster House, independent T.D. Finian McGrath reiterated the call for the release of the five Cuban counter-terrorist fighters and highlighted the case of René Gonzalez.  René is the first to serve his full sentence and is due for release on 7 October 2011.  He is to fulfil an additional 3 years probation term in Miami, where his physical integrity will be at risk.

Joined by fellow T.D.s Maureen O’Sullivan (independent) and Pádraig MacLochlainn (Sinn Féin) and representatives of various Trade Unions, Political Parties and solidarity organizations, affiliated to the campaign, he said:

“Today, the Irish Free the Miami Five Campaign is launching a programme of actions in the months of September and October to increase pressure for an end to this gross miscarriage of justice.

We urge you to support the Miami 5 and join us in calling on President Obama to use his presidential powers to release these men and facilitate their safe return home to their people and their families”. 

STATEMENT DELIVERED BY FINIAN McGRATH T.D.

We, representatives of the Free the Miami Five, the Irish National Campaign seeking Justice for the Miami Five, are here today, September 12^th to draw the attention of  the public and the media to their case, as they begin their 14^th year of unjust imprisonment in US jails, for the sole crime of fighting Florida based Cuban terrorist groups.

Their convictions were the result of a manipulated trial and are unsafe. We share this belief with former Presidents Jimmy Carter (USA) and Mary Robinson (Ireland), along with Amnesty International and the United Nations panel on Arbitrary Detentions.

The Atlanta District Court of Appeals formed a similar opinion, until its decision was hurriedly revised, and the US Supreme Court declined to examine the case in spite of an unprecedented number of petitions, including one from 54 Irish parliamentarians, which shows the wide spread level of support they enjoy both in Ireland and internationally.

But numerous international appeals from parliaments, government ministers, citizens groups, trade unions and legal experts for justice and a fair treatment have also been unsuccessful. While in prison they have been subjected to additional punishment and two of the wives have been repeatedly refused visas to visit their husbands.

US lawyers for the Five have presented compelling arguments for immediate Habeas Corpus relief. Using the Freedom of Information Act, it was revealed that the US government paid thousands of dollars to Miami TV, radio and print journalists to write and print prejudiced and biased articles against the Five and Cuba at the same time they were conducting a prosecution trial against them in a US court.

Today we want to highlight the case of Rene Gonzalez, the first of the Miami Five to serve his full sentence of fifteen years, who is due for release October 7^th. Rene was also sentenced to 3 years probation and is to fulfil this requirement in the US, where his physical integrity will be at risk. We ask that he be allowed to return to Cuba and join his family.

Today, the Irish Free the Miami Five Campaign is launching a programme of actions in the months of September and October to increase pressure for an end to this gross miscarriage of justice.

We urge you to support the Miami 5 and join us in calling on President Obama to use his presidential powers to release these men and facilitate their safe return home to their people and their families.

ENDS

Leinster House, 12 September 2011, 12:30 p.m.

Dear sisters and brothers around the world,

Today, September 12, 2011, thirteen years of an unjust and prolonged incarceration have been completed, where the manipulations, lies and concealment of evidence engaged in by this country’s government, have made this legal odyssey an endless and even more painful one. However, on the other side of the equation, without so much as a single second’s hesitation throughout this beautiful and already epic battle, are all of you, sisters, brother, family, eternal friends, who fill us with a sense of pride and privilege.

Thanks to all of you, to the entire international solidarity movement, we’ve made small steps forward, such as a re-sentencing for three of us, although the sentences remain exaggerated and unjustifiable. The struggle continues.

Our brother, Gerardo Hernández, still remains under a double life sentence plus 15 years, for crimes he never committed, whose exculpatory evidence the government refuses to hand over, making a mockery not only of justice and universal ethics, but of the very laws and constitution of the United States. For him, there has been no rest whatsoever in this battle, and against him, every kind of punishment and disparagement have been and continue to be used.

On the other hand, René Gonzáles is finally at the point of completing his unjust sentence and still must fight for the recognition of his legitimate right to reunite with those who love him most, and return to his homeland.

We all continue in the fight for truth and justice. Now our final legal appeals are being presented to obtain some kind of remedy that might rectify so much injustice. The “Habeas Corpus” petitions of Gerardo, Tony and Ramon have been presented. We can say that they are marvelous documents, with a strong legal basis and with real evidence of our innocence, as well as the aberrations of this entire process. But we are not naïve. As in many prior moments, we know that this is a totally and uniquely political cause, and that is behind the decisions of judges and prosecutors. Our families, brothers, friends also suffer from this situation.

We must not permit this injustice to continue any longer, that other brothers should be forced to complete undeserved sentences, that Gerardo should continue to be treated with such cruelty.

This is the reality and the scene that we are facing on this, the thirteenth anniversary of captivity.

But we are continuing and shall continue struggling until victory is achieved, because there is nothing more beautiful than the defense of the dignity and right of our country to be free, independent and sovereign.

And we are proud, knowing that we can count on this wonderful solidarity that someday, ever closer, will free us and bring us home.

Thank you to everyone for your faithful companionship!

Our love and affection remain with you!

We shall be victorious!

Ramon Labanino Salazar
Sept. 12, 2011, 11:50 a.m.
FCI Jesup, Georgia