Reply of the Association Québécoise des amiEs de Cuba to the National Post article « Whitewashing Cuban terror » published on December 22, 2008.
Your article « Whitewashing Cuban terror » published on the National Post’s December 22, 2008 edition, has caused a flood of protests among the Canadian groups supporting The Cuban Five. Now, we must set the record straight about the numerous lies you have written. Your article begins with an insinuation that positive changes in Cuba are finally possible due to Raul Castro’s takeover in place of his older brother Fidel. That affirmation alone is an insult to anyone who knows the slightest truth about Cuban people and the pride about their revolution, as well as their loyalty and their strong supportive feelings towards their leader Fidel. Your article mentions that « now, ordinary Cubans can buy personal computers and media players »; are you implying that under the Fidel-led government they were not capable? No law existed that prohibited a Cuban from buying computer or anything else for that matter. Nor was the Cuban government a rigid or ascetic one. Schools, hospitals, and other public institutions are always prioritized in Cuba when it comes to choosing where to distribute precious and rare merchandises such as computers. Yes, there are merchandise issues in Cuba. Yes, there are several necessary consumption articles not available to Cuban citizens. Yes, there is a lack of basic medical supplies such as Aspirin or antibiotics. Yes, there is a lack of construction materials and agriculture machinery parts; and the list goes on. However, it is highly hypocritical to insinuate that these lacks of necessities are in any way a political will of the Cuban government. The lack of goods is the direct result of the United States attempts to isolate Cuba. They are part of the strangling of a population with a commercial, economic and financial embargo that has been imposed to the island since 1962, in a declared goal to unstabilize and sow subversion among Cuban people. Internet access is rare and expensive because it is available only through satellites, and not through fiber optics technology deprived from Cuba by the U.S. blockad. Positive changes to Cuban society are nothing new, they started on Day One of Cuba’s liberation from Batista’s dictatorship in 1959, and are slowly but surely turning Cuba into an example for other Latin American countries inspired by Socialist ambitions.
Your article refers to an eventual consideration of the Cuban government to release American political prisoners, under the condition that the US government consider releasing innocent men, « The Cuban Five », being held prisoners since September 1998. There is so much to say about this particularly revolting case of injustice and incarceration of these five unarmed men. They were working in Southern Florida to gather information about the activities of mercenary groups that have threatened the Cuban people with arson, sabotage, murder and even the use of biological weapons. These five men, « The Cuban Five », were arrested by the FBI and held in punishment isolation cells for 17 months before their cases were even brought to trial.
« The Cuban Five » were charged with the nebulous accusations of conspiracy, which means under US law, an agreement to commit espionage. However, the US government never charged or claimed that actual espionage activity had occurred since no classified military documents were involved. In fact, your article contains inaccurate and bias information which any newspaper journalist should be ashamed of; as you refer to The Cuban Five as spies and they were never even convicted as so. Your article also refers to a particular event, the flight destruction of two Cessna belonging to the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. In an incredibly twisted way, the US government managed to charge one of The Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernandez, of conspiracy to murder regarding this event. He had informed the Cuban government that these aircrafts were planning to make an illegal incursion in the aerial Cuban territory.
First of all, who were the men flying these planes and why were they illegally roaming the Cuba skies without authorisation? They were from a group called Brothers to the Rescue known in spanish as Hermanos al Rescate. A Miami-based activist organization headed by José Basulto, formed in 1991 by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to the Cuban government and President Fidel Castro. The Brothers to the Rescue describes itself as a humanitarian organization aiming to assist and rescue raft refugees emigrating from Cuba and they pretend to "support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active nonviolence". That is their sayings. Now here is the truth: Brothers to the Rescue is an illegal and anti-Cuban organization. Their fundamental purpose is to provoke incidents and aggravate relations between Cuba and United States. The purposes of these flights were to release propaganda anti-Castrist leaflets on Cuban territory. On this particular event of January 1996, it is disputed by the ICAO whether the planes were over Cuban territorial airspace at the time of the shootdown, but it is undisputed that at least one of their planes actually entered Cuban airspace prior to the shootdown.
Throughout the early 1990s, the group's planes made repeated incursions into Cuban territory. While these were widely considered airspace violations, Brothers to the Rescue claimed that these were acts of legitimate resistance against the government. In January 1996, José Basulto flew a plane along with two additional Cessna ignoring a final warning by Cuba. Two of these planes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force.
Miguel Alfonso Martinez of the Cuban Foreign Ministry stated in an interview that planes belonging to the Brothers to the Rescue group had flown into Cuban airspace 25 times during the previous 20 months. He asked, "What would happen if an aircraft piloted by declared enemies of the US was detected flying over Washington? What would the US authorities do? Would they allow it to continue flying undisturbed?” The two aircraft that were shot down were "not common civilian aircraft," as suggested by the US. This is not the case of an innocent civilian airliner that, because of an instrument error, departs from an air corridor and gets into the airspace of another country. These people knew what they were doing. They were warned and they wanted to take certain actions that were clearly intended to unstabilize the Cuban government. The US authorities knew about their intentions.
In your article, you do mention one truthfull fact, which I now insist on myself. Many Canadian groups, left-wing students, and even politicians, have taken up the banner of The Cuban Five and are demanding for their liberation. According to one of their defense lawyers Richard Klugh, the appeal of the Cuban Five is to be brought before the Supreme Court before January 30, 2009. Indeed, our solidarity is growing not only in Canada but all over the world, as we are fiercely engaged in a battle to break the silence on the case of The Cuban Five and determined to have Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez walking freely again.
Karine Walsh,
Association Québécoise des amiEs de Cuba
