What is the "crime" that René González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González have committed? Gathering information on ultrarightist groups that, operating on U.S. territory with Washington’s knowledge and complicity, have a history of violent attacks against Cuba.

The five are working-class heroes who have risked their lives to defend their country and their revolution--which for more than four decades has been under attack by Washington because of its example for working people and fighters for freedom worldwide.

They themselves are a product of the Cuban Revolution. Three of them, for example, fought in Angola in the late 1980s as volunteer combatants when Cuba helped that African nation defeat invasions by the South African apartheid regime’s army.

The frame-ups are an attack not only on the Cuban Revolution but on the rights of working people here. They are aimed at intimidating anyone who opposes the bosses’ assaults or U.S. government policies. Over the three years prior to the arrests of the five in 1998, FBI agents repeatedly broke into their homes, violating the Fourth Amendment protection against arbitrary search and seizure. These attacks will be used by the U.S. government to justify broader powers by the political police to conduct wiretapping, spying, and harassment against others who oppose the employers or U.S. government.

The prosecution’s "evidence" consisted of information the FBI claimed to have collected in these raids. No evidence of any military secrets being stolen from the United States and turned over to Cuba was ever presented. In fact, the main charges against them are "conspiracy to commit espionage" for the Cuban government and other "conspiracy" charges--not for any actions committed.

The judge refused a defense motion to move the trial out of Miami, even after several potential jurors, including Cuban-Americans, disqualified themselves for fear of reprisals if they voted "not guilty." The effort today by their attorneys to seek a new trial deserves support.

Since their conviction and dispersal to five different federal prisons, the rights of the five revolutionaries continue to be trampled on, including the denial of visitation rights by family and friends. In spite of all its efforts, however, Washington has failed to break the spirit of these Cuban patriots.

Free the five Cuban patriots now!
 
 
Related articles:
Cubans framed in U.S. court demand new trial  
 
 
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