Fernando González, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, and Ramón Labañino are serving from 15 years to a double life term. They were framed up and convicted in 2001 on conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to commit espionage, to act as unregistered foreign agents, and—in the case of Hernández—to commit murder. The five had been gathering information on ultrarightist Cuban-American groups that, operating on U.S. territory, have organized violent attacks on Cuba with the full knowledge and complicity of the U.S. government—groups that have been funded and in some cases created by Washington. The frame-up of the five takes place in the context of attacks on political rights carried out by the U.S. government under the banner of “homeland security” and “fighting terrorism.”

In a February 25 statement the San Francisco-based National Committee to Free the Cuban Five reported, “The U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in conjunction with Wachovia Bank, has recently prevented the National Committee from receiving two wire transfers sent to it from two Cuban Five support committees.” These were a Cuba solidarity organization in Andalusia, Spain, and the French Committee to Free the Cuban Five.

“Neither OFAC nor Wachovia has explained why they have unlawfully denied the National Committee access to these funds,” the committee said in its statement. “Instead they have demanded that the groups involved answer intrusive questions about the work they do on Cuba and the case of the Five.”

Organizers of the ad campaign, it said, “have been fighting hard to reverse the U.S. government’s decision to suspend these funds. We believe that the government’s action violates the First Amendment and constitutes another attack on the Cuban Five.”

In a March 5 phone interview Ian Thompson, an attorney for the National Committee to Free the Five, said that OFAC had probed for additional information on the account used for the ad campaign. Among other questions, he said, “They wanted to know the relationship of the account to the Cuban government and the reason for the payment.”

On March 5 committee coordinator Gloria La Riva told the Militant that although OFAC had eventually backed down, “It doesn’t mean they won’t do it again.”

The full-page ad, which appeared in the March 3 Times, summarized some of the facts in the frame-up of the Cuban Five. It also protested Washington’s repeated denials of visas to Olga Salanueva, wife of René González, and Adriana Pérez, wife of Gerardo Hernández, to visit their imprisoned husbands.

The ad quoted Leonard Weinglass, the attorney for Antonio Guerrero, who said, “Justice demands a new trial.” Weinglass and other attorneys for the five will present brief verbal arguments for their written appeals against the convictions at a March 10 hearing of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Miami.  
 
 
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