The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 70/No. 38           October 9, 2006  
 
 
Marchers in Washington:
Free 5 Cuban revolutionaries!
(front page)
 
AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Some 350 people march to White House September 23 demanding, ‘Free Cuban Five!’

BY LAURA GARZA  
WASHINGTON—Chants of “Free the Cuban Five” rang out as more than 350 people marched September 23 from the U.S. Justice Department building to the White House, where a lively picket line was held. Then they joined a public forum at George Washington University, where a panel of speakers discussed the case of the five Cuban revolutionaries serving draconian sentences in U.S. prisons and other threats against revolutionary Cuba.

The demonstrators demanded the extradition to Venezuela of Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-American rightist linked to numerous attacks against Cuba, including the October 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados that killed 73 people.

The action, the first such nationally sponsored march, was part of a month of events around the world, held on the eighth anniversary of the arrests of the five Cubans and the 30th anniversary of the Barbados bombing.

The five Cubans—Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González—had integrated themselves into Cuban-American groups in Florida that have a record of carrying out violent attacks against Cuba operating with impunity from U.S. shores. They were arrested in September 1998. A federal court in Miami convicted them in 2001 on charges that included “conspiracy to commit espionage” and “conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent.” They were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life. Hernández, framed on charges of “conspiracy to commit murder,” received a double life term.

The largest contingent of about 50 Cubans from south Florida was organized by Alianza Martiana, an organization of Cuban-Americans who oppose Washington’s hostile policies toward Cuba.

Irene Fernández from Key West, said, “The five are heroes, and we demand justice for them.” She said her brother-in-law served as a doctor in Angola for four years, adding, “He was not forced to do anything. Cubans serve in other countries as volunteers.”

Speaking to marchers at the assembly site, Obi Egbuna of the Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association pointed to the Cuban Five as an example for all those fighting for justice. He noted that three of them served as volunteer combatants in Angola in the late 1980s, when Cuba helped that African nation defeat an invasion by the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Also speaking at the rally were Max Lesnick of the Alianza Martiana; Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition; Martín Koppel, Socialist Workers Party candidate for attorney general of New York; and representatives of the Quebec Roundtable in Solidarity with Cuba and Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front of El Salvador.  
 
Broad panel at forum
The forum was co-chaired by Andrés Gómez, a leader of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, an organization of pro-revolution Cuban-Americans, and Peta Lindsay of the ANSWER coalition. A special welcome was given to Dagoberto Rodríguez, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington and the delegation from the Interests Section that accompanied him.

One of the panelists was Livio Di Celmo, brother of Fabio Di Celmo, an Italian tourist killed Sept. 4, 1997, when a bomb exploded at Havana’s Copacabana hotel, one of a string of bombings at Cuban tourist facilities. “The bomb was ordered by Luis Posada Carriles,” he said.

José Pertierra, a lawyer representing Venezuela in its effort to gain extradition of Carriles to face charges for the 1976 bombing of the Cuban plane, also spoke. He said Posada is being held by U.S. immigration authorities but Washington has refused the extradition request and a federal judge on September 11 issued a ruling that paves the way for his imminent release.  
 
Reach out to ‘your natural allies’ in Black community
Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam, described how he and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan had been impressed by Cuba’s social achievements during a recent visit to the island. He recalled the impact on him of Fidel Castro’s arrival in Harlem in 1960 and of Castro’s meeting with Malcolm X, noting that he had been part of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in the early years of the Cuban Revolution. He has served as an aide to Farrakhan since 1965. Muhammad urged those present to involve young people in the campaign to free the Cuban Five, and to reach out to Blacks in the United States especially. Citing discussions Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky had with socialists in the United States in the 1930s, published in the book Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self-Determination, he underscored Trotsky’s advice to reach out to “your natural allies.”

Leonard Weinglass, one of the lawyers defending the imprisoned Cubans, noted the ruling by a federal panel in Atlanta last year that ordered a new trial on grounds that the defendants did not get a fair trial in Miami. On appeal, however, the full court reversed that decision last month. Weinglass explained the appeals court is now reviewing defense motions to overturn the convictions of the Five on other grounds.

Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, was also among the prominent panelists calling for the release of the Five. Other speakers included Saul Landau, author of Assassination on Embassy Row, a book on the Letelier assassination; Gloria LaRiva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five; Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild; and Cheryl LaBash for the National Network on Cuba.  
 
‘One more voice that joins the coalition to free the Five’
One of the speakers was Francisco Letelier, son of Orlando Letelier, who was assassinated by a car bomb on Sept. 21, 1976, along with his aide Ronni Moffitt. Orlando Letelier had been an official in the government of Chilean president Salvador Allende, overthrown in a U.S.-backed 1973 coup by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Agents of the Pinochet regime were implicated in the murders along with right-wing Cuban Guillermo Novo, who was convicted of conspiracy in the killings and sentenced to 40 years. His conviction, however, was overturned on a technicality.

Explaining that the five Cubans tried to stop people like those responsible for his dad’s murder, Letelier said, “I want to be one more voice that joins this coalition to demand freedom for the Five.”

Ned Measel from Washington and Matilda Hernández from New York contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
New York meeting hears leader of Cuban Revolution  
 
 
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