Vol. 72/No. 24      June 16, 2008

Robinson, a member of the Young Socialists from San Francisco, spoke alongside Róger Calero, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president. Some 30 people attended the presentation.

The five working-class fighters are serving sentences ranging from 15 years to a double life term in U.S. prisons.

“They have been unjustly imprisoned for a decade,” Robinson told the meeting, describing the efforts of the five to monitor the activities of Cuban American counterrevolutionary groups based in Florida.

“Washington has used this case to attack workers’ rights and constitutional protections,” said Calero, explaining how the homes of the five had been wiretapped and searched in secret by FBI cops. “But they couldn’t prove espionage or other illegal acts against the U.S. government,” so they laid “conspiracy” charges, “which are vague enough that they don’t require proof of having done anything.”

“I can see many echoes between the Cuban prisoners’ fight and the protests of the Tuhoe people against the ‘antiterror’ police invasion last October,” said Calero, who had met some of these fighters for Maori rights a couple of days earlier.

In prison the Cuban Five have faced further violations of their rights. “Washington has tried to break their morale,” Calero said. In standing up to these attacks and supporting others fighting for justice, the Cuban Five “are in the front ranks of the class struggle in the United States today together with others who are resisting the capitalist rulers’ attacks.”
 
 
Related articles:
Momentum building for conference on Cuban Five
Free the Cuban Five Working Conference leaflet  
 
 
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