Vol. 73/No. 15      April 20, 2009

Adriana Pérez, along with other family members of five imprisoned Cubans, will go to another appointment at the U.S. Interests Section to request permission to travel to the United States.

For Pérez this will be the 10th time she requests a visa to visit her husband Gerardo Hernández.

Hernández, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, and Fernando González—known internationally as the Cuban Five—have been imprisoned since 1998, when they were arrested in Miami on frame-up “conspiracy” charges.

The five had been gathering information on rightist groups based in Florida that have a history of carrying out violent attacks against Cuba.

Pérez has not been allowed to see Hernández for 11 years. In 2002 after being granted a visa and flying to Houston she was stopped, detained for 11 hours, and returned to Cuba.

Olga Salanueva last saw her husband, René González, in August 2000, when she was arrested in Miami and taken to see him on her way to jail. By arresting her the cops hoped to pressure González into signing a confession and testifying against the other defendants. He refused and received a 15-year sentence.

Salanueva was jailed for three months and deported six days before the trial of the five began. In July 2008 officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana told Salanueva she is “permanently ineligible” for a visa.

The U.S. State Department Web site claims that Salanueva was deported for “engaging in activity related to espionage” and that Pérez was a “candidate for training” as a spy as the reasons for refusing to grant visas.

The FBI spied on the five, stole information from their homes in “black bag” jobs, and then arrested them in September 1998 on trumped-up charges of being part of a “Cuban spy network.” The trial took place in Miami in an atmosphere of open intimidation from right-wing opponents of the Cuban government. In a further violation of their democratic rights, the court denied the five access to “evidence” used against them that prosecutors claimed was secret. They were convicted in 2001 and handed harsh sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison.

While the wives and family of Labañino, Fernando González, and Guerrero have been allowed to visit, Washington has often delayed their visa requests for up to a year and a half. The signers urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to grant immediate visas to Salanueva and Pérez and multiple-entry visas to the other family members of the five.

Among the 170 signers of the letter are Eloi Glorieux and Kurt De Loor, members of the Flemish parliament; Marco Rizzo, Bart Staes, Eva-Britt Svensson, Glenys Kinnock, and Ignasi Guardans, members of the European parliament; Gayle McLaughlin, mayor of Richmond, California; author Alice Walker; actor Danny Glover; musician Danny Rivera; Sixto Sánchez Lorenzo, professor at the University of Granada, Spain; Puerto Rican independence activist Rafael Cáncel Miranda; and Pedro Goldfarb, a professor at Hebrew University in Israel.

On January 30 lawyers for the five petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case and overturn the convictions.

The April 6 Cuban daily Granma printed an article by María Eugenia Guerrero, the sister of Antonio Guerrero, after her visit to the maximum security prison where Antonio is being held. Below are excerpts from that article. Translation is by the Militant.
 

Since March 17 I have been in Colorado, with my nephew Tony to visit my brother at the prison in Florence. During the visits I am the one who keeps notes in my head, because we are not allowed even a piece of paper or a pencil, because of the atmosphere and tensions there. My brother looks very good, his health is good, and he has a lot of optimism and fortitude.

The max prison at Florence has a very strict regime and since last year it’s been even tougher due to serious incidents of indiscipline. According to the rules, the just pay the price for this alongside the sinners.

Tony, of course, has a record of good conduct and he keeps up his job of teaching classes in mathematics, English, and Spanish to help other prisoners who need them. He’d like to be transferred out of this prison, based on his conduct, but that does not depend on him. As you know the probabilities of this are low since this is a case where neither law nor logic applies; instead it is governed by hate and political revenge.

He also is continuing his painting projects and writing poems full of love and strength, which helps him to keep his mind occupied. He also answers, little by little, hundreds of letters from Cuba and many parts of the world that arrive every day.

In every one of our prison visits, you, our friends who have accompanied us in this more than 10-year struggle, are always present. You are the biggest hope for winning justice. We speak of the activities and actions that take place. If we did not have so many friends who offer solidarity, we would have no hope that justice would be done. In these moments when we are still waiting to see if the Supreme Court will or won’t accept reviewing the case, we need to redouble these efforts.
 

Letters urging the U.S. government to grant visas to Pérez and Salanueva can be sent to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20520 and to Secretary Janet Napolitano, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C., 20528.
 
 
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