Vol. 73/No. 28      July 27, 2009

Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González were arrested by FBI agents on Sept. 12, 1998. They had been gathering information on counterrevolutionary Cuban American groups that, with Washington’s complicity, operate from south Florida and have a history of violent attacks on Cuba.

The Cuban Five, as they are known, were convicted in a federal court in Miami in June 2001 on false charges that included “conspiracy to commit espionage” and failing to register as agents of a foreign government. They were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison. Hernández, who was also falsely accused of “conspiracy to commit murder,” was sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years. He is locked up in the federal penitentiary in Victorville, California.

The English translation has been checked against the original Spanish and revised by the Militant. Footnotes are by the Militant.
 

Saul Landau: Did you talk to the prosecutors?

Gerardo Hernández: No. Everything goes through our lawyers. Initially I talked with the lawyer. He raised the possibility of cooperating with the investigation, cooperating with the government. I don’t know if he was presenting the district attorney’s idea or not. I told him that if he wanted to continue being my attorney we should not discuss that question ever again. And he never talked to me about it again. Although later there were the so-called plea agreements that were offered to get us to plead guilty and cooperate. We rejected all of this. But we never had direct contact with the prosecution.

Landau: Did it ever occur to you to become a traitor to escape the nightmare you’ve described?

Hernández: Look, we’ve been in prison more than 10 years. A lot of people who know about this case say to me, “Cuba must have paid you lots of money to do this!” I always laugh and say, “If I had done what I did for money, I wouldn’t be here.” Because when you work for money, you work for the highest bidder. And Cuba could never possibly pay what this country can pay. If I had accepted their offer, I would have saved myself 10 years behind bars without seeing my wife. A lot of people don’t understand this, people brought up to think money is everything in life.

No, betraying never crossed my mind. It’s so obvious that it’s difficult for me to explain. It would mean not only betraying myself as a person, as a revolutionary, but betraying a whole country, my family. It would mean betraying all the Cubans who in the course of 100-something years of revolution, since 1868,¹ have given their lives so Cuba could be free, independent, and sovereign. I was clear from the start: what I was doing was not wrong. I’m sorry I had to break some laws, but it was for a greater good and absolutely necessary. So I have nothing to regret.

Landau: One accusation against you: conspiring to commit espionage. What evidence did the U.S. government have against you?

Hernández: None. They accuse me of supervising others who were involved in that. Take Antonio [Guerrero], for example. Antonio went to an office in Key West, where he lived, to look for a job.

A woman in the office offered him a plumber’s job at the Key West naval base. And he accepted. He didn’t seek that job. She offered it to him. We brought that worker from the employment agency to the trial. She testified that she had to insist that he take that job. Once he started working there, we informed Cuba. Cuba said, “We know that prior to a U.S. invasion of another country there may be an increase in resources being deployed at that base.” For example, “Normally at that base there might be, say, 12 planes. If one day you see 25 planes, let us know because something unusual is going on.”

It was purely a defensive measure. Cuba wanted to know about any unusual movements there. Remember, this is the base closest to Miami, where these people have so much influence.² And their dream is that the U.S. army will wipe out all revolutionaries in Cuba so they can return. So, Cuba has always had this concern.

Occasionally Antonio would say, “The situation at the base is not normal; there are this many planes, this many left, and this many returned.” That is obviously military information. But according to U.S. laws, it’s not espionage. Anyone driving along Route 1 can see how many airplanes there are. That’s public information. There are extensive legal precedents in this country that say it’s not espionage.

The prosecution said, “You’re right, that’s not espionage. It’s conspiracy to commit espionage.” Because some day Antonio would want to get clearance, would want another position with access to secret information. Throughout those years [1993-98, when Guerrero worked at the base] that never happened. But they speculate that it could have happened. So they twisted that charge and convicted him. It’s possibly the only case in the United States of someone being found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage in which no secret information was involved.

Landau: What about the idea that you knew Brothers to the Rescue would be flying on that day?³ Did you know the Cuban Air Force planned to attack them, and to attack them over international waters?

Hernández: That’s the other charge. At first, if you asked the prosecution, “What involvement did he have in making that happen?” they would say, “He sent them the flight plans.” Later it was proved that I didn’t send the flight plans. The Federal Aviation Administration sent the flight plans. But besides that, what flight plan? Basulto had given a press conference announcing they would be flying on February 24.

Even our own lawyers have mistakenly said, “When you sent them information regarding the flight.” No, none of that. There is absolutely no evidence that I sent information concerning that flight. They said that out of carelessness; and even if there were evidence, it would be irrelevant. But there was no evidence. The crazy prosecution theory is that not only did I know Cuba was going to shoot down the planes—which of course I did not know—but I knew they were going to do so over international waters. That Cuba was conspiring, not just to shoot down these planes in Cuban air space, but over international waters. That’s the most absurd idea that anyone could ever invent. But the trial was held in Miami, and no matter what I was charged with there, they were going to find me guilty.

Landau: Who in Cuba controls that kind of attack, MiG pilots or people on the ground?

Hernández: I suppose it would be Cuban anti-air defense together with the Armed Forces Ministry, which includes ground radar and the air force. My understanding is Fidel Castro, and Raúl if I remember correctly, explained in detail on Cuban television how the orders were given. I don’t have many details about that because it happened while I was here. I assume the radar system, air force, and high command worked together like a well-oiled machine.

Landau: With President Obama’s election, do you anticipate positive steps toward Cuba and your case?

Hernández: Yes. Obama, during his campaign, had the courage to say he’d be willing to talk with Cuba without preconditions. In Miami in previous times, that was practically political suicide. Anyone doing that could forget about the Cuban vote in Florida. But he said it, and I think everything U.S. politicians say is calculated. He knew the risks that were involved. He won without getting a majority of the Cuban vote. He owes them nothing. He’s an intelligent person and knows that 50 years of that erroneous policy toward Cuba has led nowhere. So I hope, and without many expectations or false illusions, he will take more reasonable, rational measures toward Cuba. This country is moving toward a more respectful relationship with Cuba, for the good of both countries.

In my case, I don’t expect anything. My position has always been: expect the worst, and if something better happens, it would be very welcome. In our situation—that of the Five—one can’t live on false hopes and illusions. I face two life sentences and I’m prepared for that. If something should change, I’d welcome it, but I can’t keep a balance sheet or get my hopes up. Psychologically, you must be prepared for what will happen, not live on dreams.

Landau: How do you survive each day?

Hernández: I spend most of the day reading and writing. I have an enormous and pleasant tragedy regarding correspondence. Some days I get 60, 80 letters. The record is 119. You can imagine how difficult it is not just to read them, but to answer all those letters. The days pass by incredibly fast. That helps to keep my mind distracted. I try to read everything that is published about Cuba, to keep myself current on my area of expertise, international relations. Sometimes people here ask me, “How can you read all the time?” I enjoy it. Unfortunately, I cannot answer all the letters. Some people even get annoyed. But it’s impossible because there are so many letters and not enough time.

Landau: Do you have a message for Washington?

Hernández: If I could, I’d say, “All we are guilty of is doing the same thing that some American patriots are doing right now, those in the mountains of Tora Bora searching for information about Al Qaeda, so that the acts committed on 9/11 are not repeated.”

I’m sure those people are seen here as patriots. That’s exactly what we were doing here: collecting information in Florida to prevent terrorist acts in Cuba. Terrorism against Cuba is not an abstraction. Those who have died because of those acts have first and last names, acts planned with impunity here on U.S. soil. Our only crime was to do the same thing being done today by young Americans who will receive medals for it. So it’s totally contradictory: a country waging a war against terrorism harbors terrorists and protects those who put bombs on planes that killed dozens of people—and who boast of doing so.⁴

I’d also like the United States to understand that Cuba is a free and sovereign country. It has the right to choose its own path, to build its own destiny, its own system. Like it or not, we Cubans are the ones to decide what we will fix, what we will change, what to do differently, and how we want to build our society. If we had the necessary peace to build our social system the way we have always dreamt, things would be different today. We would have advanced much more. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the peace to be able to do that.

I hope the day will come when the United States will understand that this small island, 90 miles away, has the right to choose its own destiny. I think that day will come. And the day will come when the American and Cuban peoples will feel much more closely tied together, based on mutual respect.

2. A reference to rightist Cuban American groups in Miami.

3. On Feb. 4, 1996, Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces shot down two planes flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a U.S.-based counterrevolutionary group, after they provocatively entered Cuban airspace. The group, headed by José Basulto, had repeatedly violated Cuban airspace over the previous two years and ignored warnings to cease their hostile actions. The U.S. government charged Hernández with conspiracy to commit murder, claiming he bore responsibility for the Cuban government’s action in shooting down the planes.

4. A reference to Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, and others. Posada Carriles was convicted by a Venezuelan court in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados that killed all 73 people aboard. Bosch was also implicated in the attack. In a 1998 New York Times interview, Posada Carriles bragged of his involvement in a series of bombings of Havana hotels in 1997, including one that killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo. He later retracted his account, claiming his understanding of English was not good. Today both Posada Carriles and Bosch walk freely in the streets of Miami.