Vol. 74/No. 35      September 20, 2010

The exhibit, titled “From My Altitude,” features 28 works by Guerrero, who learned to paint and draw from fellow inmates at the maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, where he has been held for most of the 12 years he and the other four Cubans have been kept behind bars.

Guerrero’s work includes pencil drawings as well as paintings employing oil, pastels, watercolor, acrylic, and airbrush techniques.

His subjects range from Havana’s harbor to a view of the Rocky Mountains from the Florence prison, nudes, cats, birds, and portraits, including of Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, his mother Mirta Rodríguez, and other relatives of the Cuban Five. One striking work portrays his beige prison outfit, with name and prisoner number, hanging from a wall. At the bottom Guerrero wrote in Spanish, “One day my prison shirt will be left hanging there.”

The September 3 inaugural event was moderated by Nancy Cabrero, president of Casa de las Américas, a Cuban American organization here that supports the Cuban Revolution. Manuel Morán, president of the executive board of the Clemente Soto Vélez Center, spoke and introduced from the audience actor-director Nelson Landrieu, cofounder of the center.

Also speaking were New York City Council member Rosie Méndez, human rights lawyer Michael Warren, and Pedro Núñez Mosquera, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations. Celebrated actor Harry Belafonte, a longtime supporter of the campaign to free the Cuban Five, was also introduced.

Warren explained that on Sept. 12, 1998, FBI agents arrested “our five brothers”—Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González. They were convicted on trumped-up charges including “conspiracy to commit espionage” and, in the case of Hernández, “conspiracy to commit murder,” receiving long sentences.

Warren noted that in reality, the five had been monitoring the activities of right-wing Cuban exiles who launch armed attacks on Cuba with Washington’s knowledge and complicity.

The frame-up methods used against the five show that “we can expect no justice from the courts of this country,” Warren said. Nonetheless, thanks to pressure created by the international campaign for their freedom, he added, three of the five won reductions in their sentences in the past year, including Guerrero.

Warren asked those present to call on the Obama administration to grant visas to Adriana Pérez and Olga Salanueva in order to visit their husbands, Hernández and René González respectively.

A number of those attending the event had heard about it through the cultural center and were learning about the Cuban Five for the first time. Dozens signed up for more information and picked up literature about the case.

The exhibit is open at the Clemente Soto Vélez Center Mondays through Fridays from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Other hours can be arranged by appointment.
 
 
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