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Vol. 75/No. 31      September 5, 2011

 
Event in LA wins new
support for Cuban Five
 
BY JAMES HARRIS  
LOS ANGELES—“The struggle for the freedom of the Cuban Five should be part of the struggle of U.S. workers, because it is part of the same fight,” said Mike Garcia as he welcomed more than 150 trade unionists and political activists to an August 13 solidarity event here. Garcia is president of Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West in Los Angeles, which opened up its hall to an evening of political discussion, art, and music in support of the Cuban Five.

Speakers at the meeting included Tony Woodley, former president of Unite, the largest union in England; Cristina Vazquez, regional director of Workers United; and Alicia Jrapko from the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five.

Many of those at the meeting were hearing about the case for the first time.

Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, René González, and Fernando González are Cuban revolutionaries who were arrested in September 1998 in Miami. They were convicted on frame-up charges ranging from “conspiracy to act as unregistered foreign agents” and “conspiracy to commit espionage,” to “conspiracy to commit murder” in the case of Hernández. They were given harsh sentences and remain in prison. (See story below on Hernández’s fight for a new evidentiary hearing.)

The five were in the United States to gather information on right-wing Cuban exile groups in Florida with a history of carrying out violent attacks on the Cuban Revolution, with the complicity of the U.S. government.

The event here was organized as part of a traveling exhibit of Hernández’s cartoons, titled Humor from My Pen. There was also a video of actor Danny Glover, a prominent supporter of the five; a video of the campaign of the British unions in support of the five; and entertainment.

“Every day we fight against injustice and one of our biggest struggles has been for the reunification of families and immigration reform,” said Vazquez. The fight of the Cuban Five “is no different from that,” she added. “We need to be the voice of the families of the Cuban Five. We need to be the voice here for the people of Cuba who want their heroes back.”

“Make no mistake about it, this is an historical event,” Woodley said. “The Cuban Five enjoy a great deal of support on the international level but that is not the case inside the United States. The solidarity is absolutely crucial in this case and the political struggle will be decisive for the return of the five to Cuba.”

Aura Canti, one of several workers involved in a fight to win union representation for janitors at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, came to the meeting. She told the Militant, “I knew nothing of this case before the meeting but now I am going to learn more about it. I am also going to be a part of this fight.”

This was the latest in a series of events in southern California that shows the potential to win much wider support for the freedom of the five. In June an exhibit of Hernández’s cartoons at the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice drew 75 people to the opening. In July, 275 people turned out in Santa Monica for a showing of the documentary Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?
 
 
Related articles:
Cuban court upholds term for US agent
Cuban Five prisoner files for new hearing  
 
 
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