The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 67/No. 42           December 1, 2003  
 
 
U.S. State Dep’t denies visas to wives of two
of the Cuban Five, for fourth time
 
BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS  
As we go to press, the Militant has learned that once again the U.S. government has refused to grant visas to Olga Salanueva, the wife of René González, and Adriana Pérez, the wife of Gerardo Hernández, to allow them to come to the United States from Cuba to visit their husbands imprisoned in this country. This is the fourth time their visa request has been denied.

According to the November 18 online edition of the Cuban daily Granma, Salanueva and Pérez submitted visa applications to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana June 20. “More than four months after submitting these visa requests,” said a Cuban foreign ministry statement posted on Granma’s web site, “authorities at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, informed us officially that both visas have been denied again.”

According to this statement, Washington claimed that Salanueva and Pérez were a threat to “national security.”

“With this new reprisal, the U.S. government is trying to break the revolutionary spirit of our imprisoned comrades and their spouses, imposing additional punishment that lacks any justification,” the statement said. “Cuba’s foreign ministry demands that U.S. authorities reconsider this arbitrary denial and, in accordance with international obligations and their own laws, allow Olga Salanueva Arango, her little daughter Ivette, and Adriana Pérez Oconor to exercise their inalienable right to visit their husbands and father unjustly jailed in U.S. prisons,” it concluded.

González and Hernández are two of five Cuban revolutionaries framed up by the FBI and incarcerated since their arrests in 1998. The five men—Fernando González, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, and Ramón Labańino—are serving draconian sentences after being convicted in June 2001 of frame-up charges brought by the U.S. government. The Cuban Five, as they are known, had been carrying out an internationalist mission to gather information on ultrarightist organizations with a record of violent attacks on Cuba carried out from U.S. soil with Washington’s complicity. They were arrested by FBI agents five years ago and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and conspiracy to act as unregistered foreign agents. Hernández was also charged with conspiracy to commit murder. After their convictions, they were given sentences ranging from 15 years to a double life term, and sent to five federal prisons in different regions of the country.

On February 28 the five men were thrown into solitary confinement under an order by the Justice Department charging that the extensive solidarity they had received in the form of correspondence and the few visitors they were allowed made them a “national security risk.” An international campaign of protests was launched against this unsuccessful attempt by Washington to break them. They were released from the “hole” a month later. They are now in the process of appealing their convictions and sentences.

The National Committee to Free the Five (www.freethefive.org), a San Francisco-based group coordinating the campaign in the United States to demand their release, launched an appeal in June, when Washington denied visas to Salanueva and Pérez for the third time, asking for protest letters to U.S. authorities demanding they grant visas to the families of René González and Gerardo Hernández. Such protest messages can once again be directed to Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2201 C St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20520, tel: (202) 647-4000, fax: (202) 261-8577; Homeland Security Director Thomas Ridge, Washington, D.C. 20528; and Attorney General John Ashcroft, 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20530-0001, tel: (202) 353-1555, e-mail: askdoj@usdoj.gov
 
 
Related article:
Visas for relatives of Cuban Five  
 
 
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