Cuban Five
The Cuban Five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzáles, and René Gonzáles. After being arrested in Miami in September 1998, they were indicted on 26 different counts ranging from using false identification to espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. In June 2001, they were convicted of all 26 counts, and in December sentenced to varying terms in life terms for Gerardo, life for Antonio and Ramón, 19 years for Fernando, and 15 years for René.
The arrest and conviction incited an uproar from human rights groups. The five convicted men claim that they were in Miami to stop anti-Castro groups engaged in terrorist attacks which the Cuban government claims have killed over 3500 and wounded 2000 Cuban civilians since 1959. The men?s contention, that Cuba is threatened by U.S based anti-Castro groups, is questionable at best, says Holly Ackerman, Amnesty International's country specialist on Cuba.
However, defenders of the Cuban Five argue that terrorism against Cuba has been carried out by exile groups such as CORU, Alpha 66, Omega 7 and Brothers to the Rescue with apparent immunity from prosecution.
Alpha 66's slogan is "Irregular Warfare in Cuba - the only solution" and in the mid 1990s the organization held a press conference in March 1994 publicly boasted of carrying out a machine-gun attack on the Guitart Cayo Coco Hotel in Cuba. According to the Cuban government the same group attacked the hotel again on October 6, 1994 and May 20, 1995.
Rodopho Fromete, of Alpha 66 poisoned cattle and set fires in Cuba in 1981 for which he spent 10 years in a Cuban jail. U.S. officials arrested Fromete in 1994, because his Cuba-bound boat was full of guns and ammunition but released him without charges. In June of the same year he purchased anti-tank rockets and rocket launchers from an undercover FBI agent and was sentenced to 41 months in jail.
Jim Mullin, a reporter for the Miami New Times, compiled a list of 68 separate instances of bombings, attacks and vandalism in Miami alone. The attacks against Cuba itself stretch back to the 1960s and prompted the United States Senate to hold hearings on "Terrorism in the Miami Area" in 1976.
The Cuban government claims that Miami-based exile groups have carried out 700 acts of terrorism against Cuba's people over the past 40 years and that the US government has done little to stop these operations. Cuba claims they sent the Cuban Five to the United States in order to monitor the organisations that perpetrated these attacks and prevent future incidents.
The Cuban government and its sympathisers argue that the US government is either turning a blind eye to terroristic activities by Miami-based exile groups or is even encouraging violence.In either case, it is argued, Cuba can not rely on the US government to restrain these groups and therefore must attempt to intervene on its own by sending in operatives such as the Cuban Five.
In 1997 a series of bombs were planted in hotels and restaurants in Cuba in an attempt to ruin the island's tourist trade. A bomb set off in the Copacabana Hotel in Havana by five mercenaries resulted in the death of an Italian tourist. One of these mercenaries, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, confessed he was paid $3,000 by the Cuban American National Foundation for each bomb he planted. Supporters of the Cuban Five cite the CANF's alleged involvement in this action as evidence that the Cuban Five were justified in their infiltration activities.
Much of the Five's activity involved Brothers to the Rescue a group founded and led by Bay of Pigs veteran Jose Basulto. Brothers to the Rescue has sent planes into Cuban airspace obstensively to assist rafters escaping Cuba as well as drop propaganda leaflets over the country. Basulto's organisation has violated Cuban airspace twenty five times. Arnaldo Iglesias, a friend of Basulto, testified at the trial of the Five that in 1995, he and Basulto had experimented with homemade bombs made out of cartridge-filled PVC tubes and launched these devices from their aircraft over the Opa-Locka. In an inteview with the Washington Post published May 20, 1997, Basulto admitted attempting to organise the smuggling of explosives and weapons to Cuba. The Cuban Five allegedly informed the Cuban government of this activity and, in 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force killing all those onboard with the exception of Basulto.The Cuban government claims that they feared the planes might have been used to drop homemade bombs.
The U.S. arrested the Cuban Five as part of a group of alleged spies known as the "Wasp Network." One member of the five, Gerardo Hernández, was accused of infiltrating Brothers to the Rescue and sending information back to Cuba that led to the downing of the plane. The remaining four were charged with lying about their identities and sending 2,000 pages of unclassified information obtained from U.S. military bases to Cuba.
After the arrests, petitions by the defense to move the trial out of Miami were refused. They spent almost three years in jail between their arrest and the beginning of their trial. The trial went on for seven months, but jury deliberations lasted four days. And between their conviction and sentencing, new post-Sept-11th legislation was passed allowing heavier penalties for their charges, and they were sentenced under these new statutes.
Since their conviction, there has been an active campaign for the case to be appealed. The case for appeal is based on an argument that the Five's actions were justified by the "terrorist" activities of exile groups cited above.
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