Declaration on the Cuban Five of the South African Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer

Declaration on the Cuban Five of the South African Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer

Declaration
Yesterday, Tuesday February 16, I met with relatives of the five Cuban political prisoners held in US jails for over 11 years. I have had firsthand experience of the drama these families are suffering. I was given the following information as confirmation of what I already had obtained.
On June 16th and 17th, 1998, the Cuban government invited two important FBI officials to hand them documents with evidences on dangerous activities done by several persons residing in Florida and seriously implicated in terrorist actions against Cuba. Up until now, none of them have been questioned by US authorities despite the evidence placed in the hands of the FBI.
Three months later, on September 12th, 1998, the FBI arrested five Cubans: Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González. Crime committed? That of infiltrating, at the risk of their own lives, the Cuban exile groups responsible for numerous violent actions which have put an end to the lives of many innocent people. Since 1959, terrorist actions against the Cuban people have resulted in 3,478 dead and have left 2,099 people permanently disabled.
After a legal process, presenting several legal violations, the five Cubans were sentenced, collectively, to four life sentences plus 77 years, for fighting terrorism. For over 11 years now, they have been imprisoned in 5 different maximum security prisons.
These five Cubans have been the victims of cruel and inhumane treatment. From day one of their arrests until February 3rd, 2000, i.e. for over 17 months, they have been in solitary confinement, with no contact with other prisoners or even guards.
On May 27th, 2005, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention denounced the “arbitrary” detention of the Cuban five, stating that it was a violation of international norms and demanded a new trial.
On August 9th 2005, three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, with 80 years of accumulated experience, unanimously decided to declare the original verdict null and requested a new trial.
On September 28th, 2005, the US government asked the full Court of Appeals, made up by twelve judges, to reconsider the decision of August 8th, 2005, a very uncommon action, according to US legal experts.
On August 9th, 2006, after strong political pressures, the Atlanta Court of Appeals reversed the decision by the three judges and sent the case once again to a panel.
On August 20th, 2007, the defense launched a new appeal process. In 2008, a panel formed by three judges from the Atlanta Court of Appeals ratified the guilty verdict for the five Cubans, confirming the sentences imposed against Gerardo and Rene and annulled the sentences for Ramon, Antonio and Fernando because they were considered incorrect, thus sending the cases of these three Cubans to the Miami District Court for re-sentencing.
On that occasion the Appeals Court in full acknowledged there was no evidence whatsoever on the obtainment or transmission of secret information or of a national defense nature.
In 2009, the US Supreme Court, based on a request by the Obama Administration, rejected the possibility of revising the case.
The statements made by the relatives of the five Cubans give proof of the psychological and moral torture they have been suffering in the hands of US legal authorities. Olga Salanueva, wife of René González, as well as Adriana Pérez, wife of Gerardo Hernández, have not been yet authorized to visit their love ones. On June 25th, 2002, Adriana Pérez was finally granted a US visa to visit her husband in Los Angeles. But upon her arrival in the United States, she was detained by the FBI, interrogated for 11 hours and then expelled to Cuba without seeing Gerardo. Adriana has not been able to see Gerardo for over 11 years and Olga has not seen Rene for over 10 years. Such a cruel act is unacceptable.
Now, after meeting the relatives of the five Cubans I have been able to assess the dignity and staunchness of the mothers and wives who have suffered, with striking strength of character this inhumane abuse for over a decade now.
I would like to add my voice to the petition for justice for these five innocent Cubans. I request President Obama for their immediate release. I appeal to citizens from all over the world: it is time to put an end to the torment these five Cubans and their relatives are suffering.
Nadine Gordiner
Havana, February 17th, 2010.

WE DEMAND HUMANITARIAN VISAS FOR OLGA AND ADRIANA
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
Argentinean personalities have sent a letter to Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano demanding visas for two Cuban women so they can visit their husbands imprisoned in the United States for more than 11 years.
The letter, delivered early in the morning of February 16th to the US Embassy in Buenos Aires has the signatures of Nobel Peace recepient Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Estela de Carlotto President of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Nora Cortiñas Mother of Plaza de Mayo - Founder Line, writer and journalist Stella Calloni, Graciela Rosemblum President of the Human Rights Argentinean League, jurists Beinusz Szmukler and Carlos Zamorano, Fray Antonio Puigjané, Capuchino Priest, Sociologist Atilio Borón and Philosopher León Rozichtner. All signers are Argentinean members of the International Commission for the Right of Family Visits.
A copy of this document has been sent to several international human rights organizations.
Please respond to: Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre
Av. Corrientes 1785, 2º “C”- Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, c/p 1042 República Argentina E.mail: ladh@velocom.com.ar
- http://www.antiterroristas.cu/index.php?tpl=./interface.en/design/reading/special-article.tpl.html&aNews_lang=en&aNews_obj_id=1002299,



Nobel Prize Winner Nadine Gordimer Demands End of US Blockade of Cuba
(acn) South African writer Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, has asked the United States Government to end its financial, commercial and trade blockade against Cuba.
Speaking to the Cuban culture digital magazine La Jiribilla, the intellectual also asked for the lifting of all types of sanctions against the Island, such as its inclusion on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
This South African writer, considered one of the most important representatives of contemporary South African literature, has also demanded on several occasions the release of five Cuban antiterrorists who remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States.
Born in 1923, in Springs, a mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa, she was a strong opponent of her country’s former Apartheid regime, a stance that she upheld in many of her writings.

Nobel sudafricana pide a Obama liberación de cinco cubanos presos en EEUU
(AFP) — La escritora sudafricana Nadine Gordimer pidió el miércoles al presidente Barack Obama la "inmediata liberación" de cinco cubanos presos en Estados Unidos acusados de espionaje.
"Pido al Gobierno del presidente Obama su inmediata liberación", dijo Gordimer, Premio Nobel de Literatura 1991, en una declaración escrita leída ante la prensa en La Habana, donde asiste como invitada especial de la Feria Internacional del Libro.
Gordimer, próxima a cumplir 87 años, señaló que cuando llegue a Sudáfrica escribirá "esa carta dirigida a Obama", iniciativa para la cual buscará apoyo entre amigos intelectuales y políticos.
"Lanzo también un llamado a los ciudadanos del mundo entero, ya es hora de poner fin a los tormentos de los cinco cubanos y sus familiares", añadió la escritora, que el martes se reunió en La Habana con los familiares de Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, René González y Ramón Labañino.
Los cinco fueron detenidos en Estados Unidos hace 11 años y condenados a largas penas de prisión --incluida la cadena perpetua-- bajo cargo de espionaje. Cuba reconoce que eran sus agentes, pero señala que buscaban evitar acciones terroristas de organizaciones anticastristas de Miami, por lo que los considera "héroes".
A una consulta de la prensa, Gordimer dijo que no ha recibido una carta en la que una treintena de esposas, hermanas y madres de presos políticos, le piden interceder ante el gobierno de Raúl Castro por la liberación de sus parientes, y que dijeron haber entregado en la embajada de Sudáfrica en La Habana.
"No la he recibido, no sé si esa carta me va a llegar antes de que yo me vaya", manifestó Gordimer, quien presentó en La Habana su libro "Un capricho de la naturaleza".
Según la oposición, en Cuba hay actualmente 200 presos políticos, pero las autoridades niegan esa categoría y los acusa de "mercenarios" de Estados Unidos que intentaron atentar contra la seguridad del Estado.


Cuba Sends New Medical Team to Haiti
Fifty Bolivian doctors who graduated from the Havana-based Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) arrived in Haiti on Monday to join the Cuban healthcare professionals who are assisting victims of the January 12 earthquake that wreaked havoc in this nation.
The Bolivian doctors are also part of the Henry Reeve Cuban emergency medical brigade, a contingent of Cuban and Cuban-trained doctors specializing in disaster situations and epidemics.
Along with several ELAM students, the Henry Reeve medical brigade has been working day and night following the catastrophe to save as many lives as possible.
Cuba and the ALBA member nations continue to work on restructuring the Haitian healthcare system, while Cuban health professionals have implemented an aggressive prevention campaign against epidemics and a series of follow-up care such as physiotherapy and rehabilitation.
The new team of Bolivian doctors have been sent to work primarily in community care centers, field hospitals and other medical facilities in Croix des Bouquet, Leoganne, Arcahaie and Grand Goave.
So far, Cuban collaborators from the Henry Reeve medical brigade —residents, medical graduates, Haitian medical students and a group of American doctors graduated from ELAM— are serving in at least 20 community healthcare centers operating in Port au
Prince and the surrounding areas.
Bolivian doctor Wilson Vega Varado, who graduated from ELAM in 2009 and is a member of the new relief team, is firm in his belief of the historical and humanitarian importance of helping the Haitian people overcome this catastrophe.

Spanish Foreign Minister Urges European Union to Improve Relations with Cuba
(acn) Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said on Monday in Madrid that the European Union’s policy toward Cuba is “hardly satisfactory” and urged this regional organization to open a debate that aims at improving relations with the Caribbean island.
Moratinos said he was confident that all the EU member countries would back an initiative to replace the so-called common position on Cuba - put into effect in 1996 at the insistence of then-Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar – with a bilateral agreement.
The Spanish diplomat explained that his country will introduce this proposal next June when the EU will analyze its policy toward Havana. He made it clear that Spain would not present the initiative as the temporary chair of the organization but as a member country.
He also noted that this position of the Spanish Government is shared by the European Commission and other nations of the bloc.


Cuba Migration Talks
Office of the Spokesman
US Department of State
Washington, DC
February 17, 2010
On Friday, U.S. and Cuban representatives will meet in Havana to discuss implementation of the U.S.-Cuba Migration Accords. The discussions will focus on how best to promote safe, legal, and orderly migration between Cuba and the United States. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Craig Kelly will lead the U.S. delegation, which includes representatives of the agencies involved in managing migration issues.