Who are the Cuban Five?

They are five Cuban men who are in US prison for simply 
defending their country of Cuba from terrorist acts by extremist 
rightwing groups in Miami. They were sentenced from 15 years to 
two life sentences.

They never harmed anyone, yet they are in prison while the anti 
Cuba extremists whom they tried to stop are walking freely in 
Miami. How did the five Cubans try to stop them? By monitoring 
the terrorists' actions and informing Cuba of impending attacks 
by those extremist groups.

The five Cubans are Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramsn 
Labaqino, Reni Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez. They were taken 
into custody by US authorities on September 1, 1998. They were 
convicted in US federal court on June 8, 2001 in a politically 
charged trial: the US Government claimed they were engaged in 
espionage on US military bases and threatened "national 
security"! The espionage charge — and related charges — are a 
complete fabrication. In 14,000 pages of transcript, no espionage 
evidence was ever introduced.

The five Cubans were strictly involved in monitoring the actions 
of terrorist rightwing groups in Miami. These groups — such as 
Omega 7, Alpha 66, Brothers to the Rescue, Brigada 2506, and 
Comandos F4 — have caused the deaths and injury of hundreds of 
people in Cuba and other countries. Some of their leaders were 
directly implicated in conspiring to try to prevent Elian 
Gonzalez from returning home to his father in Cuba.

For more than 40 years, antiCuban rightwing groups in Miami have 
engaged in countless terrorist activities against Cuba, against 
Cuban Americans and anyone who calls for a normalisation of 
relations between Cuba and the US. Those organisations were 
established with the financing, training and backing of the CIA 
in the early 1960s. Their sole aim was to sow terror and violence 
against the people of Cuba, after they had successfully ousted 
hated dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and began to build a new 
society.

For example, notorious anti Cuba terrorists Orlando Bosch and 
Luis Posada Carriles conspired in the planting of two bombs on a 
Cubana Airlines plane on October 6, 1976. In the horrific 
explosion that occurred mid-flight from Barbados to Cuba, 73 
innocent people died.

Orlando Bosch and Lums Posada Carriles are long-time CIA agents 
trained in assassination and sabotage. After a few years in 
prison, Bosch was allowed to re-enter the US in the 1980s. When 
the Justice Department moved to deport him in 1989 for a series 
of violent actions, then President George HW Bush pardoned him. 
Today, Bosch lives in Miami freely, although he is responsible 
for the deaths of over 80 people.

Because of the repeated failure — and indeed refusal — of the 
US Government to act against known criminals whose sole aim is to 
bring death and destruction to the Cuban people, Cuba found it 
necessary for its self-defence to send in these five brothers to 
prevent future attacks by monitoring the groups' actions.

Gerardo, Reni, Antonio, Fernando and Ramsn are innocent and 
should be free. Their actions required a great deal of sacrifice 
and personal risk to infiltrate such organisations. They are 
heroes, not criminals!