licks2
09-01-06, - 05:58 PM
Now that a group of Bahamians (headed by Bumpy Watkins) has taken up the "fringe-group" call for release of the five Castro Security Agents "plants" that were complicite in 26 offences in America...incuding involvement of the BROTHERS TO THE RESCUE "SHOOT DOWN...all the way to passing US government secrets....I think that its time that BI get a snap at dicussing the issue! HELL....we better get used to how Castro does business...because believe you me...they have spies here too!
HERE IS THE STORY (wikipedia):
The Cuban Five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzáles, and René Gonzáles. After being arrested in Miami, Florida in September 1998, they were indicted by the U.S. government 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 by a U.S. federal court in Miami and in December sentenced to varying terms in maximum-security prison: two consecutive life terms for Hernández, life for Guerrero and Labañino, 19 years for Fernando Gonzáles, and 15 years for René Gonzáles.
The arrest and conviction incited an uproar from the Cuban government and sympathetic groups, and an international campaign to free the five took form. The five convicted men say that they were in Miami to monitor anti-Castro Cuban exile groups operating out of that city, which they claim were engaging in "terrorist" activities against Cuba. In a 2001 report by Cuba's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the Cuban government catalogued 3,478 deaths as a result of "terrorism", "aggression", "acts of piracy and other actions". The events cited span the course of four decades and pertain to attacks such as plane bombings as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the long civil war between the government and anti-communist rebels in the Escambray Mountains.
Amnesty International has declared, in a 2006 open letter to the U.S. State Department, that they are following closely the status of the ongoing appeals of the five men of numerous issues challenging the fairness of the trial which have not yet been addressed by the appeal courts.
Defenders of the Cuban Five claim that terrorism against Cuba has been carried out by exile groups such as CORU, Alpha 66, Omega 7 and Brothers to the Rescue, with impunity. The Founder of Brothers to the Rescue, José Basulto, was in the early 1960's involved in subversion and sabotage activities in Cuba, including an attack in which a hotel, which Basulto claimed to be "full of Russians", was shelled. Brothers to the Rescue, formed decades later, sent planes into Cuban airspace to assist rafters emigrating Cuba as well as drop political leaflets over the country. In the course of this, Basulto's organization made many unauthorized flights into Cuban airspace and was threatened with being shot down upon further incursions. In 1996 two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force killing all four people onboard. Basulto, who was flying another plane, survived this incident.
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 Hernandez, infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and sent information back to Cuba that led to the downing of the plane. The remaining four lied about their identities and sent 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, although the jury consisted no Cuban-Americans. 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.
On August 9, 2005, a three-judge appellate panel of the 11th circuit court of appeals in Atlanta overturned the convictions and sentences of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial saying that the Cuban exile community in Miami and the trial publicity made the trial unfavorable and prejudicial to the defendants. In November 2005 this ruling for a new trial was reversed by the full panel of 11th circuit court. As of now the original convictions are reinstated. A rehearing is pending in the 11th United States circuit court of appeals.
Paintings of the five are proudly displayed throughout Cuba, and there are state sponsored posters explaining the Cuban position hanging in most resorts.
Since their conviction, there has been an international campaign for the case to be appealed, with support groups in twenty-seven countries. In the United States, the campaign is most conspicuously represented by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, which is represented in fourteen cities. Many other American groups, such as the Socialist Workers Party has been known to campaign for the release of the Cuban Five.
Holly Ackerman, professor of Latin American studies at Tulane University, argues that Cuba's contention that it is threatened by US-based "terrorists" is questionable at best. Amnesty International criticizes the US treatment of the Cuban Five as human rights violations, as the wives of René Gonzáles and Gerardo Hernández have not been allowed visas to visit their imprisoned husbands.
Eight international Nobel Prize winners have written and sent a document to the U.S. Attorney General calling for freedom for the Cuban Five, signed by Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000), Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize, 1984), Nadine Gordimer (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1991), Rigoberta Menchú (Nobel Peace Prize, 1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Nobel Peace Prize, 1980), Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986), José Saramago (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1996), Günter Grass (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999).
In Britain, among other actions, six MPs wrote a letter to Tony Blair calling on the government to apply pressure on the US to act against terrorists in Florida and to immediately release the Five.
There you have it....the saga of the Cuban five...WHAT-SAY-YOU?
SHOULD WE SUPPORT "BUMMPY" AND THE BAHAMAS COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE?:dgi:
HERE IS THE STORY (wikipedia):
The Cuban Five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzáles, and René Gonzáles. After being arrested in Miami, Florida in September 1998, they were indicted by the U.S. government 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 by a U.S. federal court in Miami and in December sentenced to varying terms in maximum-security prison: two consecutive life terms for Hernández, life for Guerrero and Labañino, 19 years for Fernando Gonzáles, and 15 years for René Gonzáles.
The arrest and conviction incited an uproar from the Cuban government and sympathetic groups, and an international campaign to free the five took form. The five convicted men say that they were in Miami to monitor anti-Castro Cuban exile groups operating out of that city, which they claim were engaging in "terrorist" activities against Cuba. In a 2001 report by Cuba's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the Cuban government catalogued 3,478 deaths as a result of "terrorism", "aggression", "acts of piracy and other actions". The events cited span the course of four decades and pertain to attacks such as plane bombings as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the long civil war between the government and anti-communist rebels in the Escambray Mountains.
Amnesty International has declared, in a 2006 open letter to the U.S. State Department, that they are following closely the status of the ongoing appeals of the five men of numerous issues challenging the fairness of the trial which have not yet been addressed by the appeal courts.
Defenders of the Cuban Five claim that terrorism against Cuba has been carried out by exile groups such as CORU, Alpha 66, Omega 7 and Brothers to the Rescue, with impunity. The Founder of Brothers to the Rescue, José Basulto, was in the early 1960's involved in subversion and sabotage activities in Cuba, including an attack in which a hotel, which Basulto claimed to be "full of Russians", was shelled. Brothers to the Rescue, formed decades later, sent planes into Cuban airspace to assist rafters emigrating Cuba as well as drop political leaflets over the country. In the course of this, Basulto's organization made many unauthorized flights into Cuban airspace and was threatened with being shot down upon further incursions. In 1996 two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force killing all four people onboard. Basulto, who was flying another plane, survived this incident.
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 Hernandez, infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and sent information back to Cuba that led to the downing of the plane. The remaining four lied about their identities and sent 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, although the jury consisted no Cuban-Americans. 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.
On August 9, 2005, a three-judge appellate panel of the 11th circuit court of appeals in Atlanta overturned the convictions and sentences of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial saying that the Cuban exile community in Miami and the trial publicity made the trial unfavorable and prejudicial to the defendants. In November 2005 this ruling for a new trial was reversed by the full panel of 11th circuit court. As of now the original convictions are reinstated. A rehearing is pending in the 11th United States circuit court of appeals.
Paintings of the five are proudly displayed throughout Cuba, and there are state sponsored posters explaining the Cuban position hanging in most resorts.
Since their conviction, there has been an international campaign for the case to be appealed, with support groups in twenty-seven countries. In the United States, the campaign is most conspicuously represented by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, which is represented in fourteen cities. Many other American groups, such as the Socialist Workers Party has been known to campaign for the release of the Cuban Five.
Holly Ackerman, professor of Latin American studies at Tulane University, argues that Cuba's contention that it is threatened by US-based "terrorists" is questionable at best. Amnesty International criticizes the US treatment of the Cuban Five as human rights violations, as the wives of René Gonzáles and Gerardo Hernández have not been allowed visas to visit their imprisoned husbands.
Eight international Nobel Prize winners have written and sent a document to the U.S. Attorney General calling for freedom for the Cuban Five, signed by Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000), Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize, 1984), Nadine Gordimer (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1991), Rigoberta Menchú (Nobel Peace Prize, 1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Nobel Peace Prize, 1980), Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986), José Saramago (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1996), Günter Grass (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999).
In Britain, among other actions, six MPs wrote a letter to Tony Blair calling on the government to apply pressure on the US to act against terrorists in Florida and to immediately release the Five.
There you have it....the saga of the Cuban five...WHAT-SAY-YOU?
SHOULD WE SUPPORT "BUMMPY" AND THE BAHAMAS COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE?:dgi: