South and East Belfast Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

10th anniversary- Free the Cuba 5

Published: 18 September, 2008

The month of September marks the 10th anniversary of the arrests of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González. These five Cuban citizens were living in Miami, Florida to investigate the activities of anti Cuban organizations such as Comandos F4 and Brothers to the Rescue. They were illegally arrested on September 12th 1998 and charged with the use of fake ids, espionage and conspiracy to commit murder.

They were held in solidarity confinement for some time before their trial began in November 2000. The following year Gerardo Hernández was sentenced to two life sentences plus fifteen years; Ramón Labañino to a life sentence plus eighteen years; Antonio Guerrero to life plus ten years; Fernando González to nineteen years and René González to fifteen years. Both René and Gerardo's wives are denied entry to America and haven't seen their husbands in eight and ten years.

To mark the 10th anniversary of their arrests a petition of 102,000 signatures from 78 countries was to be handed into the White House. However, during this civil disobedience action five people were arrested.

The petition had three demands; to free the Cuban Five immediately, grant entry visas to Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva, (René and Gerardo's wives) and to extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Posada is a former CIA member personally responsible for the deaths of seventy three passengers on a flight from Barbados to Cuba in 1976. Passengers included the national Cuban Fencing team who had just competed in the Central American and Caribbean Championship and Cuban government officials. In 1997 he planted a bomb in Havana which killed one person and injured a number of people. Posada now lives freely in America despite an extradition order from Venezuela

Back to top

-->