Yesterday, Contrainjerencia brought footage of the three remaining members of the Cuban Five coming home. You want to talk joyful reunions now, or would you rather just group-hug first? Awwwwww…
On Wednesday, the president of Cuba, Raúl Castro, received the three Cubans newly freed by the United States, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino, at Havana International Airport, as seen on local TV.
The leader appeared very happy, embracing the three agents several times, and he told them: “Proud of you for the resistance you showed, for your valor and the example that represents for everyone.”
Castro had informed at mid-day of the liberation of the agents, and of US contractor Alan Gross, imprisoned on the island since 2009, and of a US spy of Cuban descent, whose name was not revealed, in the same TV broadcast in which he announced the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States, after half a century of confrontations.
“General, we’re still emotional, we can’t get the words out, but above all, thank you,” said agent Gerardo Hernández, a graduate in International Relations who had been sentenced to two life sentences plus fifteen years in prison.
Especially emotional was the embrace between Hernández and his wife Adriana Pérez, who could not visit him in the US because Washington never granted her a visa.
For his part, Antonio Guerrero, who had been sentenced to 22 years in prison and five years’ probation, said: “Tell the Commander-in-Chief [Fidel Castro] that we’re here to go on doing what needs to be done.”
Recall that Guerrero, Hernández and Labañino were part of the group of five Cubans who were arrested in 1998 and sentenced in 2001 by a court in Miami, the last bastion of anti-Castro sentiment.
Cuba recognized them as agents, but specified that they were not spying on the United States, but on anti-Castro groups who were plotting terrorist attacks against the island, and the Cuban parliament declared the Five to be “Heroes of the Republic of Cuba”.
Translation mine.
What can I say but that it’s lovely that they’re finally all home, together again with family and friends? And that more than a decade and a half of injustice has finally been put right. There was never the slightest shred of evidence that the Five were spying on the US government or its military. The only way one could come to such a harebrained conclusion is if one accepts the notion that the batshit-loopy anti-Castro ex-Cubans of Miami as undeclared legislators, or US military/espionage agents — a conclusion the US authorities have strenuously denied even while taking advantage of their fanaticism for Washington’s ends.
Certainly the CIA’s role in the formation and training of everyone of those groups is no secret, though there have been all sorts of inept attempts to cover it up. The US military’s ties to the groups are likewise evident if one looks hard enough; where else would they get such distinctly non-civilian weaponry as bazookas?
But since the US government doesn’t want to admit that these ugly terrorist groups are their boys, well…they can’t have it both ways, eh? And in fact, the FBI was watching the terrorists, too, and even receiving information from various Cuban agents — loyal to Castro! — who had infiltrated the terror groups. The fact that they then turned on their helpful informants and put them in prison for over a decade is shameful, and it reflects badly on the Bureau, which has apparently changed little since J. Edgar Hoover’s day.
Was the FBI taking orders from someplace else? I don’t know, but I have my suspicions. It’s either that, or they completely bungled their job. Either way, it looks bad on them.
And either way, it’s good that now, the Cuban Five are free, reunited…and HOME.
And if Tony Guerrero’s words are any indication, they’re ready to get back to work at what needs doing — and there is sure to be plenty of that. You really can’t keep a good man down.
Especially not if he’s Cuban.
