By Danny Glover and Saul Landau
(Progreso Weekly)
2:30 PM – Departure time, the most excruciating part of visiting Gerardo Hernandez. A prison guard announced: “Visiting hours are over.” Gerardo lined up against the wall with the other inmates. We stood with wives, children and mothers. Finally, the electronically controlled, heavy metal door opened. Gerardo held up a triumphant fist. We did the same. He stayed in Hell (13 years now). We left.
We drove from the Victorville Penitentiary to the Ontario California airport, discussing the absurdity of five Cubans (one on precarious parole) who helped the United States fight terrorism but remain locked in federal penitentiaries while Luis Posada Carriles, who orchestrated the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger plane (73 died), dines in Miami’s finest restaurants? In between visits to his proctologist Posada and fellow geezers continue plotting anti-Cuba violence.
Miami Federal Court judges will decide on Gerardo’s appeal, which presents new facts and evidence: Gerardo’s trial lawyer now admits he inadequately represented him; new documents show payment by the U.S. government to Miami-based “journalists” who offered negative stories about the accused Cubans, thus tainting the trial atmosphere. Finally, the U.S. government has still refused to deliver its “secret” map showing the exact point where on February 24, 1996, Cuban MIGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes. The Cubans claim the incidents occurred over Cuban airspace, i.e., no crime took place. Washington insisted the planes got hit in international air space, but the NSA said they could not release their crucial diagram: “national security.” Gerardo played no part in the drama – no matter where the shoot down occurred.
We agreed U.S. Cuba policy bordered on the absurd. For example, the State Department placed Cuba on its terrorist list although the U.S. has made Cuba a victim of terrorist attacks; Cuba has not reciprocated. But Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued: “The United States should not negotiate with a state sponsor of terrorism.”
This related to her objection to any U.S. humanitarian approach to get Alan Gross released. Convicted in Cuba for activities related to a USAID regime change policy, Gross must either serve his fifteen year sentence or wait until the U.S. military “liberates” the island. Ros-Lehtinen called on people to assassinate Fidel Castro (see Landau’s WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP).
This rhetoric hardly serves Gross’ interests. Thanks to Ileana he might stay in prison until age 75. He misses his family, as do the Cubans in U.S. prisons. Like Alan, they also have close relatives with serious illnesses. When my mother died in 2009, “I wasn’t in Cuba to bury her.”
Gerardo told us he and Adriana, now 42, want children. So does another member of the five, Fernando Gonzalez and his wife. The U.S. denies visas to their wives. Time is running out. Gerardo’s face showed a flash of anguish.
The Five’s cause gets little publicity. Not so the case of Alan Gross, an American contractor sentenced to 15 years in Cuba for activities designed to undermine Cuba’s government. The Gross and Cuban Five cases, however, are different. Gerardo received two consecutive life sentences plus fifteen years for conspiring to co