Havana. November 21, 2003

‘We only want to see our husbands!’
From the day of their arrest on September 12, 1998, the Five’s families have been used as pawns in an attempt to destroy their will
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—
“WE’RE not asking for authorization to visit the United States as tourists, or to work there; much less to live there. We just want to see our husbands!” emphasized Adriana Pérez Oconor, the wife of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, in response to questions in a press conference at which she appeared with Olga Salanueva Arango, the wife of René González Seherwert.

Adriana Pérez Oconor and Olga Salanueva Arango, the wives of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo and René González Sehewert, respectively, answering questions from the press shortly after the USIS announced its decision to deny their right to visit their husbands unjustly incarcerated for combating terrorism.
Gerardo and René are two of the five Cuban patriots incarcerated in U.S. territory after having been detained while infiltrating Cuban-American terrorist groups operating in Florida. The authorities at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana USIS) took four months after the formal visa application was made to once again refuse entry into that country to the two women (November 17).

“It has to be made very clear that their (the prisoners) conditions are very harsh and we are only demanding to see them in those conditions,” Adriana explained.

“It’s a right we have,” she stressed.

Lucía Newman, the CNN correspondent stated: “The State Department said that it has sent you an explanation as why your visas were denied.”

“To date we haven’t received any written communication whatsoever. So if they’re saying that they’ve sent one, let’s hope it arrives at some point,” Adriana replied, noting that she hadn’t been able to see her husband for more than five years.

“They granted me a visa in 2002 but then prevented me access to U.S. territory when I arrived. I was detained for 11 hours, without any reason being given, without having committed any violation and without any explanation as to why they were acting in that way and why I was questioned by the FBI,” she related. Adriana had to return to Cuba without being able to see her husband.

“The Miami DA has a lot to do with this latest decision,” commented Olga Salanueva.

“These men have been sentenced to the maximum term on each of the charges brought against them. Geraldo has two life sentences plus 15 years, without any evidence against him; René has a 15-year prison term,” she noted.

“There is no reason why they should be doubly punished and denied their human right to visits. From the time of their arrest on September 12 five years ago, their families have been used as a way of humiliating them, an attempt to break them and like pawns.”
THE DRAMATIC CASE OF LITTLE IVETTE
Olga explained how her five-year-old daughter is another victim of the USIS decision despite being a U.S. citizen by birth and the daughter of a U.S. citizen. “Ivette has also been used as a very hefty weapon against René from the outset.”

“When he was arrested, they took him to this punishment cell only used for people who have committed serious breaches of discipline after being in the main prison holding area. By law, they can only be held there was 60 days. René and his comrades were there for 17 months.

“Prisoners held there do have contact with their families. But in the case of René, he was denied that right for being an anti-terrorist fighter, for representing Cuba. A human right.”

During those 17 months, René had contact with his daughters just twice. “The first time he was brought before them – when Ivette, our younger daughter was only 13 months old – in a room in the Miami Federal Detention Center, bound to a chair with handcuffs.”

René’s imprisonment forced Olga’s separation from her younger daughter in order to work. “I don’t have any family in the United States. I was on my own with my two daughters. I had to give Ivette to René’s grandmother, a U.S. citizen who was over 80, in order to maintain our two daughters.

“Just think what that separation must have meant for a baby of four and a half months and for a mother. René´s grandmother lives in Sarrosota, a city 230 miles north of Miami. Ivette went through all of that – she lived with her great-grandmother for more than two years and then, when I was arrested, my family was totally divided: my daughter Irma was in New York, Ivette with her grandmother, René in one prison and me in another.”

When her deportation was imminent, Olga asked the U.S. government from her prison cell to be allowed to travel to Cuba with her daughter. “I was denied that right as well. They informed me that it was ‘an independent procedure.’ That Ivette could stay in the United States!

“We had to authorize my mother-in-law to travel to Florida and return to Cuba with her. Ivette came back to suffer another separation, having already grown up with her great-grandmother. For her, her family was made up of her great-grandmother and my visits. She was once more grabbed out of the bosom of her family to be able to return with me.”
“SHE HAS THE RIGHT TO TRAVEL WITH HER MOTHER”
All this was taking place when little Elián González was the victim of an interminable kidnapping incited by the extreme right in Miami.

“There was no way that I was going to leave my daughter in U.S. territory where he father was imprisoned precisely for fighting against those terrorist gangs!” Olga stressed.

“For that reason Ivette has the right to travel with her mother. Nobody in this world can deny me the right to support my daughter when she goes to visit her father under such difficult conditions! That will probably be the time when René really gets to know Ivette. She hasn’t seen him for three years. René is not in her memory. I have the right to support her emotionally in this harsh situation.”

René is a U.S. citizen by birth,” Olga reiterated. “He’s in the United States and is legally claiming to see me. I traveled there with a passport granted by the U.S. authorities, I did not enter the country illegally, at no time have I had any kind of federal or state charge. But yes, I was utilized to put pressure on René so that he would become a prosecution witness against his comrades.”

“When you see footage of buildings destroyed by terrorists, for example, in Istanbul, do you always feel that the fight for the Five is more urgent?” asked Tracey Eaton, from The Dallas Morning News.

“When we see those images we cannot isolate them from the sentiment we have that five men have given up their youth to protect Cuba and other countries from these acts of terrorism and that now the U.S. government has them in five prisons, sentenced to lengthy terms, when it is actually that very government which financed, generated and protected terrorists within its territory,” Adriana answered.

She condemned the hypocrisy maintained by the U.S. government in its supposed combating of terrorism.

“Nevertheless we can’t help but feel sad at the loss of these people and for their suffering families, because it should be recalled that, for more than 40 years, Cuba has been the victim of such acts of terrorism and still is.”

For her part Olga charged the U.S. government with fearing public knowledge of the trial procedure in Miami, “because then their real intentions and close links with those organizations would come out.” She recalled how Judge Joan Lenard expressly prohibited two of the accused – in the event of their release -- from approaching places where persons or organizations practicing terrorism in the south of Florida are present.

“That made it totally clear that she knows those organizations and those individuals!” concluded René González’ wife.


Defense response presented to the Atlanta Appeals Court
BY SARA MAS —Granma daily staff writer—
WITH the presentation of the defense response to DA’s arguments on November 17, the case of the five Cuban patriots in the United States has passed the documentary phase and now awaits action by the 11th Circuit Atlanta Appeals Court.

However, that does not signify immediacy, clarified professor of law Rodolfo Dávalos, commenting on the current situation during yesterday’s Cuban TV Roundtable program.

The next step, without a set time limit, is for the files to be examined by a panel of three judges nominated by the 11th Circuit, to determine whether to proceed to a hearing.

If a public hearing is agreed, Dávalos explained, the defense lawyers will have five minutes to expound the aspects of the 24 motives for appeal prior to a ruling by the judges panel.

This long-drawn out legal procedure is occurring at a point when the Cubans continue serving unjust sentences in the United States and that country’s authorities have denied Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez entry visas, thus preventing them from visiting their husbands René González and Gerardo Hernández.

Analysts and legal experts qualified that action as fresh evidence of the political hatred being wielded against the five Cubans and also described it as an act of cruelty to them and their families, inflicting on them unnecessary pain and additional suffering.