[Marxism] Olga Salanueva, wife of "Cuban Five" member Rene Gonzalez, demands justice

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Guardian this week published an impassioned plea (see below) from Olga
Salanueva, wife of jailed "Cuban Five" member Rene Gonzalez. You can support
the campaign to support her by requesting the involvement of the UN Human
Rights Commission here:

http://www.freethefive.org/families.htm?value=families/textFamiliesWivesLetters120605.htm

Eli Stephens
 Left I on the News
 http://lefti.blogspot.com

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> From the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1660473,00.html

Jailed for fighting terror

The hypocrisy of the US war on terrorism is revealed by its treatment of my
husband

Olga Salanueva
Wednesday December 7, 2005

The United States always says that it is fighting a war against terror. But
when it comes to terrorism that is grown in its own backyard, it somehow
chooses to forget about it. Worse than that, as in the case of the
persecution of the Miami Five, Washington appears to be condoning and
protecting terrorists who have been responsible for the deaths of scores of
innocent victims.

I am talking about the four-decade-long war of terror that the US government
and Cuban emigre groups based in Miami have waged against Cuba - and about
my husband Rene Gonzalez, one of five Cubans imprisoned in Miami seven years
ago for doing nothing more than trying to prevent terrorist attacks being
planned against Cuba in the very territory of the United States.

It was in September 1998 that five armed US federal agents burst into our
Miami apartment and took Rene away. It was a traumatic event for our two
daughters. This was not the kind of arrest you see in films. There was
nothing ethical about it. No one spoke to him of his rights. They had no
documents to support their actions and it was not until a day later that I
learned that Rene and the four others had been charged with conspiracy to
commit espionage.

My husband is now in his eighth year of imprisonment for a crime he did not
commit. He was found guilty in a trial so obviously biased that his lawyers
were incredulous that this could happen in the modern-day United States.
Without a shred of evidence being presented by the prosecution they were
given sentences ranging from 15 years, in the case of my husband, to life in
the cases of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino and Antonio Guerrero.
Recently, the Atlanta court of appeals revoked their convictions. The
prosecution has appealed against this decision and the process may yet take
months or even years to resolve. Meanwhile, my husband and his comrades
remain in jail.

The Miami Five were treated to bouts of solitary confinement far beyond the
limits that other prisoners have to bear and they have been denied visiting
rights. A committee of the United Nations has found their treatment to be in
contravention of international human rights standards. It is time the United
States was held to account for the injustice that has been done.

Not only has my husband been unjustly imprisoned, his family has also been
treated appallingly. For neither my daughters nor myself have seen him in
five years because the US refuses me a visa to visit him in prison. Our
younger daughter, Ivette, is a US citizen by birth, as is Rene. Yet they are
denied a fundamental right that is supposedly guaranteed US citizens by law.

Time and again the United States has arbitrarily denied me the possibility
of visiting Rene. There is no reason to justify this denial. Like Adriana
Perez, the wife of fellow-prisoner Gerardo Hernandez, I am suffering as an
additional punishment to the unjust sentence imposed on my husband.

Ivette is now seven, and only knows Rene through the photos produced by the
worldwide campaign to free him; she goes through life asking about him and
wondering what life would have been like if she had had her father at home.
She asks me constantly when all this will end, if her father will ever come
home. Ivette is an innocent child who is being vindictively punished.

We demand the cessation of these cruel, dishonest practices - and denounce
and refute all the false arguments and lies that the authorities have tried
to use to continue punishing these political prisoners, who are in fact
fighters against terrorism.



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