9-24-07, 9:43 am

In a post at The Havana Note, former chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), wrote an interesting item. It concerns the Cuban Five, five men currently held in US federal prisons on conspiracy charges. The Cuban Five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzáles and René González. The five men were arrested in 1998 in Miami, Florida, after the FBI received a tip from the Cuban Government about the activities of various right-wing anti-Cuba groups composed of Cuban exiles who planned and organized terrorist activities on US soil against Cuba.

The FBI, instead of hunting down the terrorists, used the detailed information provided to it by Cuba, to track down the five Cuban nationals who had come to the US to investigate the activities of anti-Cuban terrorist organizations. The five men were arrested on spying charges, which were eventually changed to conspiracy charges due to the lack of evidence and the wider latitude prosecutors have to prove conspiracy.

One was even charged with conspiracy to commit murder when the information he dug up about overflights of Cuba by the terrorists led to the shooting down of one of a plane that illegally entered Cuban airspace.


Wilkerson writes that the reason the Cuban government sees the Miami-based anti-Cuban groups as terrorists is that 'over the past few years this group has allegedly carried out terrorist acts in Cuba and killed by some counts over 3,000 Cubans. One of these acts was to bring down a Cuban airliner with 76 souls on board, all of whom perished.'

Wilkerson further writes that the decision to hold the trial of the five men in Miami was a travesty. Fairness, Wilkerson adds, required a change of venue 'since the city is largely in the hands of some of the very Cuban-Americans and their supporters who've allegedly perpetrated these atrocities on the Cuban people and are prepared to invade the island.'

In August of 2006, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, decided that indeed the failure to change venue prevented a fair trial and overturned the verdict. But the ruling of this panel was subsequently overturned by the full 11th Circuit Court.

Late last month, the case came under review again in an Atlanta federal court. Defense lawyers pointed out that the government's conspiracy charges were based on scant evidence, using overly broad interpretations of conspiracy to elicit convictions from an already prejudiced jury.

Wilkerson writes that the entire case is a serious breach of the US criminal justice system. 'These men were unarmed,' Wilkerson continues, 'not intent on any physical damage to the United States, and were motivated to protect their fellow citizens from invasion and repeated attacks by Cuban-Americans living in Florida.'

But then Wilkerson adds a revealing insight. Based on his experiences inside the Bush administration, Wilkerson notes: 'You see, I know the depths to which our government is capable of sinking. Torture. Lies. False intelligence. Tyranny. Is the continued failure to resolve fairly this case against the Cuban Five, even though it began in the second Clinton administration, really so unbelievable when cast against the characters of the current administration?'

Wilkerson concludes with a powerful appeal to readers to talk to their congressional representatives about finding justice in this case. 'America has many disastrous actions chalked up to its discredit at the moment,' Wilkerson says, 'so to be disabused of one of such heavy import would be a gift from the gods.'

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