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‘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.
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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. |
