Five Cuban men convicted of spying in the United States have
spawned a loyal following in the United States, led by activists who
have long supported the Cuban revolution.
"Quite a number of
us across the country who work together in support of Cuba's right
to exist formed the National Committee to Free the Five Cuban
Political Prisoners," said Gloria La Riva of San Francisco, one of
the founders. "The reason we picked a long name is because we want
people to know that they're prisoners in the U.S. and that they're
political prisoners."
Those activists have had
rallies, collected donations, pored over legal documents,
participated in news conferences about each appeal in the case and
maintained a Web site for the men, who they think were only trying
to protect their country by infiltrating Cuban exile groups in
Miami. They have advocated for the men with the same fervor as the
Cuban government, something that irks Cuban exiles, who say the men
were a threat to the United States.
The men received stiff
sentences -- life imprisonment for three of them -- for counting
planes at military installations and other activities. The group's
alleged ringleader, Gerardo Hernández, was convicted of the most
serious charge, taking part in the shootdown of two Brothers to the
Rescue planes in international waters. They were convicted in a
Miami federal court in 2001.
The busy Web site maintained by
the Committee to Free the Five, which includes news updates and
legal documents in the case, also portrays the men not as threats to
U.S. security and spies, but family men, poets and loving
sons.
The committee says it has organizers around the world
and in several U.S. cities such as Miami, where groups such as the
Antonio Maceo Brigade, a longstanding counterpoint to South
Florida's traditionally anti-Castro groups, have taken up the torch
for the Cuban spies. The Miami contingent organized an event for the
men in 2001 that drew more than 125 people, La Riva said. Most of
those in attendance, she says, were Cuban-Americans.
"A lot
of people in Miami don't subscribe, I think, to the hard-line or the
right wing," she said.
The five men -- Hernández, Antonio
Guerrero, Ramón Labaniño, René González, and Fernando González --
have mostly faded from South Florida's consciousness since they were
sentenced and sent to prisons in far-flung places such as Lompoc,
Calif., and Edgefield, S.C., but the Cuban government has brought up
the case several times and portrayed the men as patriots who were
defending their country from terrorist attacks by Cuban exiles.
That view is disputed by the federal prosecutors who tried
the case and Cuban exile groups whose ranks were
infiltrated.
According to more than 1,400 pages of evidence
federal investigators gathered, the men were part of the "Wasp
Network" which used coded e-mails and cryptic pages to keep the
Cuban government informed of what Cuban exile groups were doing as
well as the comings and goings of military planes out of South
Florida military bases. According to the evidence, operatives had a
system to give Cuba early warning of any possible U.S. invasion of
the island.
Jose Basulto, president of Brothers to the
Rescue, was a key witness in the trial of the five men. The spies
infiltrated Basulto's organization, and his plane was the only one
to survive the 1996 shootdown.
Although he was not aware of
the specific activities of the Committee to Free the Five, Basulto
said those involved were the same communists in the United States
who have supported the Cuban government in the past. He said he
can't believe, however, that U.S. citizens would side with the
spies.
The material on the Free the Five Web site,
www.freethefive.org, is geared toward making that point. There are
several pictures of the men with their wives and children, as well
as pictures of their mothers, who came to Miami for their
sentencing. But Cuban exiles, like Basulto, are not buying the
appealing side of the men and wonder about the motivations of those
in the United States who support them.
"Either these people
are ignorant or they are also bad people," he said.
Uva de
Aragon, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at
Florida International University, said the U.S. supporters of the
men fall into a category she has labeled the "izquierda boba," or
"foolish left," who are people who she says fell in love with the
Cuban revolution and take up any cause in defense of the Cuban
government against the United States.
"The most benefit I can
give to these people is that they have an idyllic perception of the
Cuban revolution and a demonized perception of the United States,"
she said.
De Aragon doubts that the committee's efforts will
have any effect on the men's cases.
"These people do not
represent the majority, and to overturn the law, the system of
justice, it takes more than the opinion of a few," she said.
Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com
or 305-810-5007.
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