[Ppnews] Conversation with Gerardo Hernandez from the U.S. prison (Part II)

[Political Prisoner News]

‘I guess they’d seen a lot of James Bond movies’

Telephone conversation with Gerardo Hernandez from the U.S. prison (Part II)

By Saul Landau (from notes)

Saul Landau: Did you personally meet any of the terrorists, as you call them?

Gerardo Hernandez: No, I saw some of them. But I 
had no contact with them. Some of us [the five] 
were accused of being illegal agents. I had a 
false identity -- Manuel Viramonte. I compiled 
information the other agents delivered to me, 
those who had maintained their own identities, 
like Rene Gonzalez. He kept his own name. He 
stole an airplane from Cuba. Someone like that 
can count on gaining the trust of, and can 
approach an organization. Not so in my case, 
since I didn’t even have a real story. So my 
mission was to compile information the others gave me, and send it to Cuba.

Landau: During the day you worked as a graphic artist?

Hernandez: I was more of an independent 
contractor. At least that was the [cover] story. 
I did a few illustrations for a newspaper, but it 
was just to maintain the image.

Landau: So you supervised those who had 
infiltrated violent groups? Explain how you did this.

Hernandez: It’s not appropriate to give too many 
details, right? But in the trial documents it 
shows we had agents with access to these 
[terrorist] organizations. Their function was to 
protect Cuba by learning countless pieces of 
information regarding terrorist plans of these organizations.

For example, Rene joins the Brothers to the 
Rescue and he hears a comment from Basulto that 
they have a weapon ready to test on targets in 
the Everglades. They fire it and it works. Now 
they try to find a place in Cuba to fire it. 
Well, I’m alerted through previously arranged 
methods of communication, like a beeper. I’d call 
him and with coded language we’d arrange to meet. 
We’d take precautions and meet and he’d tell me about them testing this weapon.

Or, Alpha 66 is planning an expedition to fire 
weapons at the Cuban coast or they want to put a 
bomb on a plane full of tourists going from 
Central America to Cuba. I’m not making this up. 
I’d try to encourage them to find out more while 
not taking unnecessary risks. I then sent this 
information to Cuba and Cuba would respond 
telling me to do this or that, to seek 
information through this means or that. Basically, that was my job.

Landau: Describe what happened the day the FBI arrested you.

Hernandez: It was a Saturday [September 12, 
1998]. I was sleeping. It was about 6 a.m. I 
lived in a small, one-room apartment. My bed was 
close to the door. I remember hearing in my sleep 
someone trying to force open the lock. I heard a 
loud sound as they knocked the door down. It was 
a swat team. By the time I sat up in bed, I was 
surrounded by people with machine guns and 
helmets and all you would see in the movies. They 
arrested me, handcuffed me, and looked in my 
mouth. I guess they had seen a lot of James Bond 
movies and they thought I would have cyanide in 
my mouth. So, they checked to make sure that I 
wouldn’t poison myself. I asked them why they 
arrested me. They said, “You know why.” They put 
me in a car and took me to the office of the head 
of the Southern Florida FBI Bureau on 163rd Ave. 
here in Miami. There, the interrogation began.

We were put in separate offices, each one of us. 
They sat me in an office, handcuffed me to the 
wall. There, they interrogated me. I had the 
“honor” that Hector Pesquera came to see me. He 
was the director of the South Florida branch of 
the FBI, and he was Puerto Rican. And my assumed 
identity, Manuel Viramonte, was Puerto Rican, 
too. I told him I was from Puerto Rico and so he 
started to ask me questions about Puerto Rico. 
All kinds of questions. Who was the governor in 
such-and-such a year? Where did you live? What 
bus did you take to get to school? What route did 
you take? And when he saw that I was able to 
answer these questions he got really upset. He 
slammed his fist into the table and said, “I know 
you are Cuban and you are going to rot in prison 
because Cuba isn’t going to do anything for you.”

Then, not him specifically, but the others who 
took part in the interrogation, started to try 
all sorts of techniques. They would say to me, 
“You know how this business works. You know that 
you are an illegal official. You know what it 
says in the books, that Cuba will never recognize 
that they sent you here with a fake passport. 
They’ll never recognize you, so you will rot in 
prison. The best thing you can do is cooperate 
with us and we’ll offer you whatever you want. We 
will change your identity, give you a new bank 
account.” They said whatever, so that I would rat 
on the others. They would say, “Here is the 
phone. Call your Consulate.” Strategies designed 
to get me to turn. This is what happened to all 5 
of us separately. Later, they took us to the 
prison, the Center of Federal Detention in Miami, and put us in “the hole.”

Landau: For how long?

Hernandez: 17 months. The first five were hard 
for the 5 of us, of course. Those with false 
identities didn’t have anyone to write to; nor 
did anyone write to us; no one to telephone. 
Sometimes, we were allowed phone calls. The 
guards would open the little window in the door, 
and put the phone there. “Aren’t you going to 
call anyone? Your family in Puerto Rico?”

“No,” I would say, “I’m not going to call.”

“But why?” they’d say, to be cruel, because they 
knew I wasn’t Puerto Rican and wouldn’t use the 
phone. Those were difficult months.

Landau: Describe “the hole?”

Hernandez: It’s an area that every prison has, 
where they put prisoners for disciplinary, or for 
protective purposes if they can’t be with the 
rest of the population. The Miami cell was on the 
12th floor. The cells are for 2 people, but we 
were alone in ours, individually for the first 6 
months – with no contact. Later, our lawyers took 
legal measures so that we could meet in pairs. In 
those first 6 months in “solitary confinement,” 
we had a shower inside the cell so you can bathe 
whenever you want. But you get everything in the 
cell wet when you take a shower. You’re in the 
cell 23 hours a day, and one hour a day of 
recreation where they take you to another place. 
In Miami, it was practically just another cell, 
but a bit bigger and with this grid through which 
you could see a little piece of the sky. You 
could tell if it was day or night, and a bit of 
fresh air would come through. That was what they 
called “recreation.” But often we didn’t go 
because they’d take too long handcuffing you, 
checking your body, your cell, to get you there 
and back. Sometimes, they’d put us all together 
in the cell; so during that hour we could talk. 
The regimen was strict. They used to punish 
prisoners who commit a serious indiscipline. 
There we were 23, some times 24 hours a day, 
inside those 4 small walls, with nothing to do. 
It’s very difficult from a humane point of view. 
And many people couldn’t take it. You could see 
them start to lose their minds, start screaming.

Landau: Did you do something bad?

Hernandez: No, we were sent there from the 
beginning. They told us it was to protect us from 
the general population. But in my opinion, it had 
more to do with their attempt to get us to turn. 
After fear and intimidation didn’t work they 
thought, “Well let’s put them in solitary for a 
few months and see if they change their minds.”

The only thing to read was the Bible, and even 
for that, you had to submit a written request to 
the chaplain. I made the request, to have 
something to read, and got a bible. When they 
brought it to me -- I don’t know if it was a 
coincidence or what -- it had some cards inside, 
including the telephone numbers of the FBI. Just 
in case I had forgotten, right? As if, “Well, 
this communist guy is asking for the Bible
he must be about to turn.”

That’s how I imagine they were thinking, or scheming.

Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies 
Fellow making a film (with Jack Willis) on the 
Cuban Five. His other films are available at 
<mailto:roundworldproductions at gmail.com>roundworldproductions at gmail.com




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