[Ppnews] The Cuban 5 - An Insult to Humanity

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon09172009.html

September 17, 2009


The Untold Story


An Insult to Humanity

By RICARDO ALARCÓN de QUESADA

On March 6, 2009 twelve separate amicus briefs 
were presented in support of the Cuban Five’s 
petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court, 
the largest number of amicus filings ever to have 
urged Supreme Court to review a criminal conviction.

Eight briefs were submitted by institutions or 
persons based on the United States: National 
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Florida 
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Miami 
Chapter; National Jury Project; National Lawyers 
Guild and National Conference of Black Lawyers; 
William C. Velazquez Institute and Mexican 
American Political Association; Civil Rights 
Clinic at Howard University School of Law; Center 
for International Policy and Council on 
Hemispheric Affairs; and one amicus brief 
submitted by Professors Nelson P. Valdés, 
Guillermo Grenier, Félix Masud-Piloto, José A. 
Cobas, Lourdes Arguelles, Rubén G. Rumbaut and 
Louis Pérez, distinguished Cuban-American 
Scholars, authors of some of the most important 
books about the Cuban emigration to the US.

The support from around the world was really impressive. It included:

An amicus presented by ten Nobel Laureates: José 
Ramos-Horta (President of the Republic of East 
Timor), Wole Soyinka, Adolfo Pérez Esqivel, 
Nadine Gordimer, Rigoberta Menchú, José Saramago, 
Zhores Alferov, Darío Fo, Günter Grass and Máiread Corrigan Maguire.

Another brief was submitted by a record number of 
legislators from every corner of the world, 
including the entire Senate of Mexico and the 
National Assembly of Panama, both having 
discussed and unanimously decided to join. Also 
by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and 
United Nations High Commissioner for Human 
Rights; dozens of members of the European 
Parliament from every political group, including 
three current vice-presidents and two former 
Presidents and hundreds of lawmakers from Brazil, 
Belgium, Chile, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, 
Scotland and the United Kingdom.

This document added similar appeals by other 
Nobel Laureates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 
Harold Pinter, and by the Latin-American Council 
of Churches, the permanent Conference of 
Latin-American and Caribbean political parties, 
the Latin-American Parliament as well as other 
regional legislative bodies and specific 
resolutions of support approved by national 
parliaments from Namibia, Mali, Russia, Mexico, 
Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru, Ireland, 
Switzerland and Belgium, among many others.

Two separate amicus came from a wide spectrum of 
lawyers’ organizations and personalities: One was 
submitted by the Ibero-American Federation of 
Ombudsman, the Order of Attorneys of Brazil 
(membership 700 thousands), the Belgium bar 
associations, the Berlin and other German bars, 
the International Federation for Human Rights and 
a number of religious, legal, human rights 
organizations, law professors, and lawyers from 
Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, 
Japan, Mexico, Panama, Portugal, Spain and the 
United Kingdom. Among the personalities signing 
it were Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former 
Director-General of UNESCO, and Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia of Chile.

The other amicus was presented by the 
International Association of Democratic Lawyers, 
the American Association of Jurists, the Indian 
Association of Lawyers, Droit Solidarité, the 
Haldane Society and other legal organizations 
from Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Portugal and Belgium.

A number of American lawyers volunteered in 
drafting those papers (as required by law), 
consulting and coordinating with the many 
individuals involved and presenting the briefs on 
time and with due respect to the technical and 
other parameters that the Court has established. 
Every individual or institution submitting an 
amicus brief had to identify himself/herself with 
specific data, to sign it personally and pay a 
filing fee. Pursuant to Rule 37.6 of the Court 
“no counsel for a party has authored this brief, 
in whole or in part. No person or entity other 
than amici curiae, or its counsel have made any 
monetary contribution to the preparation or 
submission of this brief.” It was a hell of a 
work for which many people deserve being 
recognized. All the amicus briefs, along with a 
complete list of the amici can be found on SCOTUS 
blog 
(<http://www.scotusblog.com/>www.scotusblog.com) 
and on <http://www.antiterroristas.cu/>www.antiterroristas.cu.

We shall never know what the Justices or their 
clerks thought, if anything, about those 
documents. Nobody knows if they even glanced over 
them. The amici didn’t get an answer or a  single 
comment--not even a clerk’s receipt note.

Nobody knows either how the Justices pronounced 
themselves regarding the petition for certiorari. 
We only learned that on June 14th the petition of 
the Cuban Five was thrown out with the other 
petitions the Court had decided not to hear.

A famous Mexican poet once defined US imperial 
attitude with the melding of two words: arrogance 
and ignorance. It appears that the Court, supremely, epitomizes both.

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada is president of the Cuban National Assembly.




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