[Ppnews] Cuban 5 - Another visit with Gerardo Hernandez

[Political Prisoner News]

Another visit with Gerardo Hernandez

Wednesday, 27 October 2010 10:29
http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2022:another-visit-with-gerardo-hernandez&catid=38:in-the-united-states&Itemid=55 



By Danny Glover and Saul Landau

We sat in the waiting room with eight other 
people, all black or Latino, while prison 
authorities “counted” -- presumably -- the 
prisoners. An hour and a half later we went 
through the “screening” machine while our shoes 
got x rayed -- the airport has moved to the prison; or was it vice versa?

A guard put an invisible stamp on our wrist; a 
heavy metal door opened electronically and we 
entered another room where a guard with a 
hand-held machine read the invisible stamp with 
some sci-fi machine. Another massive portal 
opened as if by dint of fairy magic and a guard 
barked orders to wait in the open-air passageway 
between the entrance building and the prison visiting room.

Inside, the well lit -- no passing secrets or 
contraband -- visiting room we went and a guard 
pointed to one of many small, cheap plastic 
tables with three plastic chairs -- amidst the 
other plastic accommodations in the room. Inmates 
and families conversed. We waited. After 10 
minutes, Gerardo Hernandez appeared, hugged Danny 
and thanked him for making the You Tube video 
(look it up) explaining the case of the Cuban five.

Then he hugged Saul who said he’d just returned 
from Cuba and brought greetings from people who knew him

“How are people responding to the new reforms?” 
he wanted to know, referring to the economic 
changes – re-opening some of the private sector 
shut down by the 1968 “revolutionary offensive” 
and partially reopened in the mid-1990s, and to 
the massive layoff (500,000) of “superfluous” 
state workers as Raul Castro called them.

Saul reported people seemed anxious, but also 
dealing with the new reality. Gerardo nodded. “It was necessary,” he opined.

He had read newspapers and watched TV news 
related to next week’s election. “Will the 
Democrats lose one House or both?” he asked.

We didn’t know. Danny and Saul had watched CNN in 
the airport waiting room before we boarded the 
plane to go to Southern California and heard Wolf 
Blitzer and the other CNN “anchors” vie for 
fast-talk-say-nothing medals. We remarked on how 
cable news needs to create conflict (news?) 24/7 
as its life’s blood. If no issue exists, create 
one. But crises arise. Sometimes even Lindsay 
Lohan and Wynona Rider don’t get caught taking 
drugs or shop lifting and CNN has to create 
conflict between gay former army officers and 
members of Obama’s staff over “Don’t ask, don’t 
tell.” This was part of CNN’s “election coverage.”

The prison authorities deny Gerardo access to 
email or computers, although convicted murderers 
and rapists don’t have those restrictions. He is 
able to talk to his wife on the phone. “Imagine, 
I can’t even send her an email,” he laughed sardonically.

Gerardo also can’t email his lawyers who recently 
filed a new appeal focusing on government 
documents showing payments made to Miami-area 
journalists who wrote articles designed to make 
the already “pervasive community prejudice” worse 
so that a Miami trial would become an impossible 
venue for Gerardo and his four mates to get a fair trial.

One Miami-based journalist, Pablo Alfonso, 
received $58,600 during the Five’s detention and 
trial period, but he only wrote 16 damaging 
articles [while he worked for El Nuevo Herald, 
Miami’s most important newspaper in 
Spanish].  Other government-paid journalists did 
negative TV and radio shows about the five men 
who had admitted their mission involved spying – 
but not on the U.S. government. Gerardo explained 
that Cuban Intelligence sent the men to Miami to 
penetrate violent exile groups who had planted 
more than a dozen bombs in one year (1997) in Cuban tourist sites.

The FBI did not arrest the bomb plotters, but 
rather grabbed the very people who had furnished 
the Bureau with evidence of terrorist activities based in South Florida.

A May 2005 United Nation’s Human Rights 
Commission concluded the original trial “did not 
take place in the climate of objectivity and 
impartiality” required for fair trials. The 
Commission’s report called for a new trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a previous appeal 
from the Five. But now, in addition to the 
bribing of journalists, appeal lawyer Leonard 
Weinglass has found the prosecutors had “withheld 
evidence that would have demonstrated [Gerardo’s] 
innocence.” Indeed, the government, Weinglass 
says, withheld  “satellite imagery which would 
have shown that the shoot down on Feb. 24, 1996, 
occurred in Cuban airspace and not in 
international airspace. The key agency of the 
United States government which maintains 
satellite data has, up to now, refused to admit 
or deny that they are holding such data.”

On that day, three Brothers to the Rescue 
airplanes flew into Cuban air space after 
receiving multiple warnings not to do so. Cuban 
MIGs shot down 2 of the planes, killing pilots 
and co-pilots. This fact, reasoned Weinglass, 
would have given the Five and the MIG pilots a 
clear-cut defense to the charge of conspiracy to 
commit murder. (Radio interview with Bernie Dwyer 
<http://www.thecuban5.org/BDInterview.html>http://www.thecuban5.org/BDInterview.html)

Ironically, the government never established 
Gerardo’s connection to the shoot down.  They 
showed a communication commending him for his 
role in “the operation.” But Gerardo explained, 
“the operation” related to his helping another 
agent leave the country, not the shoot down. 
“They had other documents they didn’t show to the 
defense that would have shown I knew nothing 
about the events that day.” Weinglass included this in his new appeal.

Gerardo asked Danny about meeting his wife, 
Adriana, in Paris. Danny told him about the 
emotional encounter and Gerardo’s face lit up.

An inmate took photos of us. We said good-bye. 
Gerardo gave us the “keep the faith” fist in the 
air. We waved, left and began our drive south 
toward the Ontario airport passing the rows of 
unsold and empty houses in Victorville and the 
seemingly endless signs advertising chain stores and restaurants.

“Wow,” Danny said as he drove. “What an inspiring guy!”

Saul agreed. It was so worth the round trip, 
airport hassle, rent-a-car drive and wait in the 
prison – all the ugliness – to see how many inner 
resources one man could employ to keep his spirit 
high, and use them to inspire others.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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