Cuba pushes for release of anti-terrorist nationals from US prisons

The country’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Hugo Rene Ramos Milanes, said though actions allegedly committed by the so-called Cuban 5;- Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez were not directed at the US government as they neither engaged in nor planned any conspiracy against the US, they have been languishing in […]

The country’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Hugo Rene Ramos Milanes, said though actions allegedly committed by the so-called Cuban 5;- Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez were not directed at the US government as they neither engaged in nor planned any conspiracy against the US, they have been languishing in US prisons with severe sanctions.
The ambassador told news men in Abuja yesterday that following inconsistencies noticed in the sentencing of the five, their attorneys started an extraordinary appeal process, but that with the understanding that such process could be very long or at best result in a re-trial, it has prompted a large scale international solidarity campaign that President Obama sets them free.
He recalled that the Court of Appeal in Atlanta on August 9, 2006 rejected a request for re-trial of the five, just a year before a panel of three judges of the 11th District Court of Atlanta annulled the trial, while Amnesty International expressed serious doubts on the fairness and impartiality with which the sentences were handed down in the first place, saying unnecessary sentences that contravene humane treatment of prisoners were imposed on the Cubans.      
He noted that families of the Cuban 5 had been obstructed from obtaining visas to visit them in prison, thereby further exposing them to rights violation, even as the court found no evidence of obtaining or transmitting secret information or defence in the case of those accused of conspiracy to commit espionage.  
“Personalities from all over the world including intellectuals, artists, Nobel laureates like Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Jose Saramago support the international campaign for the release of the Cuban 5. Prominent US personalities such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Alice Walker and Angela Davies among others have pledged their firm support for the liberation of the Cuban 5”, he said.   
Cuba has been a long-standing friend of Africa. The Cuban government sent about 10,000 armed soldiers to support a Marxist-Leninist MPLA-PT government in Angola against Western-backed UNITA and FLNA guerrillas and an invading army of the South African apartheid state to defend the country for independence. Cuban forces helped repel South African forces though the UNITA insurgency continued and eventually Cuban forces withdrew from the country, especially as Cuba faced tremendous economic difficulties as a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse.  
Cuba also politically, militarily and diplomatically supported the Namibian rebel organization and future ruling party, the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) against the military of apartheid South Africa.