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- Free the Cuban 5 Now!
Report Back from the 78th Vancouver Picket Action
By Noah Fine
In October of 1976, Cubana air flight #455 crashed into the ocean near Barbados. Of the 73 passengers on the flight, not one survived. A bomb had exploded on the plane, a bombing admittedly planned by a man who today walks free on the streets of Miami, Florida.
Luis Posada Carriles, a former FBI agent, has worked for years on and off the U.S. government’s payroll with the explicit direction of organizing terrorism against the people of Cuba. The case of Carriles’ terrorism however is not an isolated incident. In the last 50 years anti-Cuba terrorists have killed almost 3,500 people.
After dozens of attempts by the Cubans to have the U.S. government intervene in their homegrown terrorist activity, to no avail, the Cuban government sent 5 unarmed, peaceful agents to Miami to infiltrate and collect information on the terrorist groups.
Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González, known around the world as the 5 Cuban Heroes, collected countless important documents and proof of acts of terror against their country. They handed over their investigation to the U.S. government. However, the U.S. government did not act to stop the terrorists. Instead they moved swiftly to imprison the 5 innocent men who uncovered the truth.
An international campaign has since emerged to demand the immediate freedom of the 5 Cuban Heroes.
On Saturday May 5, the Free the Cuban 5 Committee-Vancouver organized their 78th monthly protest action in front of the U.S. Consulate. Included in the list of speakers were, Nestor Otero, an organizer with the Free the Cuban 5 Committee-Vancouver who had recently returned from the “5 Days for the Cuban 5” campaign in Washington DC. Other speakers included veteran of the Civil Rights movement, David Whittlesey, and Alison Bodine the co-chair of Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO). A moving letter of support was read from Raul Cardoso the head of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba.
The Free the Cuban 5 Committee-Vancouver organizes a protest action for the Cuban 5 on the 5th of every month. The 5th of the month for the Cuban 5 is an international campaign where many of the 300 Cuban 5 committees around the world organize activities in unison.
The Free the Cuban 5 Committee-Vancouver would like to encourage you to get involved in Vancouver or wherever you live in the campaign to immediately free the Cuban 5.
For more information, please visit: http://www.freethe5vancouver.caBack to Article Listing