by Rick Lowe
The Tribune ran a front page story this morning regarding Bahamians joining the campaign against the detention of the ‘Cuban Five’ in the United States.
The committee, apparently established at the offices of the Cuban Ambassador to The Bahamas is reported to have appointed Errington Watkins as chairman; Lionel Carey and Alexander Morley as co-chairmen and Tamiko Gilbert as secretary. If I read the report correctly other members of the committee include Felix Bethel a lecturer at COB and Dion Hanna, director of the Eugene Dupuch Law School.
Mr. Hanna is quoted as saying he would undertake to direct students to do research on the specific legal issues as well as provide a forum. According to The Tribune, he called the jailed men the “five heroes”.
Mr. Bethel chimed in that “If the American government has a cloud over its heads with regards to human rights, it necessarily follows that they can’t pontificate to any other government anywhere else.”
In my not so humble opinion, if the US Embassy used its offices here for this type of activity the cry from a certain sector would be deafening. Can’t you hear them? The US Embassy staff are invited guests in this country, what gives them the right to carry out such activities here? etc, etc.
Mind you, I would not deny the Cuban’s the right to do what they are doing even though the Castro Regime reportedly deny their own people the right to protest their government in their own country. However, an article titled Will cancer render Justice?” by Carlos Alberto Montaner at hacer.org points out some interesting Human Rights abuses in Cuba and is most instructive:
Mr. Montaner states:
“However, it is unlikely that any of this will lift from Castro the feeling of failure he probably feels. When the revolution began, Fidel Castro was sure that he knew how to convert Cuba into a prosperous and developed nation while he led the Third World on its violent drive toward glory. In the early 1960s, Che Guevara vowed in Punta del Este that within 10 years Cuba would surpass the United States in per-capita wealth.”
“In the late 1970s, Fidel Castro repeated that vow, amplified, to Venezuelan historian Guillermo Morón: Within a decade, Morón would see the sinking of the United States, while Cuba would have the Caribbean as its Mare Nostrum.”
“He was wrong. The United States is the only superpower on the planet, while the nation left behind by Fidel Castro is a tattered country that today lives off Venezuelan charity, as yesterday it lived off Soviet alms. The inventory of horrors is almost unparalleled: More than 16,000 people dead, executed, drowned and ”disappeared” have been documented by economist Armando Lago and Maria Werlau, Lago’s principal collaborator.”
“Throughout the process, tens of thousands of political prisoners have gone through the island’s prisons (more than 300 are behind bars today) — among them people punished for being homosexual, having religious beliefs or simply rejecting the stupid Marxist theories. Two million people were stripped of their belongings and thrown into exile. Thousands of young people were forced to participate in absurd African wars that lasted as long as 15 years. In sum: an infinite material and spiritual disaster.”
Now for some of the background to the case of the Cuban Five.
According to Wikipedia, “The Cuban Five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzáles, and René Gonzáles. After being arrested in Miami, Florida in September 1998, they were indicted by the U.S. government on 26 different counts ranging from using false identification to espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. In June 2001, they were convicted of all 26 counts by a U.S. federal court in Miami and in December sentenced to varying terms in maximum-security prison: two consecutive life terms for Hernández, life for Guerrero and Labañino, 19 years for Fernando Gonzáles, and 15 years for René Gonzáles.”
The Wikipedia posting indicates that “The neutraility of the article is disputed” but see this link for full text of the Wikipedia page. See this Wikipedia link for the discussion about the neutrality of the article.
Reports indicate that on August 9, 2005 the convictions of the Cuban Five were overturned and a new trial was ordered, but on October 31, 2005 “the court agreed to hear an appeal from US prosecutors, which they won last month.”
At the end of the day it appears that the committee should spend some time investigating the Castro Regimes record on Human Rights before jumping into this debate.
Furthermore, I would be inclined to believe that the Cuban Five would have a better chance at justice before the US courts than people charged in Cuba for similar crimes by Castro’s regime.
One more thing. Check out The Cuba Archive for some more interesting information on Human Rights issues in Cuba.
What do you think?
