The Cuban Five

By
Lawrence Wilkerson                                                           Read Spanish Version

I
attended a briefing by Leonard Weinglass (he of the Daniel
Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers fame, of the Amy Carter tribulations, and
other famous efforts to achieve justice against at times huge odds)
at Howard University’s Law School on Wednesday, 12 September. I was
stunned by what counselor Weinglass revealed.

As a military
officer for 31 years, I occasionally encountered Cuba. In exercises,
I recall vividly that when we wargamed "the Cuba scenario"
what happened was that the U.S. Navy, the FBI, the Florida State
Police, the Coast Guard, and a host of other folks got involved not
in invading Cuba, but in preventing a group of Cuban-Americans in
Florida from doing so. I might add that such actions violated U.S.
law and so, in the exercises which were in my view very realistic, we
spent our time attempting to stop several hundred small boats, loaded
with automatic weapons, explosives, and lots of Cuban-Americans, from
getting to Cuba. So, I was acquainted with some of the vagaries of
U.S. Cuba policy.

At Howard University last week, I learned
the truth about yet another vagary, "The
Cuban Five." Here’s a quick backgrounder.

Because the
Cuban government had come to much the same conclusion as the U.S.
military and did not want to be invaded by a bunch of Cuban-Americans
from Florida, it decided to send five Cubans to Florida to spy on
this "invasion group". (And what I haven’t mentioned is
that this group of Floridians is considered to be a group of
terrorists by Cuban authorities. Why? Because over the past few years
this group has allegedly carried out terrorist acts in Cuba and
killed by some counts over 3,000 Cubans. One of these acts was to
bring down a Cuban airliner with 76 souls on board, all of whom
perished.)

When these five Cubans began reporting back to
Havana about what they were discovering in Florida, the picture
became very clear. In short, Cuban authorities were convinced that
their country did indeed have much to worry about.

So, in
Havana the thought was, let’s give this evidence our five "spies"
have gathered to the U.S. FBI. Surely, the FBI will then understand
what the U.S. military already understands, i.e., the threat to peace
in the Straits of Florida is in Florida not in Cuba. And so Havana
did just that. It gave to the FBI the evidence its five men had
gathered in southern Florida.

What did the FBI do? Well, here
is the crux of the matter. The FBI turned the evidence over to the
U.S. Government and it, in turn, used the evidence not to investigate
and, if necessary, arrest and prosecute the law-breaking
Cuban-Americans and their supporters in southern Florida, but to
arrest and eventually imprison for life the five men who "spied"
on these fine, loyal Floridians.

When the case came to trial,
a change of venue was warranted and asked for because no Miami court
was going to give the Cuban Five a fair trial, since the city is
largely in the hands of some of the very Cuban-Americans and their
supporters who’ve allegedly perpetrated these atrocities on the Cuban
people and are prepared to invade the island. But the change of venue
motion was denied. And of course the five were convicted.

But
on appeal, in a decision by three of the judges of the 11th Circuit
Court of Appeals, the trial’s results were thrown out, as of course
they should have been on the denial of the change of venue motion
alone. The Five returned to Cuba and their families, right?

No,
because in a full meeting of the 11th Circuit Court with all 12
members present, the ruling of the three members was reversed and The
Five went back to jail, where they have been now for nine years.

The
case is being reviewed yet again even as I write. That is one of the
reasons that Leonard Weinglass gave the briefing at Howard University
that I attended. He wanted to inform us of this apparently egregious
miscarriage of justice and solicit our support in getting the
decision reversed.

If the facts are as counselor Weinglass
reported, it is hard to believe that this case ever happened in the
first place, unless, of course, one contemplates the real power of
this group of Cuban-Americans in Florida and the hold they exercise
over the U.S. Government.

But this case sort of takes the
cake: to punish with life sentences men who came here to determine
how and when their country was going to be attacked by people
breaking U.S. law. These men were unarmed, not intent on any physical
damage to the United States, and were motivated to protect their
fellow citizens from invasion and repeated attacks by Cuban-Americans
living in Florida.

And we have to ask also, just how is it
that we have become a safe haven for alleged terrorists? How is it
that we, the United States of America, may rate a place on our own
list of states that sponsor terrorism?

If the facts are as
counselor Weinglass reported, this case is truly the bottom of the
pit. I had great trouble believing it, but I had nothing with which
to refute Mr. Weinglass’ superbly delivered presentation. But more
than that was my four years inside the Bush Administration. You see,
I know the depths to which our government is capable of sinking.
Torture. Lies. False intelligence. Tyranny. Is the continued failure
to resolve fairly this case against the Cuban Five, even though it
began in the second Clinton administration, really so unbelievable
when cast against the characters of the current administration?

Talk
to your congressman or woman, please. This is a travesty. And, by the
way, if you can disprove any of what Mr. Weinglass contends, fire
away. America has many disastrous actions chalked up to its discredit
at the moment, so to be disabused of one of such heavy import would
be a gift from the gods.

Lawrence
Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel. He is the Visiting Pamela
C. Harriman Professor of Government at the College of William Mary,
as well as Professorial Lecturer in the Honors Program at the George
Washington University. His last positions in government were as
Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff (2002-05), Associate
Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff under the
directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and member of that staff
responsible for East Asia and the Pacific, political-military and
legislative affairs (2001-02). Before serving at the State
Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army, including as
Deputy Executive Officer to then-General Colin Powell when he
commanded the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989), Special Assistant to
General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(1989-93), and as Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine
Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97). Wilkerson retired
from active service in 1997 and then worked as an advisor to General
Powell.