Total censorship
Total censorship
By Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
On May 25, 2001, the US government tookwhat was considered “an unprecedented step” when it filed a “motion of emergency” to the Court of Appeals trying to modify the instructions that should guide the jury in Miami on the decision about a charge against Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.
At the time it acknowledged that “The United States files this motion totally conscious of the many obstacles that it must overcome.”
The main charge against Gerardo –“conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree”—had been the core of the trial held in Miami against the Five Cuban antiterrorists, the longest trial in US history, as well as the most secret.
The government acted with astounding speed. After six days of discussion, at 1:00 p.m. on May 25 the judge had finished her instructions strictly in line with the prosecution’s accusation. On that same afternoon, the prosecution made its unusual and urgent appeal to the Atlanta court.
The government dramatically acknowledged that it had failed to prove the false accusation with the following words: “In light of the evidence presented at the trial, this constitutes an insurmountable obstacle for the United States in the present case and probably will result in the failure of the accusation on this charge.”
It went even further: “This case may establish a devastating precedent… the damage for the government will be irreparable and the harm everlasting”. And repeated: “It sets up an insurmountable barrier for this accusation.”
The Court of Appeals did not accept the government’s motion. A few days later, on June 6, Gerardo was found guilty and was irrationally condemned to two consecutive life sentences plus 15 years for an alleged crime that the prosecution itself acknowledged it had failed to prove.
How can this be explained? Above all, because the trial was held in Miami, the nest of the same terrorist groups that he fought heroically.He had been condemned beforehand in a campaign of hate and slander in the local press, paid for by the federal government, as it was later discovered.
The same media that never published a word about the May 25, 2001 “motion of urgency”. The same media that still impose total censorship ten years later.
The above is part of a speech given by the Speaker of the Cuban Assembly of Popular Power at the inauguration of the Latin American Parliament’s 15th Commision Meetings on Health, Gender Equality, Childhood and Youth; and on Economic Matters, Social Debt and Regional Development.
