Cuban 5: We're the Targets of US Revenge Against Cuba

The Cuban Five were not arrested for having committed any crime, but for being followers of a revolutionary process that has defended the dignity of our people, said Fernando Gonzalez Llort, one of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters who were unfairly imprisoned in the United States in 1998.

Gonzalez, alongside with Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino and Rene González, was arrested in 1998 and later unfairly sentenced for having monitored Florida-based violent organizations that planned terrorist actions against Cuba. Out the five, only Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez have returned to the island after having fully served their prison sentences.

The Cuban antiterrorist, who currently is vice-president of the Cuban Friendship Institute said that his compatriots are still in prison for not having yielded to the US empire. Gonzalez gave his statements during a ceremony to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the University Student Movement in the city of Leon, 90 kilometers from Managua, the Nicaraguan capital city.

Gonzalez said that their incarceration was not an action against each one of them, but one more hostile action by Washington against Cuba, which has proven that a country can defend its freedom and sovereignty and not yield to any world power.

He noted that they were the targets of revenge because Cuba is a stone in the shoe of US imperialism, while its example is present in the processes ongoing in Latin America for the definitive independence of the continent.

After being awarded the Egar Munguia Alvarez Order by the Student Movement, Gonzalez thanked the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the youths and the Nicaraguan people for their support of the cause of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters.