CUBAN FIVE.NO ESTAN SOLOS

International intellectuals and artists sign the U.S.
actors’ petition to release the Cuban Five

Yenia Silva Correa

TWELVE years have passed since Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González were imprisoned in U.S. penitentiaries for defending Cuba against acts of terrorism organized in that country and perpetrated against the island.

After more than a decade of struggle to win justice in the cause of the Cuban Five, a group of U.S. artists and intellectuals are calling on President Barack Obama to release the Cuban prisoners.

The letter, sent to the U.S. head of state on September 12 asking for the release of the anti-terrorist activists, is an initiative of Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, headed by Danny Glover and Ed Asner.

Film world icons such as Oliver Stone, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen and Elliot Gould immediately supported the petition.

On a global level, response to the letter was quick in arriving. Scarcely two days later, it was supported by Nobel Peace Prize winners Mairead Maguire (Ireland) and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentina). Friends of Cuba and defenders of the Five like Noam Chomsky from the U.S, Eduardo Galeano from Uruguay, Franco-Spaniard Manu Chao, and Puerto Rican Danny Rivera immediately responded to the U.S. artists’ demand.

Singers Daniel Viglietti (Uruguay), Víctor Heredia (Argentina) and Roy Brown (Puerto Rico) did likewise. Meanwhile, recognized media commentators in Chile such as Pedro Lemebel, Manuel Cabieses and Ariel Dorfman are also backing the missive.

To date the demand for justice has been joined by the Nobel Literature Prize winner, Nigerian Wole Soyinka; Olga Tañon, Puerto Rican singer; Miguel Bosé, Spanish singer and actor; Rodrigo Santoro, Brazilian actor; Cynthia MacKinney, former U.S. congresswoman.

Appealing to the executive faculties in the hands of Barack Obama to finally close the case of the Five, well known actors Benicio del Toro (Puerto Rico) and Sean Penn (U.S.) have shown their solidarity with the petition.

Playwright and anti-fascist fighter Alfonso Sastre (Spain), sociologist Immanuele Wallerstein of the United States; Frei Betto, Brazilian priest and writer; Hildebrando Pérez, Peruvian poet and winner of the Casa de las Américas Prize, together with filmmaker Tristán Bauer of Argentina, are also adhering to the cause.

The motion directed to President Obama is also affirmed by Belgian singer Lady Linn, who gave a concert supported by the Belgian Committee for the Liberation of the Five.

Solidarity with the Cuban anti-terrorist fighters brought together at the Brussels Palace of Justice actors Joke Devynck and Dirk Tuypens, filmmaker Jonas Geirnaert; deputies Sven Gatz, Celine Delforge, Zoé Genot and Sfia Bouarfa.

The demand for the release of Gerardo, Antonio, René, Fernando and Ramón, initiated by outstanding U.S. figures in the movie world, has also been seconded by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

In just one week the network of solidarity that has emerged in the United States demanding justice for the Five was joined by Chico Buarque de Hollanda, an emblematic voice in Brazil.

Highly regarded African-American intellectuals such as Alice Walker and Amiri Baraka (Leroy Jones), and Europeans Istvan Meszaros, Armand and Michelle Mattelart and Luca Barbarossa have also added their names.

Gerardo, Antonio, René, Fernando and Ramón were handed down excessive and unjustified sentences in September 1998. This U.S. artists’ initiative with broad international support is a new and forceful demand to the president of the United States to finally bring about justice.

ALICIA ALONSO DEMANDS JUSTICE FROM OBAMA

In Havana, prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso, together with other Cuban intellectuals and artists, are demanding of President Barack Obama the release of the Five.

During a meeting at the Muro por la Paz (Peace Wall), the director of the Cuban National Ballet advocated art as a language of understanding among nations and called on the U.S. people to be aware of the danger of a nuclear war that could extinguish the human species.

Miguel Barnet, president of the Cuban Union of Artists and Writers, thanked the U.S. cultural figures who signed a letter calling for the liberation of the anti-terrorists.

"We hope that President Obama has the good sense and courage to exercise his authority so that the Five can return to their country, their homes and their families," he added.

In a symbolic act, visual artist Alexis Leyva (Kcho), another of the panelists, released five doves representing the incarcerated heroes and declared that until they are released, Cuban art will be there at the Muro por la Paz.

Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, also spoke at the event, as did poet Nancy Morejón, who read out a poem dedicated to the Five.