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 STATEMENT
PRESENTED BY COMRADE RENÉ GONZÁLEZ SEHWERERT AT THE SENTENCING HEARING
HELD FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2001
Before I begin, I would
like to propose an experiment to those present in the courtroom today:
close your eyes, and imagine that you are in downtown New York. Now, when
the first firefighter comes along, look him straight in the eye, very
seriously, and tell him to his face that nothing happened on September 11.
That it is all a lie. Nothing but camera tricks. It is all pure paranoia
and propaganda. At this point, if neither your own shame, nor the poor
firefighter, has made you swallow your words, then you are eminently
qualified to have been a prosecutor in this case.
And now, with the
permission of this Court, I will begin.
Your Honor:
Months ago, in one of her
efforts to sweep the subject of terrorism against Cuba under the carpet,
using the twisted logic of her confused argument on intent and motivation,
Mrs. Heck Miller told the court that we could leave the political speeches
until this point in the trial. Even back then, when all of the
prosecutors’ political hatred had been unleashed on us through the
conditions of our confinement, the manipulation of the evidence, and, even
worse, the use and abuse of my own family to blackmail, hurt and humiliate
me, I was far from imagining just how important it would be for the
prosecution in this case to pour out all of their political rancor towards
us.
Nevertheless, after six
months of listening to these same prosecutors shoving their prejudices
down the jury’s throats over and over again, I can still tell Mrs. Heck
Miller that she was wrong. I do not need to speak of my political beliefs,
which I do not in any way renounce, to say that I condemn terrorism, that
I condemn war, and that I feel profound contempt for those people, so
completely obsessed with their hatreds and petty interests, who have
devoted so much time to harming their country by promoting terrorism and
fostering a war on which they squander all the courage that they do not
have and that others will need, also their victims, on the battlefield.
I do not need to talk
politics, to say that I believe that innocent people should not have to
die for this, neither in Cuba, nor here in the United States, nor anywhere
else in the world. And I would do what I did and take the risks that I
took for any country in the world, including the United States, regardless
of political considerations.
I firmly believe that you
can be a Catholic and be a good person, that you can be a Jew and be a
good person, that you can be a capitalist, a Muslim or a communist and be
a good person; but there is no such thing as a good person who is also a
terrorist. You must be sick to be a terrorist, just as you must be sick to
believe that there is such a thing as a good terrorist.
Unfortunately, not
everyone feels the same way. When it comes to Cuba, the rules apparently
change, and some people think that terrorism and war are good things to
do. And so we have a prosecutor like Mr. Kastrenakes who defends José
Basulto’s right to break the law as long as it is announced on
television. We have an expert on terrorism like Mr. Hoyt, who believes
that ten explosions in a one-year period would constitute a wave of
terrorism in Miami, but not in Havana. We have an air safety expert for
whom the acts of provocation perpetrated by Brothers to the Rescue against
Havana, widely publicized on television, would be a different thing if
they were perpetrated against Washington, because they would be, according
to him, more urgent and verifiable. We have people who for 40 years have
publicly advertised themselves as terrorists, yet the prosecutors to my
left only seem to have noticed it when they testified in this case for the
defense. Agents Angel Berlinguerí and Héctor Pesquera, the latter no
less than the head of the local FBI, proudly appear as guests on the same
radio stations, with the same people and on the same programs that violate
federal laws by openly raising funds to organize terrorist activities or
defend terrorists around the world.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Caroline
Heck Miller calls for these nice terrorists to be judged in heaven, while
Mr. Frómeta, after trying to buy nothing more than a couple of
surface-to-air missiles, antitank weapons and a bit of highly potent
explosive, is considered a good father, a good citizen and a good person,
who might deserve something like a year of house arrest from the South
Florida District Attorney’s Office. This, your Honor, as far as I know,
is called hypocrisy, and it is also criminal.
And when this same office
fights to keep me in a Special Housing Unit for as long as possible, when
my family is used as an instrument to break my will, when my daughters are
only allowed to see their father twice during the 17 months of this
isolation and the only way I can watch the first steps taken by my little
girl is through a 12th floor window, then I can only feel proud
of being here, and I can only thank the prosecutors for giving me this
opportunity to confirm that I am on the right track, that the world still
needs a lot of improving, and that the best thing for the people of Cuba
is to keep the island clean of the element that has taken over so many
souls here in Miami. I want to thank them for allowing me to prove myself
against their hatred and resentment, and for this pride I feel after
having lived through the most intense, useful, important and glorious days
of my life, when this courtroom seemed too small to hold all of the truths
spoken, and we watched them squirming with impotence as they fought to
hide each and every one of those truths.
And if an apology will
make them happy, then I will offer them one: I am very sorry that I was
unable to tell their agents that I was cooperating with the Cuban
government. If they had an honest stance towards terrorism, I could have
done so, and together we could have found a solution to the problem. When
I think of those endless discussions about the specific intent to break
the law, I realize that this situation goes far beyond the question of
whether failing to register oneself is illegal or not. And that is
because, unfortunately, even if foreign agents could advertise in the
yellow pages here without being registered beforehand, we, being Cubans,
would have to remain incognito for such basic tasks as neutralizing
terrorists or drug traffickers, something we should be doing together, if
a logical approach could prevail. I am also sorry if the anti-Castro
affiliation of the criminals I fought brought them closer to certain
officials or members of the Attorney General’s Office. I feel very badly
about this, honestly.
Actually, this whole
issue of Cuban agents has a very simple solution: Leave Cuba alone. Do
your job. Respect the sovereignty of the Cuban people. I would gladly send
every last spy back to the island. We have better things to do there, all
of them a lot more constructive than watching the criminals who freely
walk the streets of Miami.
I do not want to pass up
this opportunity to address myself to the many good people we have had the
chance to meet during this trial.
First of all, I want to
thank the U.S. Marshals for their professional behavior, their decency,
their courtesy and their anonymous sacrifice. There were times when we
good-naturedly sympathized with each other for being the only people in
the courtroom whose needs were not taken into account in the time
schedules, and we all laughed together about it. But they were always
disciplined and did their duties well.
I also want to thank the
translators, Larry, Richard and Lisa. They did a first-class job and were
always available whenever our families or we needed their services. I
offer them my sincerest gratitude for their hard work and decency towards
everyone. It must be a privilege for this court to have a team like them.
My best wishes to Mr. Londergan as well.
I also wish to extend my
deepest respect to the members of the U.S. military who testified, whether
for the prosecution or the defense, and who spoke sincerely, as well as to
the officials, experts and agents who were honest. I would have liked to
see more honesty among the latter group, and I would have gladly
acknowledged it here.
To all of them, who could
very well represent the best of the American people, I extend my highest
regards and my assurances that there is an entire nation of people just a
step to the south from here who do not harbor the slightest animosity
towards their big northern neighbor. Individuals who either do not know,
or do not want to know, or are not interested in knowing what Cuba really
is have, systematically slandered those people, and that country,
throughout this trial. I am going to take the liberty of reading an
excerpt from a letter written by my wife on July 30:
"René, there are
constant shows of support here for us, the families, and for all of you.
Yesterday, when I took bus 58 home from Mom’s house, a number of people
recognized me, and Yvette was talking to everyone. Because it’s carnival
time, the bus filled right up when we went through Centro Habana, and
Yvette decided to act up when it was time for us to get off; she sat
herself down on the stairs of the bus and refused to get up. You can
imagine what it was like, the bus full of people, me bouncing around
trying to pick her up and not being able to, Yvette glued to her spot and
everyone pushing. Then a woman came up to me; she squeezed my hand and
gave me a prayer card she had suddenly pulled out of her purse, entitled,
"A Happy Home". And she said, ‘At my church we pray for the
five every day, and we pray for their children to have a happy home, like
Jesus did, because they were over there so that all children would have a
happy home as well.’
"She kind of caught
me by surprise, I almost didn’t have time to thank her because I had to
get off the bus quickly, but I realized that this is the way we Cubans
are. And today we are more united than ever, regardless of beliefs or
religions, everyone with their own faith, but all united in the same
cause. I am going to keep the prayer card as a memento."
I feel obliged to stop
reading here to clarify that I am not a religious person. I do not want
the prosecution to distort my words later and claim that I have brought
God into this courtroom out of hypocrisy.
Your Honor:
As you can see, even to
talk about Cuba I do not need to air my political beliefs here. Others
have done it in the framework of this trial throughout three years, oozing
irrational hatred. And this hatred is even more absurd when you realize
that it has been bred at a gut level, that it is a visceral hatred aimed
at something that they simply do not know. It is truly sad to be taught to
hate something that you do not even know.
And so there have been
people here speaking with impunity against Cuba, offending a nation of
people whose only crime is having chosen their own path, and having
defended that choice successfully, at the cost of enormous sacrifices. I
am not going to give anyone the benefit of distracting myself with all the
lies told here about Cuba, but I will refer to one that was so monstrous
as to amount to disrespect for this courtroom and the jury:
When Mr. Kastrenakes
stood up and said, in front of this symbol of American justice, that we
had come here to destroy the United States, he showed how little that
symbol and that justice matter to him, and he also showed how little
respect he had for the jury. Unfortunately, he was right with regard to
the latter.
Neither the evidence in
this case, or history, or our beliefs, nor the education we received
supports the absurd idea that Cuba wants to destroy the United States. The
problems of the human race cannot be resolved by destroying any country;
for too many centuries, empires have been destroyed only for similar or
worse empires to be built on their ruins. Any threat to this nation is not
going to come from a people like the people of Cuba, where it is
considered immoral to burn a flag, whether it is from the United States or
any other country.
If you allow me, as a
descendant of industrious and hard-working Americans, with the privilege
of having been born in this country and the privilege of having grown up
in Cuba, I would tell the noble American people not to look so far to the
south to find the threat to the United States.
Cling to the real and
genuine values that inspired the founding fathers of this nation. The lack
of these values, pushed aside by other less idealistic interests, is the
real threat to this society. Power and technology can become a weakness if
they are not in the hands of cultured people, and the hatred and ignorance
we have seen here towards a small country, which nobody here knows, can be
dangerous when combined with a blinding sense of power and false
superiority. Go back to Mark Twain and forget about Rambo if you really
want to leave your children a better country. Every alleged Christian who
was brought up here to lie after swearing on the Bible is a threat to this
country, in view of the way their conduct served to undermine these
values.
Your Honor:
Having written these
words in preparation for my sentencing, scheduled for September 26, the
tragic and horrendous crimes of September 11 have obliged me to add a few
reflections that I cannot fail to share with this Court. I must be very
tactful, to ensure that nobody can accuse me of capitalizing on these
abominable acts in my own favor. But there are times when we must speak
certain truths, no matter how painful they may be. It is very much like
telling a son or daughter, a brother or sister, when they have made a
mistake, and we want, out of love, to help them avoid making that same
mistake in the future. It is in that spirit that I want to speak through
you with this message to the American people.
The seeds of the tragedy
that has plunged this nation into mourning today were sown many years ago.
We were led to believe that by shooting down civilian planes and bombing
schools, in a place as distant as it was unknown, certain individuals were
fighting for freedom, simply because they were fighting communism. I would
never blame the American people for that lack of vision; but those who
provided the missiles and created an image of those people that did not
match their criminal acts were also committing the crime of hypocrisy.
And I am not looking back
into the past to rub it in anyone’s face. I merely want to invite you to
look at the present and reflect on the future, by sharing the following
reflection with this court: "Yesterday’s hypocrisy is to today’s
tragedy what today’s hypocrisy will be to tomorrow’s tragedy." We
all have a responsibility towards our children, which goes beyond
political prejudices or the petty need to earn a salary, hold on to an
ephemeral political post or ingratiate ourselves with a handful of
tycoons. That responsibility obliges us to put aside today’s hypocrisy,
so that we can give them a tomorrow free of tragedies.
They have sought to judge
the five of us in the name of this hypocrisy, and now that it is my turn
to face my sentence, I realize that, unlike my comrades, I do not even
have the right to consider myself a victim. They way in which I conducted
myself perfectly coincides with the description offered in the charges
brought against me. If I have come to this trial, it is out of solidarity
with my brothers, and in order to speak certain truths and refute the lies
with which the prosecution tried to exaggerate my activities and present
me as a danger to American society.
Therefore, I do not even
have the right to ask for clemency at a moment like this, a moment at
which this court will have seen who knows how many converts, some genuine,
others false, some finding God after signing a pact with the Devil, all of
them using this podium to show their repentance. I cannot judge them, and
each will know what to do with his dignity. I also know what to do with
mine, and I would like to believe that you would understand that I have no
reason to repent.
Yet, I will always feel
obliged to ask for justice for my comrades, accused of crimes they did not
commit and sentenced on the basis of prejudices by a jury that passed up a
unique opportunity to make a difference. They never attempted to obtain
any secrets from this country, and as for the most monstrous accusation,
it was merely a matter of a patriot defending the sovereignty of his
nation. Quoting the words of a good Cuban and friend, who despite having
come to this country for disagreeing with the Cuban government is still an
honorable person, I want to take advantage of this moment to pay tribute
to the worthy Cubans who live here as well, and to refute, along the way,
another of the lies spread by the prosecution regarding our feelings
towards the Cuban community: "Those boys were convicted for the crime
of dignity."
Over two years ago, I
received a letter from my father, in which he said, among other things,
that he hoped a jury would be found in which the values of Washington,
Jefferson and Lincoln prevailed. It is shameful that he turned out to be
wrong.
But I have not lost hope
in the human race and its capacity to pursue those values. After all, I do
not think that Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln themselves represented
the majority during the era in which they left their mark on the history
of this nation.
And as these three sordid
years go down in history, and a mountain of arguments, motions and
technicalities come to bury a story of blackmail, power abuse and the most
absolute contempt for such a highly praised justice system, polished to a
shine it never had, we will continue to appeal to those values, and to the
American people’s vocation for truth. And we will do so with all the
patience, faith and courage that we draw from the crime of dignity.
Thank you very much.
René González Sehwerert
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