Cuban journalists’ open letter to their colleagues all over the World To
see a crime in calm is to make it, said the Cuban National Hero, José
Martí, more than one century ago. The Cuban journalists call their
colleagues all over the World not to become accomplices of an injustice.
Five
Cuban citizens have been in jail for three years in Miami, the
terrorists’ city-housing. Since yesterday, and in staggered way, the
judge in charge of the case will probably dictate sentences of life
imprisonment for at least three of them. None of the five is guilty.
The
attorneys could not prove the guilt, the lawyers proved the innocence.
Most of you perhaps neither have been informed of this. Except for the
natural case of the Miami press, for the rest of the printed and
electronic media up to now it has not been headlines that five Cubans are
wrongly in jail. On September 11 the savagery destroyed the Twin Towers of
New York City. This action logically shocked the world.
During
weeks, the media didn’t speak about another topic. In any Cuban city the
terrorists cannot destroy sky-scrapers, because they don’t exist. On the
other hand, they can carry out other horror actions.
For
more than 40 years terrorists acting from the United States have killed
young teachers, defenseless fishermen, women, workers and peasants. They
made explode a civil airplane on flight. Or they have exploited bombs in
hotels to kill foreign tourists. Thousands of people have been murdered,
thousands are the orphans caused by terrorism.
To
all this it is added the biological war, the murdering attempts of Cuban
leaders, the sabotage to Cuban offices abroad, and the murdering of
diplomats just in the United States. That’s why these five prisoners of
the Empire, haven’ t been on the news for the big media. The Federal
Bureau of Investigations and the US authorities know perfectly the plans
and actions of the terrorist groups acting in Miami. But they have always
maintained indifference or complicity.
Regarding
the Miami terrorists, tolerance has been the behavior of the authorities
of the United States. A Cuban origin terrorist can make explode an
airplane in the middle of the flight, to kill 73 people, and then to live
free in the American territory. All that explains that five Cuban patriots
had to accomplish the honest, clean and sacred duty of protecting their
country, just intending to avoid death and terror.
They
never sought to hurt the American people or damage any American city,
neither they tried to put in danger the US security. Not even to know
military secrets. These five men watched over merciless terrorists,
enemies of the human being, people who is able to burn, in a real fascist
style, a painting masterpiece.
For
facing terrorism against their country, now they can be condemned to life
imprisonment, to keep away from their family, not seeing their children
grow or not stepping the homeland again.
Gerardo
Hernández Nordelo, Ramón Labańino, Antonio Guerrero, René González
and Fernando González are exemplary citizens, men who love life, of high
spirit and sense of humor, sensitive to poetry, worthy, lovers of their
family and high patriotism. They are learned men, exponents of the high
cultural level reached by the Cuban people. Men of thought and
convictions.
They
don’t deserve to go to the jail. They don’t deserve it from a legal
point of view, because their innocence was demonstrated during the trial,
neither from the moral and human point of view, because the defend a fair
and noble cause.
Today,
who are honestly opposed to terrorism, far from condemning them, should
make a homage to these five patriots.
The
Cuban journalists, considering offensive to the dignity what is made
against our brothers in Miami, call our colleagues from all the nations to
reach the truth by themselves and expose it to the world.
The
word is not to hide the truth, but to say it, José Martí noticed. We
invite you to write, speak, make articles and reports. Do please find an
answer to this question: Is it possible to be opposed to terrorism in the
world and at the same time to put in jail to five people who combat to the
terrorists? Each colleague’s honesty will make the conclusions.
Regarding
us, we are willing to offer you all the information we have on this case.
Please,
colleagues of the world, do not make silence: to remain silent is to kill.
The
ethics, the dignity and the prestige of the journalists profession, must
be defended with the truth. Inform your readers, TV-watchers and
listeners: In Miami, terrorists’ burrow, antiterrorist fighters are
condemned.
Havana,
December 11, 2001 III National Festival of the Printed Media
