On 20 January, the 55th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution was celebrated at a cultural and political event in the Venezuelan Embassy’s Bolivar Hall. The event was attended by diplomats from the Cuban Embassy and the embassies of other countries which are members of ALBA – the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. Also present were British trade unión leaders and ex - miners, members of solidarity organisations in solidarity with Cuba and Cubans living in Britain.
Netfa Freeman is a longtime activist/organizer who has worked on Cuba solidarity issues for several years. A frequent traveler to Cuba, Netfa talks about his visit last November in support of the Cuban 5.
Gregory Elich: You've recently returned from Cuba, where you attended the Ninth International Colloquium to Free the Cuban 5. In 1998, five Cubans who were monitoring the activities of U.S.-based anti-Cuba terrorist groups were arrested by the FBI and imprisoned on charges of espionage. What can you tell us about the current status of the Cuban 5?
Netfa Freeman: Well, all five were arrested in September of 1998. As far as their current status, I suppose the first thing people should know is that one of them, René González, was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Marianna, Florida on October 7, 2011, after serving his entire 13-year sentence. On April 22, 2013 René returned to Cuba for his father's funeral and on May 11, Judge Lenard allowed him to stay there provided that he would renounce his United States citizenship. Soon to be released from the Fed pen in Safford, Arizona is FernandoGonzalez, in February. This will also be because Fernando's sentence will have been served.
This is an anti-communist diatribe, without a single fact but full of distortions and outrights lies. Not even Amnesty International claims that Cuba’s prisoners are tortured – or in any other way abused. In fact, the only place where there is torture in Cuba is in the US base on illegally occupied Cuban territory at Guantanamo.
This Sunday January 5th, Send messages to Obama via Twitter: @BarackObama
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Follow us on twitter: @thecuban5; @Madresdelos5
Or call the White House to join the worldwide demand for their freedom.
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Among the key aims in the process of ‘updating’ the Cuban economy, approved by the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 2011, is the reunification of Cuba’s two currencies: the Cuban Peso (CUP) and the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC). In October 2013 it was announced that steps towards this had begun. The CUP has been Cuban currency since 1961. In 1993 during the economic crisis of the Special Period, the US dollar was legalised and ‘dollar shops’ initially opened to sell non-essential or imported items to tourists, as the tourist industry became a growing source of income. The CUC was introduced in around 1993 to substitute the function of the US dollar. It was pegged to the US dollar but printed and controlled by the Cuban Central Bank. Helen Yaffe reports.
Labour MPs Natascha Engel and Grahame Morris cast a Commons spotlight on vicious US abuses of Cuba yesterday.
Ms Engel harried Foreign Office ministers over the US blockade of the socialist island, while Mr Morris called for action over the case of the Miami Five Cubans imprisoned by the US.
Foreign Office Minister David Liddington faced a demand from Ms Engel to "use all of his influence to persuade the US to lift the blockade, which is bad for Cubans, bad for trade and bad for British business."
President Barack Obama The White House Washington, DC
Dear President Obama,
As a naturalized citizen of the United States I want to ask you, my President, to commute the sentences of four persons, often known as the Cuban Five. Their names are: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González. [The fifth, René González,was recently released from prison after serving his sentence].
I am particularly interested in their case because I think their imprisonment, the result of a flawed trial, is a roadblock to normal relations between the United States and Cuba. Let me explain.
Esperanza Spalding - We Are America from on ESP Media on Viemo.
Grammy Award-winning musician has a problem with using the phrase "protest song" to describe her new recording, "We Are America." The song, along with its accompanying music video, demands congressional action to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
" 'Protest' doesn't seem accurate to me," she tells NPR's Celeste Headlee. "We weren't thinking of a 'protest' song, we're thinking of a 'let's get together and do something pro-active, creative and productive' song."
The daily independent global news hour Democracy Now (today's program) presented today an exclusive with Rene Gonzalez (video), former Cuban intelligence agent and freed member of the Cuban Five and Ricardo Alarcon (video), former foreign minister of Cuba and past president of the Cuban National Assembly.
TRANSCRIPT
Democracy Now presented today an exclusive with René González, former Cuban intelligence agent and freed member of the Cuban Five:
I'm Amy Goodman, with a Democracy Now! exclusive. We turn now to René González, the only freed member of the Cuban Five. He was released in October of 2011. He returned to Cuba in April of this year after being jailed in the United States for 13 years. I recently spoke to him from Havana via Democracy Now! video stream. I began by asking him why he came to the United States to investigate militant Cuban exile groups.
