Cuban Five ‘defended revolution against colossal injustice’
https://themilitant.com/2021/01/23/cuban-five-defended-revolution-against-colossal-injustice/
Above right, “The Jury’s Verdict” by Antonio Guerrero depicts fellow
prisoners loudly applauding Cuban Five on their return after they were
convicted, which he called “the first act of solidarity with our cause.”
Above left, Cubans in Holguín celebrate release of remaining members of
the Five. Below, from left, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, Gerardo
Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and René González reunited in Havana, Dec.
17, 2014.
RIGHT, “THE JURY’S VERDICT” BY ANTONIO GUERRERO, PHOTOS LEFT, ESTUDIOS
REVOLUCIÓN
Above right, “The Jury’s Verdict” by Antonio Guerrero depicts fellow
prisoners loudly applauding Cuban Five on their return after they were
convicted, which he called “the first act of solidarity with our cause.”
Above left, Cubans in Holguín celebrate release of remaining members of
the Five. Below, from left, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, Gerardo
Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and René González reunited in Havana, Dec.
17, 2014.
One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for January is Absolved by
Solidarity: 16 Watercolors for 16 Years of Unjust Imprisonment of the
Cuban Five, a bilingual edition in English and Spanish, by Antonio
Guerrero. The Cuban revolutionaries had been gathering information to
help the Cuban government prevent attacks from Miami by rightist Cuban
exiles sponsored by successive U.S. administrations. The Cuban Five were
framed up and jailed with long sentences. Guerrero said their “harsh and
unjust sentences had only one purpose: punishing Cuba.” On Dec. 17,
2014, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Guerrero were freed under
the pressure of the “jury of millions,” joining René González and
Fernando González in Cuba. The excerpts are from the introduction by the
editor, Mary-Alice Waters, and remarks by Guerrero. Copyright © 2015 by
Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
THE JURY OF MILLIONS HAS SPOKEN!
THE CUBAN FIVE ARE FREE!
On December 17, 2014, more than sixteen years after the battle began,
Cuban president Raúl Castro informed the world that Gerardo Hernández,
Ramón Labañino, and Antonio Guerrero were home. They join René González
and Fernando González on Cuban soil.
Across the island Cubans poured into the streets from factories,
schools, and offices expressing their joy. Supporters around the world
joined in celebration.
Gerardo Hernández gave voice to the sentiments of each of the Five when
he told a national television audience in Cuba, “We’ve turned the page
on the pain and abuses of prison. We’re on a new page now,” ready for
new battles. “You can count on us for whatever is needed,” he told
President Castro, who welcomed them.
Above all, it was the firmness, dignity, courage, and discipline of the
Five that made possible the hard-fought victory won by the people of
Cuba, their government, and a “jury of millions” around the world.
As Washington moves toward establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba
for the first time in more than half a century, a new front has now
opened in the decades-long battle to defend Cuban independence and
sovereignty. Raúl Castro explained it unflinchingly in his message to
the Cuban people: “In no way has the heart of the matter been solved.
The economic, commercial, and financial blockade, which causes enormous
human and economic damages to our country, must cease.” The battle to
advance and defend Cuba’s socialist revolution continues as it has since
January 1, 1959.
Absolved by Solidarity was on its way to press the day its principal
author and artist was freed from prison. The printing was postponed long
enough to record that victory on the cover and add these few words and
photographs. Publication of this powerful portrait of sixteen years of
struggle could not be more timely. In its pages you will find not a
backward glance at the “pain and abuses of prison.” You will find the
dignity, strength, and humanity of the Cuban Revolution and the five
unbowed soldiers who have become the face of that revolution the world over.
Absolved by Solidarity, indeed. As promised by Fidel, they have returned.
Mary-Alice Waters
December 20, 2014
?
I decided several months ago that the paintings would focus on our
frame-up trial in Miami. This project grew out of the fifteen
watercolors I did in 2013, which sought to tell the horrendous story of
our seventeen months in punishment cells. In essence, this is a
continuation of that story. …
We hope this work will serve in some way to provide a picture of those
days when, with the dignity we learned from our people, the five of us
defended truth against colossal injustice.
We never felt defeated. We knew we would be acquitted by the honest men
and women of the world, who have today become a growing wave of
solidarity that won’t break until it carries us home.
Antonio Guerrero
Federal Correctional Institution
Marianna, Florida
August 29, 2014
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George H. Smith “It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain,
emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how
comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on
the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands,
on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his
reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is
good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature, and there
is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through
reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is
destructive to human life.” ― George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God