Comments on: Americans Held Hostage

By: Josie Michel-Brüning

Josie Michel-Brüning — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:50:32 +0000

Dear “kalidas”, you are absolutely right. My impression is that most U.S. citizens are yawning as soon as it comes to Cuba, apart from those living in the area of Miami. Whereas the still dominating Cuban exile groups seem to be thinking of nothing else but revenge the others live more or less intimidated there while not daring to speak out for a peaceful relation with Cuba.
Because of my poor English it is very difficult to explain why I, nevertheless, want to insist on the necessity of watching the case of the “Cuban Five”.
There is a certain link between the Cuban Five and the detainees in Guantánamo. Once regarded as terrorists scarcely anybody of the Guantánamo detainees had a chance for proving his innocence so far, despite of the Geneva Convention and your own constitution.
Meanwhile, a mighty group in Miami is regarding the Cuban Five as spies for their gathering of information without weapons among them about terrorist attacks against their country and warning its authorities against them. (Cuba complainde in 1999 3,478 dead and 2,099 injured people in front of the U.N. because of that.)
The Cuban Five are not just five Cuban men, rather they represent not only Cuba, not only Latin America, but all countries wanting to develop freely, to choose their own way of life, in fact they don’t want to be attacked from outside of their country, as they don’t attack any other country, they do want to live in peace.
The only crime of the Five: having been unregistered agents of a foreign nation. However, they acted in “defence of necessity” for preventing more dead and injured persons, they saved the live of U.S. citizens wanting to fly from central America fo Cuba.
But now they are hostages of the U.S. as a punishment for the resistance of their country.

By: kalidas

kalidas — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:55:49 +0000

And even if the whole world is not yawning at the 20,000+ Tamils killed so ruthlessly and so quickly, recently, most of the world is.

By: Josie Michel-Brüning

Josie Michel-Brüning — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:17:43 +0000

Thank you very much James McEnteer for all of your good arguments.
Occasionally, to the following: “This week, the Obama Administration filed a brief urging the Court to deny the Five a hearing. The next day, the Five’s attorneys filed their response” ( according to news I received yesterday, both legal briefs are on http://www.freethefive.org), I want to refer especially to:
“As Debs knew, we cannot predicate our own freedom on the oppression of others, whoever they may be. That is not true liberty.”
While the whole world is upset because of Guantánamo there are also thousands of people round the globe worried because of the fate of the Cuban Five being imprisoned since more than 10 years because of trying to prevent terrorism against their country originating from Miami based exile groups being supported by U.S. authorities, and as it looks like by Obama too..