Antonio Guerrero Sentenced to 21 Years and 10 Months
BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE CUBAN FIVE
Miami, October 13, 2009
The following organizations have issued this declaration: The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five; the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five; and the organizations of the Cuban Immigration in Miami that together comprise the Alianza Martiana (Marti Alliance): the Antonio Maceo Brigade, the Alianza Martiana as an individual organization, the Alliance of Workers of the Cuban Community (ATC), the José Martí Association, and political parties of the United States who are part of the Cuban Five solidarity movement.
With our declaration we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to maintain and strengthen our efforts to demand the immediate freedom of our five brothers: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, as they are innocent of the charges that the U.S. government has convicted them of.
Today, Tuesday, October 13, 2009, in Miami’s United States Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, a hearing was held to reduce the sentence of one of our five brothers, Antonio Guerrero. It is one of three re-sentencing hearings ordered by the full panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2008. The U.S. Federal District Court has not yet set the date or dates of the other two re-sentencing hearings of our brothers Ramón Labañino and Fernando González.
In September 2008 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the trial court’s previous life sentence imposed on Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labañino, and the 19-year sentence imposed on Fernando González in December 2001. The Five were convicted in June 2001.
Today the Court imposed a prison sentence of 21 years and 10 months on Antonio Guerrero for his unjust conviction of conspiracy to commit espionage. Independently of the court process and the decisions that are issued by the court, we maintain our steadfast demand for the immediate freedom of the Cuban Five.
The judicial case prosecuted against our five brothers has nothing to do with justice. This is, and always has been, a political case.
Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, every administration of the U.S. government has maintained a policy of permanent aggression against the Cuban people. A fundamental part of this policy of aggression has been the use of violence against the Cuban people. For decades, U.S. administrations have been directly or indirectly involved — through terrorist organizations of the Cuban-American extreme right wing in the United States — in countless terrorist attacks against the Cuban people, causing the deaths of 3,478 Cuban men, women and children, and injuring 2,099 Cubans. The peace, security and well-being of the Cuban people have been tragically affected.
In the interest of defending its people — as any other responsible government would do — the government of Cuba assigned to the Five the task of infiltrating the terrorist organizations of the Cuban-American extreme right wing. Everyone in this city knows full well that the terrorist organizations have carried out campaigns of death and terror against the Cuban people for decades. Stopping terrorism was the mission of the Cuban Five.
Instead of arresting the terrorists and prosecuting them for their crimes, the U.S. government, a participant in these nefarious campaigns of death and terror, arrested the Five 11 years ago this past September. Since then it has kept them arbitrarily imprisoned.
It is for these reasons that today in Miami we reaffirm and make known to our five brothers, to their families and all our sisters and brothers in the U.S. and the international movement to Free the Five, as well as the Cuban people, our unalterable decision to continue and strengthen our struggle for their immediate freedom.
While waiting for his court hearing, Antonio Guerrero, wrote this poem and sent it to all his supporters from around the world.
I
Miami is before my eyes. I can’t sleep
An obstinate verse bounces
between the luxury of a skyscraper
and the tragedy of a broken shower.
through the window I see the rising sun
to light the green tinted windows,
in every direction people, with whom
I make an imaginary world, walk.
The Royal Caribbean cruises,
the McDonald’s, the school, the banks,
the homeless rummaging through the trash
the vendor under the umbrella
still there and again I look at them
from the “hole,” that is, “from my altitude.”
II
It is called Miami’s Down Town
a mass of steel, concrete and glasses.
During the day an authentic ant’s nest.
During the night a dangerous and empty place.
Its each time highest buildings
are symbols of power and opulence:
banks with millionaire transactions,
houses with few tenants.
In the cosmetic urbanization
there are parking lots for countless cars.
and I do not know how to say it in verse
but what captures more my attention
is to see that the public transportation
basically is used by the black people.
III
Once again orange jumper
Once again solitude between bricks.
Once again broken mattress without pillow.
Once again big noise in the hall.
Once again to change clothes once a week.
Once again tiny yellow pencil.
One again by a miracle a phone call.
Once again to walk without destiny.
Once again a cage to “recreate,”
This time even they don’t give coffee.
Once again dirty floor, cold shower.
Once again a “cop-out” to complain
and, of course, they don’t answer once again.
Once again “hole” and once again poetry.
BY ANTONIO GUERERRO
#58741-004
P.O. Box 898801
Oklahoma City, OK
USA 73189
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