When will the Cuban Five get justice?
Makhdoom Babar

A LOT has been said about the US-led global war against terror. Washington has been voicing loud over growing terrorism across the globe and has been forcing the global community to take more and more steps to curb and counter terrorism. However when it comes to the terrorism, originating from the US soil, with or without the notice of the US administration, it appears that in such cases, Washington is having a totally different policy and so is the case with the Cuban Five.
The Cuban Five are five men who went to the United States in the early 1990s in response to the wave of violence directed at Cuba by mercenary groups from the Cuban exile community in southern Florida. Their names are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labańino, Fernando Gonzáles and René González.
The Five were sent by the Cuban government unarmed and without any plan to inflict harm on the U.S. Their sole purpose was to infiltrate the network of terrorist groups that had been attacking Cuba since the triumph of the Revolution.
They came at a particular time in the history of the Cuban Revolution. Cuba’s number one trading partner, the Soviet Union, had recently collapsed, and the economy of Cuba had gone into freefall. The Cuban government decided that one of the ways to restore economic health in Cuba was to engage in the tourist industry. The tourist industry was built up in 1992-93 and was an ongoing concern through 1994-95. In response, the mercenary wing of the Cuban exile community in South Florida decided to begin a violent terror campaign against the tourist industry as a way of undercutting the Cuban economy.
Bombs were placed in various hotels by anti-Cuban terrorists, in one instance killing an Italian tourist. A bomb was placed in the Havana airport. Bombs were placed in buses to and from the airport. The Cuban government protested these terrorist activities to the U.S., but to no avail. They protested to the United Nations, also without a response. As a result, beginning in the 1994-95 period, the Cuban Five came forward to protect their country.
The Five quickly succeeded in infiltrating the groups and reporting warnings to Cuba of the plans being developed to attack Cuba. In 1996-97, the U.S. government became aware of their presence in this country, and the FBI rounded them up in 1998. They were prosecuted on a variety of charges, including failure to register as foreign agents. Three were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage; one was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
A Miami jury convicted them on all counts after a seven-month trial. The trial of the Five was the longest trial in the history of the U.S. at the time. During the trial, the attorneys for the Five requested a change of venue from Miami to another city five times. The judge denied each request.
In December 2001, two of the Five were sentenced to life in prison, one to 19 years, and one to 15 years. Gerardo Hernández received two life terms. Their freedom will depend not only on the arduous work of the defense team but just as importantly on the public support that can be organized. Over 250 committees have been established in the United States and around the world, demanding immediate freedom for Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René.
Important declarations have been made by hundreds of parliamentarians in Britain, Italy, and the European and Latin American Parliaments. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, with five judges, ruled that there were irregularities in the Five’s trial and arrest, effectively denying them a fair trial and calls on the U.S. government to remedy this injustice.
In the United States, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five is working very hard to build broad support for these anti-terrorist heroes, with forums and video showings, media and publicity work, and a march that was held on Sept. 23, 2006 in front of the White House.
For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against Cuba, and against anyone who advocates a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. More than 3,000 Cubans have died as a result of these terrorists’ attacks.
Terrorist Miami groups like Commandos F4 and Brothers to the Rescue operate with complete impunity from within the United States to attack Cuba—with the knowledge and support of the FBI and CIA.
Therefore, Cuba made the careful and necessary decision to send the Five Cubans to Miami to monitor the terrorists. The Cuban Five infiltrated the terrorist organizations in Miami to inform Cuba of imminent attacks.
The aim of such a clandestine operation by the Cuban Five—at great personal risk—was to prevent criminal acts, and thus protect the lives of Cubans and other people. But instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the Cuban Five ANTI-terrorists on September 12, 1998. The Five were illegally held in solidarity confinement for 17 months in Miami jail.
The trial began in November 2000. With the seven-month trial based in Miami, a virtual witch-hunt atmosphere existed. Defense attorneys’ motions for a change of venue were denied five times by the judge, although it was obvious that a fair trial was impossible in that city. In a blow to justice, the Cuban Five were convicted June 8, 2001 and sentenced to four life terms and 75 years in December, 2001.
Meanwhile, on August 9, 2005, after seven years of unjust imprisonment, the Cuban Five won an unprecedented victory on appeal. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial outside of Miami.
However, in an unexpected reversal on Oct. 31, the 11th Circuit Court vacated the three-judge panel’s ruling and granted an “en banc” hearing before the full panel of 12 judges. Exactly one year after the victory that granted the Five a new trial, the panel voted 10 to 2 to deny the Five heroes a new trial, and instead affirmed the trial court. Nine remaining issues of appeal are before the three-judge panel (it is actually two judges now, one has retired), and as of December 2006, final supplemental documents were submitted by defense and prosecution.
Now it is to be seen as to who will dispense justice to these five Cubans, who had come forward to curb and eliminate terrorism, in their capacities. It is to be seen how the US comes out with its stance to curb and crush global terrorism and how it defends its global war on terrorism when it comes to the fate of the five member anti-terrorism team, that was, at the time of arrest, gaining immense success in eliminating terrorism and to make the world a more safer place.

Hullabaloo or harmony?
Valerie Sartor

O
Even after over two years as an English instructor in north China, my five senses still get overloaded, sometimes pleasantly and sometimes appallingly. Edward T. Hall, a renowned anthropologist, defined culture by what we pay attention to and what we ignore while using our sensory apparatus. Anyone living in China immediately understands this vast gulf of preference. The sense of smell inevitably evokes many Proustian memories. Here in China it can range for foreigners from gagging at open sewers to ardently following the pungent aroma of a street vendor’s spicy Xinjiang lamb kebabs.
Amazing sights for ex-pat’s eyes seem ordinary to a Chinese. For example, in Beijing, surveying the endless hordes of harried travelers swarming and surging forth from the Beijing Railway Station is enough to make me feel faint. Watching a young Chinese father tenderly cuddling his infant daughter in the People’s Park provokes a sentimental smile, even tears.
Our third sense—that of taste—represents powerful physical pleasure for most people. I know I’ll never be able to come close to trying the infinite variety of foods and things categorized as Chinese foodstuffs. The fourth sense—touch, the beloved sense—recalls for me here in China the pleasant, insistent embrace of a girlfriend guiding me across a busy boulevard, as well as the heavenly skin scrubbings I get at my local bath house every week.
The final sense, the sense of sound, either shatters or promotes peace and perception, for sound can assail or delight our sensitive ears. Significantly, in China noise is hard to define accurately. I especially despise drivers who bang belligerently on their car horns like undisciplined three year olds. Under their cultural premise, however, they are simply cautioning lesser citizens regarding their travel agenda. At the other end of the spectrum rests the eerie silence of my classroom of 55 graduate students, all unwilling to utter a word. Thus, although my five senses are all-acute and serve me well, it is the sense of sound that has jolted me into perceiving more of the great gap between the East and the West.
Foreigners perceive the Chinese as a noisy nation because public sound symbolizes prosperity and happiness here. Restaurants are packed with hungry, boisterous people all determined to eat well, loudly toast each other and express their joy at a noise level Westerners perceive as raucous and unsuitable. Chinese eateries routinely provide private dining rooms where strident singing and rowdy laughter reverberate through the neighboring walls. Many restaurants also supply karaoke equipment and/or hired musicians in traditional costumes to blare out serenades for guests.
Noise in China is also designed to attract attention. Sound signals listeners to either pay attention or to move, exemplified by those smug Audi chauffeurs. Along open storefronts, entrepreneurs set up podiums and makeshift stages. Bands and bad stereo systems blare out sappy songs, hopefully enticing shoppers inside the store to pump them up for a sale rather than just a look around. Conversely, silence in China frequently signifies respect and modesty. In the classroom my students do not speak up even if they know the answer. No one wants to appear as either the class show-off or as the class dimwit. Hence, most Chinese professors simply lecture; students sit silently, absorbing and listening. Hospitals, clinics and dental offices are also quiet.
Another key difference rests in music. As a Western woman from New Mexico, I grew up in a multicultural sound environment. Latin music as well as rock resonated through my ears; I avidly listened to mariachis as well as Madonna. But only in church did I ever sing in public and only repetitive religious dirges. Unlike my passive Western music culture here Chinese people of all ages enthusiastically perform songs and play instruments publicly. Even my shy students will sing before they’ll speak. People constantly clamor in restaurants for mics. Innumerable amateur musicians sit in parks, strumming ancient instruments and warbling tunes. This noise symbolizes emotional release, deep sentiment and a primal passion.
The enigmatic Easterner is no different in his heart than any Westerner. Tune into this and any complaints about Chinese culture will fade out, replaced by the exotic mellifluous melody of the peaceful Middle Kingdom.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)




Counter-terrorism by military & legal means
Ameen Izzadeen

TERRORISM, terrorism, terrorism. The word reverberated around the committee B auditorium of the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall for three days last week with experts expressing views on how best the world could deal a crushing blow to this menacing phenomenon facing the 21st century. In the process, as usual, the experts who gathered in Colombo for the International Conference on Countering Terrorism seemed to have missed the wood for the trees. That terrorism does not operate in a vacuum was lost on the experts.
Behind what is generally identified as terrorism is always a political problem. Some experts acknowledged it but only when they talked about the type of terrorism countries like Sri Lanka face – not when they spoke about the West’s war on terror. All in all, the focus remained on counter-measures by military and legal means. It was largely left to the audience to raise questions of political aspects and root causes of terrorism. The tone of the conference underscored the Marxist notion that the state is an instrument of oppression with speaker after speaker expressing concern about the challenge to its survival and not about the people who have become victims of state terror.
Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, chairman of the French Anti-Terrorist Judges, for instance, said that even at the cost of individual freedom, terrorism had to be eliminated. “...the combat against terrorism has to be led resolutely, without any weakness or concession; even if it means carrying out measured infringements of individual freedoms if required by circumstances.” Was the judge approving the Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the outsourcing of torture and legislation that deny freedom and privacy?
Groups that resist the oppressive nature of the state turn to violence as a last resort — call it terrorism — when the space for obtaining justice is denied to them. Yet states call themselves democracies. But in a true democracy, there is no place for oppression. A true or ideal democracy is not only founded on popular will but also on justice. The majority can have their way, but the minority must have their say. Besides, there is no international mechanism by which aggrieved groups could obtain justice when they do not find justice in countries they live.
Terrorism is a byproduct of the state’s failure to uphold justice, respect minority views –in certain cases the majority view, too — and be truly democratic. If Sri Lanka had been a truly democratic country where minority grievances could have been addressed in a just manner, we would not be facing the menace of terrorism today. The policies of successive governments in the post-Independence Sri Lanka made the minority Tamil community feel that they were being discriminated on grounds of race and language. The more the state asserted a Sinhala identity instead of an all-embracing Sri Lankan identity, the more intense the question of the Tamil problem became.
If only our governments had tried to address Tamil grievances in a democratic and just way, instead of sending the army to the north and the east, Sri Lanka would have been a true paradise isle as the country’s tourism brochures even in the midst of a self-destructive war still claim it to be. But the government, which co-hosted the conference together with the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations, was in no mood to listen to such advice. Blowing its own trumpet, Sri Lanka told the conference that the country stood as showcase for the rest of the world to know that terrorism could be defeated by military means and development plans.

—Khaleej Times