10-12-06, 8:42 am

AS a show of solidarity with the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States for combating terrorism, a meeting was held between British MPs and families of the Five at the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples in Havana.

The delegation’s members showed interest in the current situation of the men and in the families’ viewpoint as a whole regarding this situation, which they qualified as a 'total injustice, a political act of cowardliness and intimidation.'

The families said that the Five remain in the same isolated prisons, serving the extremely heavy sentences that were handed down to them and being treated like common criminals.

At the same time, they noted the difficulties that the United States government keeps creating to prevent them from visiting. Olga Salanueva, the wife of René González, said that the U.S. government told her 'clearly not to ask anymore for a visa, that they weren’t going to give her one.'

The wives and mothers of the Five also expressed gratitude for the international campaign of solidarity with the prisoners.

The movement was a propitious one for Olga to point out the real goals of the U.S. government and the lack of transparency in the U.S. legal system.

'What has been happening from the legal point of view is something that we cannot allow to continue. They want this process to be interminable, for those with lighter sentences to complete them and for the three with life sentences to die in prison.

'Last year, we had a victory because there were three judges with ethics, honorable men who were able to bring to light the fact that the trial was a complete fraud. However, this year we have a completely opposite response. The 11th Circuit Court — almost as a whole — has been as immoral as to say that the rat hole of south Florida is an ideal place for a fair trial of those who are fighting terrorism.

'Now we have to wait until these judges go back and review the complete file, but even in the best of cases, if they find in our favor, the prosecution could appeal again. That is why all those who are supporting the Five and particularly us, as the families, are saying that we’ve had enough of trials, enough of issuing papers and reviewing papers, that there is one truth: they must be freed and they must be decorated as heroes.

'For her part, Elizabeth Palmeiro, wife of Ramón Labañino, highlighted the hypocrisy of the United States in its much-trumpeted fight against terrorism. 'These are five Cubans who were fighting against terrorism and that is not acknowledged by the U.S. authorities.'

In response to these statements, Welsh MP Adam Pride said: 'We share in the sentiment of those who watch with anguish and pain as the United States says that it is fighting against terrorism and at the same time protecting another type of terrorism.'

Ian Gibson promised the families and the Cuban people that he would continue to advocate freedom for the Five in the UK and throughout the world.

BOOK LAUNCHED IN USA

The International Free the Five Committee has carried out a tour of several U.S. cities to launch the book Superpower Principles. U.S. Terrorism Against Cuba, edited by Salim Lamrani, which includes essays by eminent writers and intellectuals from around the world, such as Noam Chomsky, Saul Landau and Piero Gleijeses. The book, which received no attention in the United States, is being promoted by its own authors, who have spoken at launches in New York, Boston, Washington and other cities.

SOLIDARITY IN THE WORLD KEEPS GROWING

In the rest of the world, the fight to free the Five keeps growing.

In Laos, it was the main theme of an event at the Kaysone Phomvihane National Defense Academy, with the participation of more than 200 cadets and officers, together with members of Cuba friendship associations, government representatives and the People’s Revolutionary Party.

The Friends of Cuba Association in North West Province, South Africa was officially constituted at an official event, and with this new branch, the solidarity organization in that country now has members in five of the country’s nine provinces.

And Julius Mwandawiro, president of the Cuba-Kenya Friendship Association, has sent a message of firmness and resistance to the 'five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters, prisoners in the United States.'

In Moscow, at the Business Polytechnic Institute, a conference on the Five took place with the participation of hundreds of students and professors.   From Granma