Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated
Until now I had decided not to write about the five Cuban spies, who are
serving sentences in the United States, mainly out of consideration and
respect for the feelings of their families. However, in the face of the
frenzied media campaign unleashed by the Cuban authorities, with the
obvious complicity of them, I consider it necessary to clarify some
issues, overly manipulated to convince nationals and foreigners of their
supposed innocence, and that the whole thing is simply the aggression of
the Empire against some poor little Cubans.
These five citizens were caught red-handed – after an intense and
thorough investigation to gather evidence — conducting espionage as
Cuban intelligence agents planted in the U.S. as part of the Wasp
Network with seven others, who agreed to testify. Of those, although
Cubans like the others, also with families, not a word has been said,
they have ceased to exist, they have entered the limbo of non-persons.
They all confessed their guilt and were tried by a jury, the composition
of which both the prosecution and defense agreed upon, in the State
where they committed their crimes, and sentenced to various penalties,
depending on their degree of responsibility and cooperation with the
justice, to clarify the facts.
Although they had been detained for nearly three years in the process of
accumulating evidence, we Cubans learned of them only when they were
tried, since the usual secrecy took care to hide it. Despite the
infantile argument that they were spying to protect Cuba from the United
States and from terrorists (like finding an unauthorized alien in our
home who, when discovered, argues he had come to protect us), which no
one with a modicum of intelligence can accept, this has become the
banner of struggle for so-called "Cause of the Five" and they are even
put forward as international personalities, whether from political
opportunism, mental inertia, or true lack of basic reasoning, I don't know.
During these years, besides having at their disposal a team of U.S. and
Cuban lawyers, paid for with money from the Cuban people, their families
have practiced and are practicing international tourism, also at the
Cuban peoples' expense. They have become national celebrities, with a
presence in any public ceremony that takes place.
They talk about terrible and inhumane prison conditions and violation of
rights, when in fact they serve their sentences in appropriate detention
facilities, with medical attention, are well fed and clothed, neat, with
phones and internet access and can receive visitors, study, write
patriotic letters, send messages of solidarity and gratitude, play chess
games with Cuban children and write poems, paint and put on art
exhibitions, conditions very different from those of the prisoners in Cuba.
If that was not enough, they also have at their disposal the President
of the National Assembly, whose main job description seems to be, in the
opinion on the street, to serve them and their family members, and to
call and open and close, with blows of hammer, the two annual sessions
of that body. It has come to the absurd point where in the press the
case of the five is one of the unrenounceable causes of the Cuban
nation. We have always had problems with the just measure of things:
either we miss or we fall short. We regularly miss.
It is human and understandable to appeal and fight for the freedom of
loved ones, even if they committed a crime. I can understand that there
are even people who, by conviction or bigotry, spend years of their
lives, or more, in prison unfairly. What is unacceptable is to
manipulate the truth to raise awareness among citizens and to seek,
through this, what could not be achieved through the courts for justice.
A government paranoia does not have to become a national paranoia. These
five people have had more chances to appeal than did the three* young
Cubans were shot in less than seventy-two hours after being arrested,
prosecuted, tried, sentenced, filed appeals, upheld the convictions,
etc., in a demonstration of efficiency of justice in Cuba.
*Translator's note: Fernando is speaking of the young men who hijacked
the 13 de Marzo tugboat hoping to go to Florida, but never made it out
of Cuban waters.
October 7 2011
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