Cubans wear yellow ribbons for agents jailed in US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Cubans wear yellow ribbons for agents jailed in US
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press | September 12, 2013 | Updated: September 12, 2013 3:35pm

HAVANA (AP) — Cubans tied yellow ribbons to homes, trees and lampposts across the capital Thursday, in an organized mass campaign to press for the return of several espionage agents imprisoned in the United States on the 15th anniversary of their arrest.

By using a symbol with deeply held cultural significance for many Americans, the campaign aims to raise support for the so-called Cuban Five in the United States where the public is largely unaware of their case, even if it's a daily cause celebre in Cuba.

"The symbolism of the yellow ribbon has a strong impact in the mind of Americans. It is a message of love that appeals to emotions," said Rene Gonzalez, the only one of the Cuban Five who has been released from prison.

"We are trying to send a message that we are human too," added Gonzalez, who has been heading the campaign.

The Five were arrested Sept. 12, 1998, and convicted three years later of spying on U.S. military installations in South Florida, as well as exile groups and politicians. Havana maintains that they were only monitoring militant exiles to prevent terror attacks in Cuba, and posed no threat to U.S. sovereignty.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Cubans-wear-yellow-ribbons-for-agents-jailed-in-US-4808906.php?cmpid=usw

[Peace Patriot]

1. Free the Cuban Five!

They had damn good reason to monitor the Miami mafia and its anti-Cuba cabals. The U.S. is harboring the guy who blew up a Cuban airliner--who admitted it, who bragged about it. It is harboring several Latin American fascist criminals wanted for other heinous acts. And Miami is the hot-bed of all this harm and potential harm.

Neither is the U.S. government and military innocent of harming Cubans, through overt acts of aggression, spying, dirty tricks and undeserved and cruel sanctions, and a relentless propaganda campaign, against a government that is recognized everywhere else in the world but here, and that furthermore has done great good in the world over the last thirty years or so, not only providing all of Cuba's people with free and topnotch medical care and free education through university, but taking free medical care and highly successful educational programs to poor people in other countries, and running a free eye clinic in Cuba, including free transportation to and from Cuba, for poor blind people throughout the region.

U.S. policy on Cuba is insane, obsessive and uncivilized. It NEEDS monitoring--close monitoring--and of course it needs to be changed and the Miami mafia's vast influence on our government purged and ended. U.S. policy on Cuba serves transglobal corporate and war profiteer interests in Latin America, though, and transglobal corporate interests here as well, who don't want us to get any ideas about free medical care or free college educations, so it's unlikely to be changed any time soon.

The Cuban Five took a great risk by coming here to monitor the anti-Cuba hate groups in Miami. I suppose, technically, they are spies, but then a whole lot of governments have spies, unmolested, in the U.S., and the notion that these Cubans or their government intended any harm to our country is the height of absurdity. They are the victims of great harm; they are not the perpetrators of harm.

To put things in proper perspective, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should in jail for their war crimes and their treason. They slaughtered a hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq, brutally displaced millions, stole billions of dollars, engaged in widespread torture, literally destroyed our own democracy in many ways, outed an entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation project, and committed many other crimes that we can only suspect because they are under the protection of some kind of deal with the CIA and Obama (my opinion--but a good guess, I think).

The Cuban Five are in jail merely for fearing the Miami mafia and its intentions toward Cuba, and trying to gather intelligence about it, while REAL criminals are free to enjoy their billions, engage in further plotting and be treated as honored guests among their fatcat friends and on corporate TV. This is a disgraceful state of affairs. At the least, in all decency, Obama should release the Cuban Five back to their country. I think he must know a thing or two about the justification for their spying. And he could get our USAID (CIA) spy back in exchange.

[Ash_F]

2. Maybe they should do a spy trade with that telecoms guy?

Is he still being held in Cuba?


Bury the hatchet.