CALL FOR THE FREEDOM
OF THE CUBAN FIVE
(The
following article is from
the November 16-30,
2007
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in
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(Issued
and adopted on November 10, 2007 at: "BREAKING THE SILENCE: Solidarity
Conference for the Cuban Five," at Toronto, Canada, organized by the
Canadian Network on Cuba, la Table de Concertation de Solidarité
Québec-Cuba, and the National Network on Cuba (U.S.) and
attended by hundreds of activists and prominent figures in the struggle
for constitutional and human rights.)
We, participants in the two-day
conference held in Toronto, Canada, "BREAKING THE SILENCE: Solidarity
Conference for the Cuban Five" issue this call to all people of good
will who want a world of peace and justice:
* To increase the momentum developed
in countless movements around the world to free Gerardo Hernandez,
René Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando
Gonzalez, five Cuban anti-terrorist political prisoners incarcerated in
the United States since 1998, whose only crime was to work to prevent
planned terrorists acts of Miami-based, anti-Cuba groups responsible
for nearly 3500 deaths and thousands of injuries in Cuba since 1959.
* To join together in an immediate
response and a "Week of Free the Five" actions whenever the decision of
the Atlanta federal appellate court is reached.
* To support the formation of an
international commission for the rights of family visits to help secure
U.S. visas for Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva to visit their husbands
who they have been prevented from seeing for nine years, and to issue
timely visas to all family members. To distribute the "100 Women
in Each City" petitions for women to sign demanding the right of family
visits for Adriana and Olga.
* To demand the extradition to the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles
whose acts included the bombing of a Cubana civilian airliner that
caused the death of all 73 people aboard in 1976.
* To call on the U.S. government to
end its double standard on terrorism, to cease its plans to change the
constitutional order of Cuba and to end the blockade.
* To pressure the Canadian government
not to cooperate with U.S.-imposed "security" requests but rather to
expand its bilateral relations and strengthen its independent foreign
policy towards Cuba.
* To call for organizations all over
the world to urge their elected officials (parliamentarians, mayors,
etc.) to sign letters and petitions addressed to the U.S. Attorney
General, U.S. Ambassadors and Ministers of Foreign Affairs to demand
justice for the Five and their families.
* To join together in broadening the
international campaign to free the Cuban Five, to incorporate more
youth, to link with other social movements including movements in
support of political prisoners, and to engage in more frequent actions
to "break the silence" of the mass media on the rights of the Five and
their families.