(The following article is from the November 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
PV Vancouver Bureau

Antonio Guerrero, one of the "Cuban Five" anti-terrorist fighters jailed in the United States, has been handed a new sentence by Federal Judge Joan Leonard - 21 years and ten months in prison. This is down from a previous life term, but longer than the 20-year sentence agreed to between Guerrero's lawyers and U.S. prosecutors.

     Judge Leonard claimed that Guerrero had committed "very serious offences" and showed no statement of contrition. At the same time, she admitted that "the government did not present evidence that the defendant obtained top secret information."

     Attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented Guerrero, said the outcome was not what he expected.

     "I'm surprised with this decision," said Weinglass. "We negotiated an agreement with the government in good faith. Hopefully, he will be at home in seven years."

     The Cuban Five - Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino and Fernando Gonzalez - were arrested in 1998 and convicted three years later. Guerrero, 50, is an airport construction engineer by training born in the United States to Cuban parents.

     An appeals court earlier found the original sentences for the Cuban Five were excessive. Judge Leonard has accepted requests from the lawyers representing the other prisoners to delay their re-sentencing pending a probe into the extent of so-called "damage" caused by their activities, which consisted of working to obtain information about anti-Cuba terrorist actions planned by US-backed exile groups in Florida.

     Last June, the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal against the convictions, which were reached in Miami during a period of intense hostility against Cuba, making a fair trial impossible.

     Following the re-sentencing, a joint declaration was issued by several U.S. solidarity groups, including the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five and the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five.

     "With our declaration we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to maintain and strengthen our efforts to demand the immediate freedom of our Five brothers: Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and René Gonzalez, as they are innocent of the charges that the U.S. government has convicted them of...

     "Independent of the court process and the decisions that are issued by the court, we maintain our steadfast demand for the immediate freedom of the Cuban Five. The judicial case prosecuted against our Five brothers has nothing to do with justice. This is, and always has been, a political case.

     "Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, every administration of the U.S. government has maintained a policy of permanent aggression against the Cuban people. A fundamental part of this policy of aggression has been the use of violence against the Cuban people. For decades the U.S. administrations have been directly or indirectly involved - through terrorist organizations of the Cuban American extreme right wing in the United States - in countless terrorist attacks against the Cuban people, causing the deaths of 3,478 Cuban men, women and children, and injuring 2,099 Cubans. The peace, security and well-being of the Cuban people have been tragically affected.

     "In the interest of defending its people - as any other responsible government would do--the government of Cuba assigned to the Five the task of infiltrating the terrorist organizations of the Cuban American extreme right wing. Everyone in this city knows full well that the terrorist organizations have carried out campaigns of death and terror against the Cuban people for decades. Stopping terrorism was the mission of the Cuban Five.

     "Instead of arresting the terrorists and prosecuting them for their crimes, the U.S. government, participant of these nefarious campaigns of death and terror, arrested the Five 11 years ago this past September. Since then it has kept them arbitrarily imprisoned.

     "It is for these reasons that today in Miami we reaffirm and make known to our Five brothers, to their families and all our sisters and brothers in the U.S. and international movement to Free the Five, as well as the Cuban people, our unalterable decision to continue and strengthen our struggle for their immediate freedom."

     Miami, October 13, 2009