Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

CUBA-US: Violating the Right to Family Visits in &#39Cuban Five&#39 Case

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, May 23 2007 (IPS) - When Olga Salanueva opened the door to her house in Miami, Florida in the early hours of the morning of Aug. 16, 2000, she had no idea that that day would be the last time she saw her husband, René González, and that after three months in custody she would be deported to Cuba, despite her legal residency status in the United States.

Now, a bit weary but able to smile nonetheless, she is applying for the eighth time for a visa to travel to the United States to see the father of her two daughters, at least for a few minutes. Although she has been denied an entry visa seven times by the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba, she is not giving up.

"We don&#39t want new laws to be written; we just want the existing ones to be enforced," Salanueva told IPS, pointing to violations of rules governing the treatment of prisoners and the American Convention on Human Rights.

A green card-holder at the time of her arrest, Salanueva was held for three months before she was deported based on arguments by the U.S. government that she was an agent for Cuban intelligence and a security risk – charges for which no evidence was presented.

While she was under arrest, her husband did not receive any of her letters.

René González has been in prison for nearly nine years, and has been denied the right to visits from his wife and youngest daughter.

Accused of espionage along with four other Cubans, Salanueva&#39s husband formed part of a Cuban network that infiltrated Cuban exile groups with the aim of gathering information to prevent terrorist attacks against the Caribbean island nation, such as the bombings at Havana hotels that killed an Italian tourist in 1997. Some of the information they collected was reportedly even passed to the FBI through other channels.

The appeal filed by their defence attorneys argues that the crime of espionage was not proven in the trial of the "Cuban five", as they are widely known, but that they were merely convicted in 2001 of being "unregistered foreign agents." Other charges they were found guilty of were passport fraud, fraudulent identification, and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Their sentences range from two consecutive life terms plus 15 years for Gerardo Hernández, and life in prison for Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino, to 19 years for Fernando González and 15 years for René González.

"We have lived through many separations since 1990, as a couple and as a family. René, who was born in the United States and is a U.S. citizen, left and didn&#39t plan to return. We didn&#39t see each other for six years, until he applied for us to go and we went there as part of a family reunification process," she said.

At the moment of her arrest, the family had been together in the United States for only two years, and the couple&#39s second daughter, Ivette, was just two years old.

"René isn&#39t a kid anymore. He&#39s 52, and he missed out on the childhood of both of his daughters. That&#39s why we had Ivette; he wanted to experience what he had lost out on with Irmita (the eldest). In this case, it&#39s even worse, because he has missed out on everything: her childhood, adolescence and how she has started to become a woman," said Salanueva.

While she awaits the end to what seems a never-ending appeals process, Salanueva dedicates a large part of her energy to an international campaign demanding that Washington respect the prisoners&#39 right to receive family visits.

A petition asking the U.S. government to issue the five prisoners&#39 families visitation visas has the support of 315 solidarity committees in 100 countries, 187 members of the European Parliament, nine Nobel Peace Prize-winners, more than 6,000 public figures and well-known personalities, and petitions containing 20,000 signatures, Argentine activist Graziella Ramírez, president of the International Committee to Free the Cuban Five, said in Havana this month.

Salanueva is not the only wife who has been repeatedly denied a visa that would enable her to visit her husband. Adriana Pérez, Hernández&#39s wife, has not seen her husband since he and the other four were arrested in September 1998.

The wives, mothers and other close family members of the "Cuban five" enjoy strong support from the government, in a country where people require special permission to travel abroad.

"Adriana&#39s case is even worse. She&#39s already 37 years old. She has seen her youth go by as she waits for Gerardo, and they are both seeing the chance to have a child slip away from them," said Salanueva.

A public statement issued Jan. 17 by the London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Washington "to stringently review its decision to deny temporary visas to the wives of two Cuban nationals serving long federal prison sentences in the USA."

The document says that since 2002, the wives&#39 applications for visas have been consistently denied "for different reasons relating to terrorism, espionage and issues of national security. Yet, neither woman has faced charges in connection with such claims, nor have their husbands been charged with, or convicted of terrorism."

Amnesty said it believes "that denying the men visits from their wives (and in one case, also his child) is unnecessarily punitive and contrary to standards for humane treatment of prisoners and states&#39 obligations to protect family life."

The communiqué also says that Amnesty "believes that this deprivation is particularly harsh given the length of the men&#39s sentencesàand the questions that have been raised about the fairness of the men&#39s convictions."

In 2005, a U.S. appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia overturned their convictions arguing that they could not have received a fair trial in Miami, where the most radical anti-communist segments of the Cuban exile community are based. The three-judge panel described the initial trial as a "perfect storm of prejudice", and ordered a retrial.

In May 2005, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also issued an opinion finding that the U.S. had failed to guarantee the five men a fair trial.

A year after the Atlanta appeals court panel handed down its decision, the full appeals court ruled that it was fair to conduct the trial in Miami despite the strong anti-Fidel Castro bias there.

The appeals process continues, and oral arguments will be heard on Aug. 20 on remaining issues, such as whether there was sufficient evidence to convict one of the defendants of conspiracy to commit murder, or whether there was prosecutorial misconduct.

"The process is becoming endless. We are talking about eight years and eight months under arrest, and the initial appeals process is not even finished yet. We can&#39t turn to the Supreme Court before getting out of the appeals court," René&#39s brother and lawyer Roberto González told the press.

"René and Gerardo have not been allowed to see their families because they have refused to sign a document admitting their guiltàThe United States is violating the right to family visits," said the attorney.

By declaring themselves guilty of espionage, the five men could have been released or had their sentences significantly reduced.

When René González was offered the plea bargain arrangement at the time of his arrest, he refused to sign. A month after the trial in Miami, he was offered it again, and reminded that his wife could be deported.

The day Salanueva was arrested, she was taken to see her husband, who was asked again to sign the admission of guilt, which he once again refused to do.

"By refusing to sign, they make it impossible to claim that Cuba is a threat to the United States, and that it was carrying out espionage in that country," the lawyer told IPS.

"If they would have agreed to sign, René would be living peacefully today in the United States with his family. You have to understand that plea bargains can be struck before or after a prosecution and conviction. By concealing these facts, a long history of extortion is being hidden," he said.

Observers say the tension between Washington and Havana has politicised the case. The treatment and harsh sentences received in the United States by the "Cuban five", who are seen as heroes and fighters of terrorism in Cuba, is a result of the ties between the U.S. government and the most hard-line anti-Fidel Cuban exile sectors in Miami, they argue.

The treatment included being kept in solitary confinement for months before trial, making access to evidence and communication with their attorneys difficult for the five men.

Salanueva said "the U.S. government has used the families to pressure these men, who it does not forgive for not agreeing to a plea bargain. René and I can see an end to this, even if it&#39s distant and will take years to arrive. But there are three other cases where there is no possible end in sight."

However, "we hope and believe that the truth will come out," she said.

"I will only be happy once René is back home. We want their freedom because that is what would be fair and right in these cases. The U.S. government owes ‘the Cuban five&#39 all of these years taken from them. Unfortunately, even if justice is done, neither they nor their families will ever have those years restored to them."