3RD INTERNATIONAL YOUTH SOLIDARITY WITH THE FIVE
CONFERENCE
"We
have to bore through the wall
of silence"
•
RICARDO Alarcón de Quesada, president of the Cuban
National Assembly of People's Power, concluded his
speech to 180-plus delegates from 33 nations taking
part in the 3rd International Youth Solidarity
Conference with a call to bore through the wall of
silence constructed around the case of the five
Cuban anti-terrorists.
Alarcón condemned the major media
corporations for totally ignoring the names of
Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, René González,
Ramón Labañino and Fernando González who, 13 years
ago, not only received heavy and unjust prison terms,
but the punishment of silence.
"They have spent a large part of
their youth under a harsh prison regime, far from
their families, friends, their land, subjected to
long periods of solitary confinement, and many
people are still obliged to believe that they were
sentenced for espionage, an argument that not even
the U.S. government was able to sustain," he noted.
Alarcón, also a member of the
Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba,
called on delegates to the meeting to utilize new
technologies and the alternative media, as well as
their traditional face to face work.
Referring to the situation of
Gerardo Hernández, sentenced to two life terms plus
15 years, Alarcón explained that the battle is now
concentrated on an appeal for habeas corpus, based
on two fundamental issues: the judicial farce in
Miami in the context of the Cuban downing of two
light aircraft, an incident with which Gerardo had
nothing to do, and U.S. payments to journalists to
falsify information and launch a ferocious campaign
against the Five.
At the end of their conference, the
young delegates talked with Alarcón about efforts in
their respective countries for the release of the
Cuban heroes and reaffirmed that much more can be
done to achieve their return to Cuba. (Taken from
CubaDebate) •
