Radio Cubana

Dear friend Marta Reyes,

I’m Maria Eugenia Guerrero, sister of Antonio Guerrero, writing on behalf of the families of the Five.

Thank you for support. Now more than ever we need to condemn these violations and injustices via every possible channel, highlighting the false morality of the US government in its so-called fight against terrorism, while it liberates terrorists like Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and others who freely walk the streets of Miami. Only world solidarity can achieve the return of the Five to their homeland.

Thank you—we will always stand by the people of Venezuela in their righteous struggle for a better world.

Dear Alberto,

Thank you for taking part in the forum and supporting this cause. I’m Maria Eugenia Guerrero, sister of Antonio Guerrero, speaking on behalf of the families of the Five.

Around the middle of the year 2000, when the initial parts of the trial were being prepared, the United States government tried to negotiate with Rene Gonzalez. They wanted him to act as a witness for the prosecution. He had infiltrated Hermanos al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue) and had contacts in the Cuban-American Foundation. He had in depth knowledge of all the plans of this anti-Cuban mafia—their plans to destroy the people of Cuba. Obviously René didn’t accept their offer, and with great dignity he defended the rights of the Cuban people to live freely, with their Revolution.

René was a strong witness against this mafia.

As René chose not to go along with the lies, they decided to arrest his wife, Olga Salanueva, who had lived with him in Miami for many years, along with their two daughters. The youngest was just four months old, born just as René was detained in September 1998.

They tried to make Olguita persuade her husband to pass over to the prosecution, but as dignified as her husband, she refused. They paraded her in front of René, dressed in prison uniform, to try to sway him. Neither of them gave in to this blackmail. Olguita was held for three months, and subsequently deported to Cuba. Since then she has not once been allowed to enter the US to visit René.

While she was held prisoner, her baby daughter was in the custody of her great-grandmother, who lives in the States. Her daughter was not returned to her when she was sent to Cuba. She had to hire a lawyer and sign a document allowing her daughter’s paternal grandmother, who lived in Cuba, to go and collect the baby from the US and return her to her mother in Cuba.

It was blackmail and it was vile. René should not have been tried. When he was detained, he wasn’t even involved anymore, but they sentenced him to fifteen years in jail anyway—the harshest sentence he could have been given.