Rainbow Solidarity for Cuban Five circles the planet

By Leslie Feinberg

More than 600 lesbian, gay and bisexual, transgender and transsexual, intersexual and other activists, organizations and allies battling oppression based on sexuality, gender expression and sex have united behind the demand to free the Cuban Five.

The five political prisoners—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzáles, and René Gonzáles—are serving long sentences in U.S. penitentiaries for the “crime” of infiltrating CIA-backed fascist commando groups in order to halt terror attacks against Cuba from U.S. soil.

The call for “Rainbow Solidarity for the Cuban Five” demands a new trial and freedom for these political prisoners, defense of Cuban sovereignty and self-determination, and a halt to the illegal U.S. acts of war against Cuba—including the economic blockade and CIA-trained, funded and armed attacks by mercenary “contra” armies operating from this country.

A multinational, multi-lingual group of U.S. activists first issued the call for Rainbow Solidarity to Free the Cuban Five on Jan. 7. Within days, some 200 individuals and groups from across the United States and around the globe had signed on. In the next two weeks that number tripled.

Enthusiastic replies poured in from more than two dozen countries, and from more than 215 cities, towns and campuses in 38 states in the United States.

The geographic and political arch of the rainbow continues to broaden. A frequently updated list of signers is posted at: www.freethefiveny.org.

Roster of hard-working activists

The national organization Pro-Gay Philippines has added its powerful voice to the Rainbow Solidarity demands.

The Puerto Rican Alliance of Los Angeles and its coordinator Lawrence Reyes have endorsed.

Many Italian groups have signed on. These include Coordinamento Nazionale Trans FTM, Movimento Identità Transessuale and Crisalide Azione Trans.

Other signers include the Committee to Defend Palestinian Human Rights and its co-chair, Donna Joss; Walter Lippmann, editor-in-chief of CubaNews; Cianán Russell, chair of the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance; QueerToday.com and its founder, Mark Snyder; Gordene MacKenzie, GenderTalk Radio and director of Women’s Studies, Merrimack College, Beverly, Mass; the Global Coalition for Peace and its director, Victor (Vyasa) Landa; Doug Barnes and the Freedom Socialist Party; Starlene Rankin, Green National Committee delegate of the Lavender Caucus of the Green Party of the United States; Viktor Dedaj, webmaster of the Cuba Solidarity Project; the Cuba Edmonton Solidarity Committee in Alberta, Canada; and the Swiss Cuba Association.

Volunteers have translated the call, making it available online in Spanish, English, simplified and traditional Chinese, Farsi, Portuguese, Italian, French and German.

The Japanese translation is ready, and work has already begun in Tagalog and Turkish. Help with other translations is needed.

Many names on the list, viewable at www.freethefiveny.org—look for the rainbow—will be recognizable as well-known LGBT activists and others battling oppression based on sexuality, gender and sex, including women’s liberationists.

This roster also reveals that many of these activists are also some of the hardest-working organizers in movements here and around the world against imperialist war, neo-liberalism, neo-colonialism, national oppression, racism, police brutality, prison and death penalty abolition, sweatshops and capitalist globalization.

These are also leading activists in the struggle for immigrant rights; women’s liberation, including reproductive rights; jobs; labor union, tenant and community organizing; education; health care and affordable housing; freedom for all U.S. political prisoners and for prisoner rights; national liberation; support for Cuba and the revolutionary movement to overturn capitalism and build an economy based on planning to meet peoples’ needs.

Enthusiastic support for Cuban Five

The Rainbow Solidarity initiative is giving voice to grassroots support for the Cuban Five.

Shahlah Barvenvall, from Malmo, Sweden, writes with the kind of enthusiasm that is characteristic of the responses: “Yes, I want to sign on to the call for Rainbow Solidarity for the Cuban Five!”

Stephen Schryver: “[A]dd my name to your growing list of outraged citizens in this country.”

Tami Starlight, director of Trans Action Canada: “I support this fully!”

Lynda Aubrey, from Elk, Calif.: “Please add my name to the call to free the Cuban 5 (I am a lesbian).”

Tim Sutton: “My partner and I are with you 100 percent.”

Joan Larkin, from Brooklyn, N.Y.: “I have long been outraged by the terrible injustice of their situation.”

Paul Lefrak, a member of OPEIU Local 100 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., says: “As a gay man in South Florida who calls for freedom for our brothers, the Five, I am delighted to see this initiative. THEY MUST BE FREE!”

U.S. warlord hypocrisy

Other signers hit U.S. imperialist hypocrisy.

Jerry Pendergast, from Athletes United for Peace, U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities, Nicaragua Solidarity Committee, writes: “These people were trying to prevent an act of terrorism. The country that claims to lead the ‘War On Terror’ is imprisoning them.”

Larry Morton of the Scottish Socialist Freedom Movement: “It is time these Cubans had a fair trial and it is recognized they were protecting their homeland from U.S.-sponsored terrorism.”

Barry Morley, secretary-treasurer of the Community Business and Professionals Association of Canada, states, “It is time for the Bush administration to stop the hypocrisy and make terrorism against Cuba illegal.”

Tighe Barry supports the five as “those most important defenders of everyone’s right to live without fear of terrorism. The patriotic Cuban Five [are] illegally held political prisoners in a country with the most of its own people behind bars.” Barry, who grew up in Miami, adds the need to organize to close down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo and free all those held there.

Ray Elling, from Farmington, Conn., suggests, “Put Cheney and Bush in jail instead of the Cuban Five.”

Sebastian Shunmugam, Kempton Park, Gauteng, South Africa, notes, “I trust that justice will prevail and not the shortsighted political agenda of individuals.”

Cecile Meyer, from DeKalb, Ill., adds: “As Martin Luther King points out: justice delayed is justice denied. Justice has been delayed far too long for the Cuban Five.”

Dr. Akira Asada, from Hyougo, Japan, states, “I am not a U.S. citizen. But this is a problem of human rights. So I sign.”

Yancy Gandionco, from the LGBTQI Desk of Bayan USA, affirms: “Mabuhi ang panaghiusang international!!! Long live international solidarity!!”

Eric Theis, from Milwaukee, reminds, “Ah, the things we gain from solidarity.”

Grassroots support for Cuba

Richard Spurgeon, from Madera, Calif., says succinctly, “It’s way past time to change our policy toward Cuba and the Cuban people.”

Chien San Feng, professor in the Department of Journalism, National Cheng Chi University, in Taipei, Taiwan, sends this message: “The U.S. should lift the embargo.”

Adela Brent, counselor at the Zig Zag Young Women’s Resource Centre Inc. in Brisbane, Australia: “As a citizen of the world, I demand the U.S. government to free the five Cubans who have not committed any crime. I also demand the U.S. government to lift the economic embargo against the Cuban people.”

Joan Malerich, from St. Paul, Minn.: “I have written Fernando Gonzáles approximately twice a week since March of 2003. I have learned so much from him. The Five are examples for the world, just as the Cuban Revolution has always been an example for the world. I greatly appreciate your work in supporting the Five, and I know the Five and their families also greatly appreciate your beautiful efforts. Thank you!!!!!!”

Dale Pfeiffer, author of “Eating Fossil Fuels,” writes from Irvine, Ky.: “It is long past time for the U.S. to recognize Cuba’s right to determine its own form of government. In the years to come, U.S. respect for Cuba will be extremely important to the welfare of the U.S. public, as industrialized, U.S.-style agriculture results in a food crisis for which Cuba has pioneered the only possible solution. It is time to honor Cuba, not vilify it. Let this honor begin with the freedom of the Cuban Five.”

David from New York state stresses how biased the trial venue was for the Five: “[The] Five Cubans who were trying to stop the ultra-right terrorist groups in Miami from carrying out violent actions against the people of Cuba. Miami is the one city in the U.S. where the Five certainly could not receive a fair trial.”

David eloquently concludes: “To all justice-loving people in the U.S. and around the world, we appeal to you to join the struggle to free Fernando, René, Antonio, Ramón and Gerardo. Help us in outreach, education and organizing, because once people know the facts of the case, we are sure they will call for their freedom as well.”

Sign on the call at: www.freethefiveny.org—look for the rainbow.

For more information about the case of the Cuban Five, also visit freethefive.org.

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