CafeFuerte Cuba outlines strategy for "spy swap" with the U.S. Last Updated Friday, 30 July 2010 10:51 Posted Friday, 30 July 2010 9:26 By Wilfredo Cancio Isla Google translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann. - Cuba announced a strong international offensive to denounce the alleged mistreatment of the prisoner Gerardo Hernández, sentenced to two life sentences for espionage, and Fidel Castro accused the U.S. of torture. Chief of the Wasp espionage network, Gerardo Hernández, condemned to life imprisonment in the United States of America. Castro said Friday that Hernandez, head of the Wasp spy Network, was ill, confined to a cell two meters wide with another prisoner. "Did he do anything? No, nothing. And this punishment was not decided by the prison. Four FBI officials met and decided this. That's torture!" He said during a meeting with members of the Union of Young Communists in the Conference Center. Among the attendees was Elian Gonzalez, who has become a symbolic figure for the new generation. Castro complained that U.S. President Barack Obama "may have dropped the [Hernandez and four other Cuban spies], as they just released a bunch of people they said were Russian spies, and used to refer to the case of contractor Alan P. U.S. Gross was arrested in Cuba since December on suspicion of espionage. Although not mentioned by name, Gross emerged as the key IT infrastructures in this deliberate allusion by Castro, who recently rejected pressure from Washington to Cuba "release one another spy (...) that never in a prison those that would never be tortured. " To conclude the meeting, Castro went to a podium next to the desk chair for the event to read a message to young people. It is the first time since falling ill in July 2006 that gave a speech standing up. It is the third public speech by Castro that was transmitted Castro on Cuban television in the last six days. The words of the former ruler was in line with the statements of president of the National Assembly of People's Power (parliament), Ricardo Alarcon, who yesterday announced a campaign for Hernandez and urged to use "new information technologies" in the dissemination of information on the case. The parliament will begin its plenary session on Sunday with an official document on the state of convict Hernandez, whose health has been affected and who is under punishment conditions in prison in Victorville, California. The government initiative was launched just four days after Fidel Castro publicly predicted that the five Wasp Network spy imprisoned in the U.S. would be released well before the end of the year, and he [Castro] assumed responsibility "to tell the families." Alarcon said Cuba has not received a response from U.S. authorities about the treatment of Hernández, despite the efforts of diplomacy. Washington Hermeticism Washington confirmed Thursday that it had received a diplomatic note containing allegations of mistreatment of Hernandez, but declined to elaborate on the case. "More questions in connection with Mr. Hernandez should be directed to the Federal Bureau of Prisons," said a State Department spokesman. The U.S. official said there is nothing to comment on Fidel Castro's claims about the imminent release of five Cuban agents, considered by official propaganda as the "Five Heroes Prisoners of the Empire." Alarcón added that Hernández -chief of the network dismantled in 1998 - suffers from hypertension and has contracted a bacteria circulating among the prison population, and detailed that he is locked in a cell six feet long by one wide in temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius [95 derees Fahrenheit]. Details of the health and prison conditions for Hernandez match the release and transfer to Spain of 20 Cuban political prisoners, some of them with serious physical and psychological affectations, following an agreement between Raul Castro, the Catholic Church and the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. This week a former prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya, a paraplegic and with visible damage, came to Miami to receive emergency treatment. His statements about the abuse and lack of medical care in Cuba have captured large attention in the international press. They call on day in Twitter The response of the Cuban regime was swift regarding the suspected illness and confinement of Hernandez. "This scheme is equivalent to physical and psychological torture," Alarcon said Thursday during a speech to the International Relations Committee of the National Assembly. Alarcón called on to counter this situation through the use of "alternative media, the facilities offered by new information technologies and all means of exchange between people." The reaction of bloggers and twitter-government was swift. Immediately, a member of twitter that fit the profile of "Yohandry" called to start a day on the net "for freedom of the five and Gerardo reported abuse" and warned that it would only end "when justice is done." The call was followed immediately by Castro government supporters on the Internet. "Yohandry" has 1.756 followers on Twitter. Late last year, Alarcon acknowledged that there were few legal ways to obtain the release of the five men. "We can only fight in the political arena, mobilizing and doing so with revolutionary passion", admitted to deputies of the International Relations Committee of parliament. "Only a united movement increasingly large and persistent, can reach the highest levels of Washington, which may obtain the release of our five comrades." Cuba calls for gestures On Monday July 26, Fidel Castro complained that America had not made a "gesture" to release the spy: "Can you imagine that these five compañeros who are there, in separate jails and there has not been the slightest ... gesture to release them?" he said during a speech to intellectuals and artists inside the Memorial Jose Marti Revolution Square. "What has it cost these five human beings separated from their familyes ... to send them [back]. Well, as I said in Artemisa, they're raised to a place of honor, and will have to let them go. I think now more than ever that their release is near. The end of the year can prepare and ... what you have, let's see how it is spread as it has ... but well before the end of the year. I am responsible for telling the family," he said. The elderly leader seemed to echo the words of his brother Raul, who during a visit to Brazil in December 2008, proposed to the United States make "a gesture of both parties." "We will act and gesture," said Raul Castro. "Those prisoners [jailed dissidents], will you drop?, To be told, they will be sent there with family and everything. Return our five heroes to us. It would be a gesture of both parties. " In January 2009, Gerardo Hernandez's lawyer, Paul McKenna, admitted for the first time the possibility of a swap. "It would be naive to say that it is not an option," he said. Two months later, Jose Pertierra, a Cuban-American lawyer calling for the release of the five officers, endorsed the words of Raul when he recalled a historical precedent for the mutual release of prisoners, in September 1979, the United States released four Puerto Rican nationalists, days later Cuba released four U.S. citizens who were imprisoned on the island, including the CIA spy Lawrence Lunt. Pertierra called the release of "unilateral but reciprocal gestures" as opposed to the term "swap." What that emerges as a focus of great interest following the statements by Castro and the campaign launched by Alarcón this week is that if Gross has the necessary ingredients to become the letter from the Cuban government to force an exchange of "prisoner spies." Gross, 60, has been nearly eight months in prison without any charges filed. The White House, federal lawmakers and the Jewish lobby in the United States have pressed for his release. Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere, Arturo Valenzuela, said Friday that the arrest of Gross is unacceptable. "He was not breaking any laws and no charges have been made, to my knowledge. He is not well, has lost 80 pounds. We urge the Cuban government to release him," the U.S. official stressed. |
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