"Free the Five" Event in L.A. Attracts Hundreds Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit ANDRES GOMEZ TO HUNDREDS IN LOS ANGELES: "FREE THE FIVE!" By Jon Hillson LOS ANGELES, July 28 (NY Transfer)--Andres Gomez, fresh from a three-week national speaking tour of Argentina to win support for the Cuban Five, brought the message of this international campaign to hundreds in Los Angeles on July 26. Gomez is a founder and current national coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, the Miami-based organization of Cubans and Cuban-Americans which this year celebrates 25 years of work in defense of the Cuban government and Cuban national sovereignty. The five -- Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, and Rene Gonzalez -- are Cuban revolutionaries framed up on Clinton-era "conspiracy to commit espionage" and related charges. They were convicted in Miami Federal District Court in June last year, and received maximum sentences in December. Far from spying, Gomez said, "they were defending their country by infiltrating right-wing terrorist organizations in Miami and providing information to the Cuban government about their dirty plans." Gomez, born in Cuba and forced to the United States as part of "Operation Peter Pan," spoke to an overflow crowd of 70 at El Rescate, an El Salvadoran legal and community center. He keynoted an event that celebrated the 49th anniversary of the launching of the Cuban revolution -- the attack by 160 combatants on the Moncada Barracks, led by a then 26-year-old Fidel Castro. The Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba sponsored the meeting. Gomez described his July tour of Argentina, sponsored by the country's Cuba solidarity organizations. He spoke in every region at more than a dozen events, most of them on university campuses, participated in interviews on 14 radio stations, and received extensive newspaper coverage, including in the Buenos Aires daily Pagina 12. "It is virtually impossible to describe the depth of the economic, political and social crisis in Argentina," Gomez said. "There are no solutions to it within the parameters of the current economic system." At the same time, he said, he was warmly received everywhere he went. "There is great solidarity for Cuba in Argentina." In describing the achievements of Cuban society, Gomez explained that all were the result of "the socialist revolution. Without this, nothing Cuba has developed, including its national independence, would exist today." The experience of revolutionary change, and the new morality of solidarity it has forged, has motivated hundreds of thousands of Cubans to engage in internationalist missions -- educational, medical, and military -- around the world, for decades. Among those Cubans are, Gomez said, "Gerardo, Ramon, Fernando, Antonio, and Rene. The U.S. government has split them up all over the country to try to break their spirit, but it has failed." Gomez also described a July 20 car caravan that wound through 20 miles of Miami thoroughfares, horns blaring, with signs and placards denouncing right-wing anti-Cuba terrorism and demanding freedom for the five. The event was sponsored by the Antonio Maceo Brigade, the Association of Workers in the Community (ATC, a Cuban-American organization), the Miami Coalition to End the Embargo Against Cuba and other Cuban-American organizations. "There were 41 cars," Gomez said, "driving in a caravan for hours, without a single incident of any kind." This, he explained, is further proof of the weakness, divisions, and demoralization of the Cuban-American ultra-right in the area. Six students, five from Cal State Los Angeles and one from Cal State Northridge, also reported briefly on their two-week exchange program with the Center for the Study of the United States in Havana. They were part of a larger group of 35 that participated in the program, coordinated by long-time Latin American Studies academicians Donald Bray and Marjorie Bray, that has brought more than 100 students to Cuba over the past two years. The beginning of their formal study was delayed three days when Cuban workplaces and universities went on recess to enable working people and students to observe live television coverage of the "extraordinary sessions" of the country's National Assembly, convened to discuss amending the Cuban constitution to make the gains of the socialist revolution "irrevocable." The sessions were preceded by immense popular mobilizations across the country -- the biggest in Cuba's history -- including the collection of over eight million signatures of eligible voters on petitions to the Assembly supporting the amendment. The document was unanimously ratified by the Cuban parliament. Witnessing the legislative conclusion of this process had a big impact on the U.S. students. "I learned that the Cuban people have lost any sense of fear," Jimmy Centeno said. "They do not fear change, they do not fear anything." "Cuba was, for me, an epiphany. It was more than a revolution. It showed that another way is possible," said Miguel Breumen. "It gave me something to come back [to the United States] and do. Make a revolution here." Adrian Garcia, a representative of the National Committee to Free the Five Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prisons, also spoke. He announced the new webpage for the campaign, at http://www.freethefive.org Gomez also addressed a crowd of over 500 assembled for a benefit for KPFK, the Los Angeles outlet of the Pacifica radio network, which includes stations in San Francisco-Berkeley, Houston, Washington and New York City. The event, a festive evening-long variety show, attracted a diverse Los Angeles audience. The mention of Cuba brought cheers from the audience. Gomez described the details of the Cuban five to the crowd. For many, this was the first they'd heard of the fight to free the five. It is, he said, a "fight for democratic rights, for civil liberties, and for Cuba. I urge you to learn more about these five brothers, and make their cause your own." Supporters of the Cuban Five handed out a new six-page brochure produced by the Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba describing the facts and political significance of the case, and activists from the national defense committee gathered signatures on a petition demanding their freedom. The cause of the five was also a central feature of July 26th celebrations in San Francisco and Minnesota. In the Bay Area, 200 people attended an event organized by the Venceremos Brigade and other organizations. Over 165 people attended two meetings -- one at the University of Minnesota, the other in St. Paul -- addressed by Maria Cristina Delgado, First Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section, during a brief tour organized by the Minnesota Cuba Committee. Copyright (c) 2002 by Jon Hillson. Non-profit redistribution, without alteration, permitted. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcari-07.30.02-05:54:14-2884