June 22, 2001, The Miami
Herald
Cuba's regime is in a tizzy. It admits that it sent five spies to Miami then
rails because the five were convicted of espionage. Go figure.
In the words of Granma, the official state-owned newspaper, the "five
compatriots who, in the very entrails of the beast, risked their lives daily to
uncover and report terrorists' plots'' are victims of an "atrocious
injustice.''
Tsk, tsk. The spies didn't testify in their defense at trial. Now convicted,
they claim they never endangered the people in the United States -- or so says a
message supposedly written by them in Granma. The spies would have you believe
that attempting to steal U.S. military secrets and even killing four South
Floridians in the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down aren't security
hazards.
The complaints in Granma, however, do ring true for three Miami-Dade men
arrested in Cuba in April and only now trotted out by the regime to counter the
spy convictions. Accused of attempting "subversive activities in the
country,'' these men will see none of the legal protections afforded the Cuban
spies here.
In Cuba, defense attorneys argue for the prosecution, the courtroom is
closed and there's no independent media coverage. In Cuba, one dictator is
judge, jury and executioner. | 
