5 convicted in U.S. of espionage get Elian treatment
Chicago Tribune.
By Anita Snow. Associated Press. June 27, 2001
HAVANA -- Their five smiling faces are splashed across T-shirts, glow from
television sets and look down from huge posters extolling their patriotism.
Their mothers, wives and children weep on television for their return.
And Fidel Castro depicts the five men, convicted this month in the United
States on espionage charges, as heroes trying to protect communist Cuba from its
violent enemies across the Florida Strait.
With mass rallies and publicity, the government has launched a wide-scale
campaign on behalf of the five Cubans, recalling its long drive last year to
drum up support for the return of shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez.
So far, the new campaign has not stirred the same strong feelings here as
the Elian tale, which ended nearly a year ago with the return of Elian, now 7,
from the United States.
But the program for the agents picks up many of the same elements as the
campaign that the government waged for months during the custody battle over
Elian.
A nightly round-table television program that was started to discuss Elian
now focuses on the men. Three two-hour segments were dedicated to them last
week, with three more set for this week.
The campaign also draws heavily on human emotion.
"I love you, daddy," Yvette Gonzalez, the 3-year-old daughter of
inmate Rene Gonzalez, said in a video clip state television showed Monday night.
Standing in her Havana living room, the girl kissed the picture of her
father, behind bars in Miami since she was a baby.
Also like the Elian case, the new campaign appears aimed in gaining the
support of Americans.
In an unusual move last week, the Web site of Granma, Cuba's state-run
newspaper, published an English version of its first editorial about the men. It
said the five had been "declared guilty in a rigged and cynical trial for
discharging their duty to inform our people of terrorist actions by the Cuban
American mob."
It also published an English version of a letter from the five men to the
American people, insisting they were "victims of a terrible injustice."
"It was never our intent to cause any harm to the values or the
integrity of the American people," the men wrote. They said Cuba had "every
right to defend itself from its enemies who keep using the U.S. territory to
plan, organize and finance terrorist actions."
Castro was planning his first major address in the campaign Saturday, when
he suffered a fainting spell during a mass gathering on Havana's outskirts. He
was helped offstage and although he returned to the podium minutes later, his
message was lost in the concern after his well-being.
Saturday evening, Castro was back on television, comparing Cuba's defense of
the men to the fight over Elian and describing them as political prisoners.
On June 8, a Miami jury convicted three of the men--Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon
Labanino and Antonio Guerrero--of espionage conspiracy for efforts to penetrate
U.S. military bases even though they received no U.S. secrets. They face life in
prison.
Hernandez was also convicted of contributing to the death of four American
fliers whose planes were shot down Feb. 24, 1996, by Cuban MiGs off the island's
coast.
The two others, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, who are not related,
face up to 10 years on charges of failing to register as foreign agents and
conspiracy.
All are to be sentenced between Sept. 24 and Oct. 2. | 
