Obama, beat it!

Now everyone knows that the U.S. government spies on the whole world, including on its own friends and allies.  Thus one wonders why this same government accused and convicted the Cuban Five of "conspiracy to commit espionage" and has kept them in jail since September 1998. This is an accusation that even James Clapper, the current Director of National Intelligence, disagreed with while he was under oath as an expert witness during the course of the Cuban Five trial.

If the U.S. government can spy and, in the words of its President, "gather information and intelligence by other means" on its friends, then why would it prevent the Cuban government (which has been facing a brutal economic blockade for over 50 years), from infiltrating terrorist groups based in South Florida that have committed countless acts of terrorism against Cuba (all of which were financed, organized and launched from U.S. territory and caused the deaths of 3478 people) in order to expose these groups and to prevent the realization of their terrorist plots against Cuba!

If the U.S. government can invoke the "responsibility to protect" justification in order to invade other sovereign countries, then why wouldn´t Cuba have had the right to send the Cuban Five to the U.S., unarmed and with no intention of harming anyone and/or destroying anything, in order to protect the lives of its people and others from acts of terrorism, without ever spying on the U.S. government.

And, President Obama, now that you have approved spying on the part of the U.S. government, plans are underway to prosecute Mr. Edward Snowden, who did nothing but expose the truth about U.S. foreign policy.  Isn´t “truth” a fundamental attribute that all Nobel Prize recipients should exhibit!  Coincidentally, more than 10 Nobel Prize winners have signed petitions to free the Cuban Five.

President Obama!  You go to Africa and lay flowers on the tombs of the 1998 victims of terrorism in Tanzania, but one wonders when you will go to Cuba to extend a hand of solidarity to the families of the victims of the terrorism unleashed against Cuba from U.S. territory, where you are still providing refuge to the self-confessed and convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who continues to walk the streets of Miami freely.

Last but not least, I wish that you would have had a visit with the icon of the anti-apartheid struggle, so that you would have learned that, in the words of Nelson Mandela, "The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom, and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character".  And, furthermore, that you would have also learned that the Cuban Five were members of this courageous internationalist brigade, who were ready to shed their blood in the struggle against the racist apartheid regime and yet, now, they are still behind bars in the U.S.

Alicia Alonso, Cuban prima ballerina assoluta, was also in South Africa to attend the gala in her honor hosted by internationally renowned companies as English National Ballet, Dresden Ballet, Columbia Classical Ballet, South Korea Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet and South African Mzansi Ballet and, on July 1st, she paid tribute to the more than 2000 Cubans who died fighting in the liberation struggles of many African countries against the apartheid regime.

Obama, beat it!  You accepted spying on the world now face the truth and FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!

We’ve had enough of your hypocrisy!!

Morteza Gorgzadeh

Toronto Forum on Cuba