Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.

Graduate from the Raul Roa Superior Institute of  International Relations.

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo was born on June 4, 1965, in the midst of a humble family. He was the third of three siblings. Since he was a child, he devoted himself to study and self-preparation. His mother says that two of his son’s teacher, who recently visited her, commented that Gerardo was different from the rest of the children. While his classmates played ball, he would come to help the carry their bags. 

From childhood he liked the cartoons, he participated in competitions, and people asked to his mother how was it possible that being so serious, he had such a sense of humor. 

Gerardo was very dear to his classmates and professors. They remember his sense of responsibility. He went out with his friends, he played ball, he went to the countryside with the school, and when he finished.  High School he got the major in International Relations. 

At University, Gerardo was an integral member of the University Student Federation. He was a member the school theater, he practiced karate, he published a bulletin, he made his cartoons and published them in a national humorous newspaper; at the same time he continued his superior studies and became a member of the Union of Communist Youths After he graduated, he went to the People’s Republic of Angola as an  internationalist fighter.  

Ten years ago, when his father dad died, he was in Cuba, but when  his elder sister passed away in an plane accident, his was already abroad  completing the assigned mission. 

He has been married for 16 years with Adriana Pérez Oconor, who  is at the 32 years old at the moment. Because of Gerardo's tasks, she has postponed several of her individual projects as the one of being a mother and the possibility of  sharing their life  like a normal couple. Her husband, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, remains imprisoned in United States, after being condemned by a court in Miami without any evidence to support the charges. 

Adriana has been alone in Havana, while her partner remains behind the bars of a prison in Lompoc, California. She, however, has decided to continue their couple relationship because she is convinced that he is not a terrorist, and if he went to the United States, it was not harm anybody, but to make good things for the two countries. 

"A person who person that hates that type of actions cannot be a terrorist. He is always surrounded by people who love him, and he has a great number of true friends. He doesn't speak loudly, though he might disagree with the outlined ideas, he/she takes pains so that the others are able to conquer their grieves, so that they are", Adriana remembers. 

Once he was  at  a family party at  Adriana’s home and suddenly she saw him talking cheerily with a neighbor that suffered from certain psychic disorders. The woman invited him to smoke a cigarette and Gerardo, without having that  habit,  consented very naturally. 

In the jail of Miami, Gerardo met a Cuban whose relatives had died in that country and he was suffocated – that’s the way they call those who can hardly maintain a psychic and emotional balance -, and, through Gerardo and  Adriana’s family in Cuba he  was able to recover the contact with a sister who no longer lived in the island and  had migrated toward United States in the last years. 

"Finally, the man could communicate with his sister, and later he came to where Gerardo was, and he had no words to thank him; he even brought him gifts that he didn't want to accept, simply because it was natural in him to behave this way, but the saddest thing, he told me, is that he showed him the marks that he had in his arms of the times that he tried to commit suicide, as he did not have any reason to live." 

"He considered Gerardo as the biggest happiness in those years, and said that God had placed him on his way so that he helped him. Other prisoners came to thank him the for such a humane act, and I know that he did it because he is accustomed to those things.”

Adriana is convinced that her husband is not a murderer, like the American Press has manipulatively divulged. "Not only because she is his wife and because she is Cuban, but because those men went to that country to protect the Cuban to and the American peoples, and they would have done the same with any other one that was threatened." 

In fact, she shared with Gerardo the two years of his stay in the People’s Republic of Angola, where he went ” to fulfill a patriotic duty”.

Adriana believes that it was not only the feeling of being useful to the society what made him  accept the mission of gathering information about terrorists plans against Cuba, but also his quality as a human being, his personal experience, his all-around preparation as  an individual. All these features made him accept the mission without giving it a second thought.

"As much for him as for me there are facts in the history that you/they marked our lives, like it was the attack to the air ship of Cuban of Aviation in 1973 in that 73 people died on board. In their allegation him expressed that he/she had even given their own blood to avoid the death of thousands of Cuban for actions terrorists along 43 years of Revolution." 

There are historical events that marked his life as well as mine. One of them was the bombing of a Cuban aircraft in 1973, where 73 people died. He expressed in his statement that he would have given his own blood to avoid the deaths of thousands of Cubans who have died in terrorists actions along these 43 years of Revolution.”

"He has always been willing to do that, he says in his letters, and in fact he did it, because that  is a form of helping  the country, of maintaining what has been achieved in this society with so much sacrifice, in exchange for nothing.” 

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