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The
Untold Story of the Cuban Five (Part IX)
By Ricardo Alarcón, president of the
National Assembly of People's Power
Having exhausted their
appeal efforts, the Cuban Five petitioned the
Supreme Court to review their case. They were not
asking too much. It was a case deserving the
attention of the Justices for a number of reasons,
some of a really exceptional nature.
All along the legal process – one of the most
prolonged at the time in American history – a number
of constitutional rights were violated, as well
rulings which contradicted with the holdings in
other Circuits - which are considered to be the main
business of the Justices - on important issues such
as venue, racial discrimination in jury selection,
sentencing, and defendants and defense lawyers’
rights.
It was a case, furthermore, having a direct
connection with terrorist groups and their
activities within the US territory – at a time when
terrorism was supposed to be the biggest issue – and
with clear implications in terms of international
relations; a case in which generals and top military
chiefs and even a president’s special advisor had
appeared on the witness stand. It had the
distinction of being unique in several respects.
The original Court of Appeals panel’s unanimous
determination, after having examined all aspects of
the case for several years, to set aside all the
convictions and order a new trial, was in itself
unique, as was the 93-page document explaining the
ruling. Very exceptional was the US government
decision, taken at the highest level, to demand the
en banc Court to reverse the decision and very rare
getting the Court agreeing to such an uncommon
petition.
On the other hand, it is not a regular thing for an
appellate judge to ask the Supreme Court to review a
case, much less to do so twice as did Judge Birch,
who repeated that demand while strangely joining
Judge Pryor in his shameful judgement.
It was unique also in terms of concern and interest
all over the world.
In 2005, prior to the determination of the Appeal’s
Court panel, a very important and also unique
decision was unanimously adopted by the UN Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention. This is a completely
independent entity, not an intergovernmental body,
with five judges – one for each Continent – not
representing any UN member state and conducting
themselves exclusively in a personal capacity. The
UN group studied the situation of the Five at the
request of their wives and mothers. The group spent
several years researching the case in its entirety
and interacting with the US in official
correspondence. The Cuban government was never
consulted, as it should not be, because Cuba was not
a party to that process.
It was a history-making decision. The UN group
concluded that the deprivation of liberty for the
Five was arbitrary and in contravention of the
relevant UN Human Rights Conventions and called on
the government of the United States to take steps to
remedy the situation.
The Group stated that: “the trial did not take place
in a climate of objectivity and impartiality which
is required” and “the Government [of the United
States] has not denied that the climate of bias and
prejudice against the accused in Miami persisted and
helped to present the accused as guilty from the
beginning. It was not contested by the Government
that one year later it admitted that Miami was an
unsuitable place for a trial where it proved almost
impossible to select an impartial jury in a case
linked with Cuba.”
“The Government had not contested the fact that
defense lawyers had very limited access to evidence
because of the classification of the case by the
Government as one of national security” which
“undermined the equal balance between the
prosecution and the defense and negatively affected
the ability [of the defense] to present counter
evidence.”
The UN experts noted that the accused “were kept in
solitary confinement for 17 months,” and as a
consequence “communication with their attorneys and
access to evidence and thus, possibilities to an
adequate defense were weakened.”
In conclusion they determined that these “three
elements, combined together, are of such gravity
that they confer the deprivation of liberty of these
five persons an arbitrary character.” (Report
of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
E/CN.4/2006/7/Add.1 at p. 60, Opinion No. 19/2005 -
United States of America).
This was the first and only time in the
history of the United States and in the history of
the United Nations that a UN body had found a trial
process in the US to be unfair and contrary to
universally established standards of human rights
and international law.
But that finding of five independent judges, none of
them, by the way, a leftist or a radical, was not
easily available in the American media and most
Americans probably have never heard of it.
Many Americans do not know about the Cuban Five
because they have not been permitted to know.
Not only was the long trial of the Five maintained
in the dark, Americans have not even been allowed to
know that this case has been very much in the minds
of many millions around the globe. The big corporate
media that didn’t report their legal battle threw a
similar curtain of silence around the wide, ever
growing, movement of solidarity that the Cuban Five
have received practically everywhere from Ireland to
Tasmania, from Canada to Namibia. Churches,
parliaments, human rights organizations, labor
unions, writers, lawyers and peoples from all walks
of life have expressed their concern and interest in
all languages, English included.
But the Supreme Court did not bother to listen.
Taken from
Counterpunch |
