René González Sehwerert

Flight instructor and specialist in  aviation  

René González Sehwerert  was born in Chicago, USA, on August 13, 1956, in the midst of a Cuban family.his father was an  emigrated metallurgist worker. 

On the return of the family to Cuba in October, 1961, after the victory of the Cuban Revolution, he carried out primary studies at the José Martí school, in Santa María del Mar.

He always wanted to be a pilot, however, when he had that opportunity, he put off his dream to fulfill a duty that the one considered extremely important. First he was not accepted at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School (better known as Camilitos).When he was in junior high school, as he was militant of the Union of Communist Youths, he responded to a call to integrate the  Manuel Ascunce Domenech Pedagogic Detachment,  He was  already teaching in a classroom in the "Socialist Republic of Rumania"Junior high School, when he received the citation to enroll. 

He served  voluntarily in the General  Military Service a voluntary way because of his American nationality, so he postponed again his aspirations of becoming pilot. 

However, he  was soon  happy with his new specialty in the Military Service. His love for the tank made him  choose the Tanker's Day, April 17, to marry Olga Salanueva Arango, his present-day wife, mother of his two daughters' : Irmita and Ivett. 

When  this period of his life concluded, he  finished with excellent  marks and with the possibility to register in an aviation school, but when he knew  that his unit had the mission of going to the People’s  Republic of Angola to fight for the independence of that country, he himself  postponed the supreme dream of his life. 

He fulfilled an internationalist mission in Angola and when he returned to Cubahe finally became a pilot at the Carlos Ulloa Aviation School. He later worked as a flight instructor in the Military Patriotic Society of Education. It was squadron chief  in the base of San Nicolás de Bari and chief of the section of aeronautical sports. 

In 1990 he entered  the  Communist Party. At the end of that year he left for the  USA.  

His narrations  of the faked trial held in Miami, where he was wrongly sanctioned together with four countrymen, revealed the exceptional qualities that  he has as  a writer and journalist. 

His mother name is Irma Sehwerert Mileham and her father is Cándido René González  

The Mission  

The case of René González, as that of the other four Cubans detained and accused in Miami of attempting against the national security of United States, among other charges, is another political vendetta of Washington against the Cuban revolution. 

Randy Alonso, member of the National Committee of the Union of Communist Youths of Cuba (UJC) asserted, before the delegates to the II Cuba-USA Encounter of Youths, that the five Cuban prisoners only had the mission of gathering information on the terrorist plans of the Anti-Cuban groups   that operate in Florida.  

He said that to understand the mission that they carried out in the American territory it was necessary to analyze the indifference of the different North American governments with regard to the accusations of criminal plans against the Island.  

The attacks and terrorist actions against Cuba from 1959--year of the Victory of the Revolution – have  caused the death to more than three thousand Cuban and lesions to a similar number , as well as material losses calculated in about 100 thousand million dollars.  

Alonso who also hosts a television program on topics of interest of first order for the Cuban society, detailed the circumstances in which the five Cubans were arrested in September ,1998, and he denounced that this political and manipulated  trial was rather against the Cuban Revolution. 

In 1998-- the juvenile leader added-- it was said in the Pentagon that Cuba didn't constitute a threat for the United States. And even the antidrug  czar (Barry) McCafrey assured that the Caribbean nation  was not a point of drug traffic due to the government actions to combat that  lash. 

However-- Randy related-- two months later (July, 1998) after Cuba handed in to Washington tests of the terrorist activity organized by ultraright  groups that reside in Miami, like the  National Cuban-American Foundation , the Federal Bureau  of Investigations (FBI)  responded with the arrest of the five Cubans. 

Alonso stated that the Ministry of the Interior of Cuba gave abundant material on the counterrevolutionary activity organized and financed in that country, as well as audio recordings on similar plans, thanks partly to the work of these five arrested collaborators. 

Only in the last decade, when the Island went through its worst economic crisis after the revolutionary victory of 1959, worsened by the blockade of Washington, they were able to prevent 170 actions terrorists, even attack plans against President Fidel Castro. 

Alonso reiterated that the five Cubans detained in Miami, three of which were condemned to life imprisonment,  gathered information about  terrorism toward their country, but they never attempted against the American national security because they didn't have access to classified information. 

"They worked and they lived like they could, they didn't receive a millionaire wage, nor had they  access to strategic programs of that country."

ACCUSATION

The first accusation  presented by the office consisted of only 9 pages, where  there are barely references to facts, and where adjectives and epithets prevail. It was a maneuver to earn time until a second accusation was presented, in May, 1999, eight months after their arrest. It was then when the charge of conspiracy to assassinate was presented. It was  based on the supposed relationship of one of the accused, Gerardo, in the bringing down of the light planes that violated the Cuban air space in February, 1996.

This accusation  had been a main topic of the terrorist Mafia and of the scandalous and unceasing campaigns of the Press of Miami. That second accusation had  40 pages, with charges to open the process, this is a more documented proposal, with the intention of characterizing the supposed actions that they had made, but it had the taste of the charge that is  "cooked" to slow fire for 8 months to please the enemies of Cuba. It unquestionably proves that we are in presence of a political, clearly faked and manipulated trial. 

There are, in summary, five charges: The first one, the conspiracy consists of an agreement to commit crime against the United States or to deceive that country. 

The second charge is that of espionage, that is to say, to gather information and to transmit it. But, in that charge it is taken for granted that such information  concerns  the security of the United States or collaboration with a foreign government in damage of the United States. 

The third charge is conspiracy to commit murder. It is premeditated conspiracy, an agreement to deliberately carry out the death of one or several people. This is the charge that they impute to Gerardo for the supposed crime of conspiring in the bringing down of the light planes. 

The fourth charge is the forgery of documents or to make false declarations in the face of government authorities to obtain documents.

And the last charge is more formal than the other ones—being a  foreign agent. It involves acting as a foreign government's agent without being a diplomat nor  communicating it to the Attorney General of The United States. According to  the  American Penal Code,being a foreign agent is not the crime, but being a foreign agent without being identified. 

RENÉ GONZÁLEZ, CONDEMNED  TO A15-YEAR PRISON TERM

A federal court  in Florida condemned René González on December 14, 2001 to 15 years in jail,  

The  sentence hearing of González, began the day before and went on till that morning when they informed the decision of the district court. 

González was sentenced to 10 years because, according to the Office, he didn't register as agent of a foreign power in United States, and at five more for conspiracy to spy. 

That week the same judge, Joan Lenard, imposed condemnations to life imprisonment to Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino, inculpated of trying to penetrate American military facilities and of infiltrating anti-Cuban groups based  in the city of Miami. Fernando González was sanctioned to 19 years of prison, while Antonio Guerrero received life imprisonment condemnation and other two additional of five years of reclusion each one. 

 The Cuban Government sustains that those five people only gathered information to avoid terrorist acts coming from the  American territory.

Cuba sustains that these sentence hearings were manipulated and influenced by the fighter's confinement against the terrorism with the luxurious jails in that proven terrorists and confesos, as the anticubano Luis Posed Rails, they receive in Panama the visit of their mafioso friends from Miami and where elucubran with them new terror acts against Cuba. 

The five condemned Cuban youths in Miami were transferred first, I lower severe custody, to prisons of Atlanta and Oklahoma, and of there taken to their definitive penitentiary centers in five different and distant States.  

"Strongly handcuffed, uncovered amid an intense one he/she fried, thirsty and hungry during the transfer and later subjected to the hard conditions of the hole (isolation cells), our five heroes remain with the high morals and their intact honor. Anything will be able to give in them", the journalist affirmed Randy Alonso, moderator of a round table transmitted by Cuban Television.  

The president Fidel Castro June 23 the 2001 that those five Cubans imprisoned in United States are political prisoners assured.  extreme Cuban-American right. This process was “faked, misinformed and made under colossal pressure 

THE JAIL  

René González completes his 15-year condemnation in a prison of Pennsylvania, far from the rest of his comrades, as if  physical distance can destroy the union among people whose fundamental bond is their ideas and common patriotism. 

The five condemned Cuban youths in Miami were transferred first, under severe custody, to prisons of Atlanta and Oklahoma, and from there they were taken to their definitive penitentiary centers in five different and distant states. 

“Tightly handcuffed, uncovered in the cold weather, thirsty and hungry during the transfer and later subjected to the harsh conditions in the hole (isolation cells), our five heroes remain with high morals and intact honor.

On June 23, 2001,  President Fidel Castro assured that those five Cubans imprisoned in United States are political prisoners.

GIGANTES	GIGANTES	UPUP	GIGANTES