3-29-05, 12:18 pm

Geneva (Prensa Latina) The case of the five Cuban patriots imprisoned in the US for fighting terrorism caused emotions and gestures of solidarity among delegates to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission, despite the silence it has kept on the issue. Dozens of representatives of third world countries and friends of Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, wives of Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, gathered in front of the facility to support them.

The Mission against Terror documentary, showing the reasons for which the Cuban Five monitored stateside terrorist attacks against Havana, was screened. In the short-length feature, former CIA officer Philip Agee admitted that Washington maneuvers had turned the Island into a 'besieged country.'

Percy Alvarado, a Cuban intelligence operative infiltrated into Miami-sheltered counterrevolutionary groups, also appears in the documentary, denouncing the Cuban-American National Foundation plots to plant C-4 explosives in the internationally renowned Tropicana Nightclub, where dozens of people would have died.

Regarding the five anti-terrorist fighters´ long sentences and solitary confinement, defense attorney Leonard Weinglass said the prosecution clearly violated international law.

Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon made it clear that his government provided the White House with valuable information on criminal activities against Havana.

'They imprisoned the people who fought terrorism, instead of punishing those who engaged in it,' he contended.

The commission also witnessed the launching of the book 'Letters of Love and Hope,' containing messages sent by the Five, with prologue by US writer Alice Walker.

Olga Salanueva said the book was not a science fiction novel but a true portrait of human drama the unjustly-imprisoned Cubans and their families are facing.

In addition, Cuban representative to the UN Human Rights Commission Ivan Mora highly praised the importance of world solidarity for a cause that should be supported by all honest people.

African and Latin American delegates and members of solidarity organizations with the Cuban Five and their nation participated in the rally.

The wives of the five Cuban patriots also met with papal nuncio Silvano Tomasi, who promised to inform the US Episcopal Conference of their meeting, and Safir Syed, assistant to the Human Rights Commission special raporteur, who did not commit to anything but accepted that it met the requirements to be considered at the commission.

--From Prensa Latina