Gerado Remains Positive

It has been a difficult twelve months for Gerardo Hernandez serving two life sentences plus fifteen years in a US penitentiary in the Californian town of Victorville. Not only has he lost his mother and suffered from health problems that were treated late but he has also been subjected to thirteen days in the intolerable conditions of the “hole” at the height of summer last year. The habeas corpus appeal is underway following the re-sentencing of three of the Five in 2009 yet Gerardo believes that the key to the freedom of the Five lies in international solidarity rather than the vagaries of a politicised judicial system.

Daughter of Cuba

Irma Gonzalez, daughter of Miami 5 anti-terrorist fighter, Rene Gonzalez, found time during her recent tour to speak to CubaSí editor Natasha Hickman about growing up in Miami, the campaign to free her father and her reception in Britain.

Until six, Irma Gonzalez led the life of an ordinary Cuban child. She lived with her parents and spent weekends with grandparents in Havana.

Suddenly, in December 1990, everything changed: “I woke up one morning and my dad wasn’t there. I was used to him being away for one or two nights, but this time he just didn’t come back.”