Arrested for Exposing Terrorists: The Singular Story of the Cuban Five

The Five had come to the United States from Cuba following years of violence perpetrated by a network of terrorist made up of armed mercenaries drawn from the Cuban exile community in Florida. For over forty years these groups have been tolerated, and even hosted, by successive U.S. Governments.

Cuba suffered significant casualties and property destruction at their hands. Cuban protests to the United States Government and the United Nations fell on deaf ears. Following the demise of the socialist states in the early 90's the violence escalated as Cuba struggled to establish a tourism industry. The Miami mercenaries responded with a violent campaign to dissuade foreigners from visiting. A bomb was found in the airport terminal in Havana, tourist buses were bombed, as were hotels. Boats from Miami traveled to Cuba and shelled hotels and tourist facilities.

The mission of the Five was not to obtain U.S. military secrets, as was charged, but rather to monitor the terrorist activities of those mercenaries and report their planned threats back to Cuba.. The arrest and prosecution of these men for their courageous attempt to stop the terror was not only unjust, it exposed the hypocrisy of America's claim to oppose terrorism wherever it surfaces.

Nothing reveals this more than the contrast between the U.S. government's handling of the Five's case with that of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Both Bosch and Carriles were members, even leaders, of the Miami terror network and self confessed terrorists, who planted a bomb on a Cubana airline in 1976, which exploded in midair, killing 73 people.

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