Listen, Mr. Obama
Published in Periodico 26
(Cuba) on 21 September 2010
by Gerardo González Quesada (link to
original)
Without the slightest intention of offending you, but instead with the respect that a president deserves — and especially a president who is considered by most to be an intelligent person with a strong academic foundation — I believe it should not be ignored that several of the world’s intellectual figures, including 10 Nobel Prize winners, have asked in an open letter for you to release five Cuban citizens who have spent 12 years in American prisons carrying out long and unjust sentences.
Beyond the political differences between Havana and Washington lie humanitarian and social problems, problems with human and civil rights and the evident violation of the U.S. Constitution, which manifested in these legal proceedings since the commencement of the Federal Tribunal in Miami.
Perhaps you consider it just that these five men have been accused of espionage without the required proof or evidence. Don’t you think it would be appropriate for you and your advisors to review the analysis conducted by a panel of three judges from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the most objective and clear investigation in these past years?
Do you believe it is appropriate that the wives of Gerardo Hernández and René González have been denied visas? Or that Mr. Gonzalez barely knows his youngest daughter? Or that Gerardo is unable to have the child he so deeply desires?
For the moment, I separate myself from our ideological and political differences to appeal to the more universal values for which people of goodwill fight and will always fight: justice, honesty and fraternity.
It is under these conditions that the contents of the letters and messages, which arrive at your office and are addressed to your wife, ask you to liberate these five men. The world will be grateful, even though there will be ingratitude and criticism from those who are resentful and lack compassion.
Think about that, and I suggest, with great humility, that you do so with compassion and humanity, the characteristics that allow people to become better human beings.
Beyond the political differences between Havana and Washington lie humanitarian and social problems, problems with human and civil rights and the evident violation of the U.S. Constitution, which manifested in these legal proceedings since the commencement of the Federal Tribunal in Miami.
Perhaps you consider it just that these five men have been accused of espionage without the required proof or evidence. Don’t you think it would be appropriate for you and your advisors to review the analysis conducted by a panel of three judges from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the most objective and clear investigation in these past years?
Do you believe it is appropriate that the wives of Gerardo Hernández and René González have been denied visas? Or that Mr. Gonzalez barely knows his youngest daughter? Or that Gerardo is unable to have the child he so deeply desires?
For the moment, I separate myself from our ideological and political differences to appeal to the more universal values for which people of goodwill fight and will always fight: justice, honesty and fraternity.
It is under these conditions that the contents of the letters and messages, which arrive at your office and are addressed to your wife, ask you to liberate these five men. The world will be grateful, even though there will be ingratitude and criticism from those who are resentful and lack compassion.
Think about that, and I suggest, with great humility, that you do so with compassion and humanity, the characteristics that allow people to become better human beings.