"What does it mean to be free? In our world which has so often seen freedom destroyed in its own name, we've been given plenty of answers. According to many of our leaders, to be free from terrorists is to harass Arab-Americans. It is to stereotype Muslims and to infiltrate places of worship. In other words, to save ourselves from terrorism, they tell us that we must in turn terrorize one another. To be free from invasion and foreign conquest, they tell us, we must in turn invade and conquer nations from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. To make sure an empire never rises, we must become that empire.
So we are told. But I don't believe it. I don't think you do, either.
I once spoke about flag desecration. How the most repugnant form of flag desecration is to plant our nation's banner over burning homes and demolished nations. Today I want to say it again. Our flag is being desecrated. And out of all the blockades, wars, smears, and acts of repression, there is one I want to speak about in detail, and that is the case of the Cuban Five.
From it's beginning, revolutionary Cuba has faced the worst brand of terrorism and hostility against her. Her economy is in a choke-hold and her people are poor from fifty years of a unanimously condemned trade embargo. She has been subject to the worst smears and slander on the part of her enemies. And she has faced terrorism, genuine terrorism, from hostile forces based in Miami.
In 1976, a CIA-backed plot executed by Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, among others, succeeded in freeing 73 people aboard a Cuban plane from communism, by freeing them from their lives. US intelligence records confirmed having knowledge of the plan's conception before it was carried out, but declined to act on it. Today, Bosch lives comfortably on our own soil, while Posada faces prosecution, not for his heinous act of mass-murder, but for entering the country illegally. There are no plans to bring either to justice
Having suffered so many of these attacks, the people of Cuba fought back. And coming to the call were five men. Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González. These were men with families. The were fathers. Husbands. Soldiers. In the 1990's they volunteered to infiltrate and report on anti-Cuban terrorist groups in Miami, providing Cuba with the information it needed to keep its people safe. But in 1998, the five were arrested and put in a kangaroo court, to stand trial for the viscous misdeed of resisting mass murder. All five were convicted and are being held in various prisons across the country on life sentences, away from there families, friends, and homes for thirteen years. They receive no uncensored mail, two have not even seen their wives since their arrest, and all have endured the brutality of our prison system in the form of solitary confinement and mistreatment in spite of spotless conduct behind bars. Perhaps to defend justice, we must engage in injustice? Is this what our leaders would tell us?
I still don't believe that.
If we are to call our nation the land of the free. If we are to declare our country to be governed by democracy and the rule of law. If we are to be a refuge for peacemakers and freedom fighters worldwide, we must remove the plank from our own eye before removing sawdust from another. We can stand on a platform and criticize other nations, but I'm ready for self-criticism. I'm ready to make real the promise, make true the dream, make right the wrong! Before I ask China to release her political prisoners, I want to free ours. Because when it comes to human rights, charity starts at home. Free the five."
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