Movietime for the Cuban Five
A review of reviews
By James R Smith
A widely-acclaimed and award-winning film in Europe, called the Wasp Network, about the Cuban Five, has come to America. It stars an international cast that includes Penélope Cruz, Edgar Ramírez, and Gael García Bernal. The French director, who has earned the right to be called auteur, is Olivier Assayas. He recently directed the mini-series, Carlos. The incident of the Cuban Five, who were Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, lasted from the late 1990s until December 2014.
The reception is quite different in this country. Not to pick on the L.A. Times again, but that paper recently printed an unusual review of the Wasp Network by freelancer Carlos Aguilar. It seems very strange that an accomplished film reviewer could write an entire review about the Wasp Network, without once mentioning that it is a dramatization of the story of the Cuban Five. He goes as far as calling it “a choppy recap of recent Cuban history.” But why does he have so much trouble saying those two words, Cuban Five?
Perplexed with Aguilar’s review, I turned to Rotten Tomatoes to see what other reviewers had to say about this film. It seems that Mary Sollosi of Entertainment Weekly can’t say those two words, either. She gave it a C+. Diane Carson of KDHX can’t say those two little words, and she, or someone, gave the review a odd headline: ‘Wasp Network’ follows Cuban defectors in Florida, even though the Cuban Five were just pretending to be defectors. Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall liked the film, but apparently knows nothing about the film’s back story (the Cuban Five). Did any of these reviewers actually see the film? Hooray, Matt Conway of Battle Royale With Cheese knows how to say Cuban Five, right in the middle of the review!
Ok, we could do this all day long and we’d fail to find those two little words. The question is why the film is not linked with the real-life Cuban Five by the reviewers? Is it that the reviewers as a group are so lacking in knowledge about recent history? Or, did they write that the film was about the Cuban Five, only to have it deleted by an editor? Or, did they know it was about the Cuban Five (most likely) but they engaged in self-censorship?
If you consider yourself a person of the left, then surely you’ve heard of the Cuban Five. If you’re new to international intrigue, here’s the story in brief. Osama bin Laden wasn’t the only terrorist causing people to lose sleep at night. If you were a Cuban, you were not so concerned about al-Queda, but with Alpha 66, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue and their leaders, José Mas Conosa and Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA officer.
Were the Miami Cubans real terrorists or just loud mouths? In a 2001 report by Cuba's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the Cuban government cataloged 3,478 deaths as a result of "terrorism," "aggression," "acts of piracy, including bombing a Cuban airliner, airline ticket offices and numerous tourist hotels and other actions." In comparison, 2,977 died at the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s not a contest, one death is one too many, but an answer to the question. Yes, the Miami Cubans were real terrorists.
The Cuban Five had volunteered in the late 90s to go to Miami where they could infiltrate the terrorist groups that were killing people in Cuba, and report back to Havana. They seemed to be very effective even though none of them were career intelligence officers. Their work was used by the Cuban government to tip off U.S. officials about a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during an Organization of American States meeting in South America. They also learned crucial information that led to the arrest of a hotel bomber and that the mastermind behind the bombings was Luis Posada Carriles, who never paid for his crimes because he was a U.S. asset.
They were arrested in a sweep in September 1998, and mostly kept in solitary confinement until their trial began in November, 2000, in Miami. The trial lasted seven months, and the jury took only a few hours to condemn them on all counts.
As Robert Pastor, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser for Latin America, stated: “Holding a trial for five Cuban intelligence agents in Miami is about as fair as a trial for an Israeli intelligence agent in Tehran. You'd need a lot more than a good lawyer to be taken seriously.”
And so it was. All were sentenced to lengthy prison terms: two life terms for Hernández, to be served consecutively; life for Guerrero and Labañino; 19 years for Fernando González; and 15 years for René González. One might think that after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush government would have recognized the Five as true brothers in the fight against terrorism. Instead, the Bush regime ignored the now imprisoned Five, and continued protecting the Miami terrorists against demands for their extradition.
The Cuban Five made the leftwing news, and the mainstream press, repeatedly from when they were arrested in September 1998, until the final releases in December, 2014. The long sentences given to the Five for fighting terrorism infuriated most of the world. Scores of well-known and esteemed writers, scientists, politicians, including eight Nobel Prize winners, more than 100 members of the UK parliament, and thousands around the world, demanded the release of the Five. In addition, the U.S. was castigated for holding a trial in Miami, the most hostile location possible.
In addition to protests around the world, there were growing demands for their release in this country. As usual, the motivation was not that it should be done because it was the right thing to do, but because the imprisonments were giving the U.S. a bad image at a time when fighting terrorism was still a top government priority.
Even though the Cuban Five are free and reportedly living happy lives back in Havana, their story will not go away soon. In Cuba, they are considered by most citizens to be real heros and role models. In Miami, where hate is given out freely to anyone who supports the socialist government, they are at the top of the list. Some of the hatred may be because the Miami “anti-Castro” Cubans were so easily played for suckers by the Five.
My advice is to disregard the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and elsewhere in the U.S., and go see the film. You won’t have far to go, it’s on Netflix. Or, you could read the non-fiction book that the movie is based upon, The Last Soldiers of the Cold War by Brazilian journalist Fernando Morais.
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Here are today’s R numbers:
R numbers show how many people are infected on average by one infected person. Numbers below 1.00 mean the virus is shrinking, while numbers above 1.00 mean the virus is expanding.
The numbers keep getting worse. Only 7 states are reducing the virus. It is as if we haven’t learned a thing about controlling the virus, or about controlling our own behavior.
The worst states are: Wisconsin, 1.39; Montana, 1.33; West Virginia, 1.32; Oklahoma, 1.31; and Hawaii, 1.30.
The best states are Connecticut, 0.79; DC, 0.88; Maine, 0.89; and New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maryland, all at 0.96.
The Left Coast states aren’t doing so well. California, 1.16; Oregon, 1.15; and Washington, 1.22 are all in dangerous territory.
The states are listed in alphabetical order. Scores in Red are increasing the virus; scores in Black are reducing it. Today’s numbers are in the right column.
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Impressions of Cuba
I.
Shattered dreams
Replaced by grim realities
For us. For Cuba.
For the world.
Come back Yuri Gagarin
We need you.
II.
Tropical Cuba, an island,
a world to itself,
on a small planet
rotting from our excess.
III.
Cuba, entwined in a dream,
of heroic guerrillas
DeSoto convertibles
and erotic music.
IV.
Oh Cubans,
Beware the raptors of war and finance
who would gladly crush this island
if they could.
V.
Above La Habaña
Che is floating on a cloud
built by the dreams of millions.
(from If The Dead Had Email, by Jim Smith - Venice West Publishers, 2011)
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