the letter of april to Obama

April1st, 2010

Mister Obama, President

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500

Mister President,

March 4th 2010 was the fiftieth anniversary of the terrorist attack against the French ship “La Coubre” in the port of La Havana. This attack caused around a hundred victims, among them six French sailors who were members of the crew.

This terrorist attack took place barely three months after Allen Dulles the director of the CIA had created a “special force” .Its design was to foster subversive activities against Cuba. This attack was at the very heart of a terrorist campaign carried out by the United States.

Antonio Veciana and Luis Posada Carriles both terrorists who have worked for the CIA for dozens of years, recounted how the CIA operated at the time, in order to successfully bring about these attacks against Cuba. Today, fifty years after the “La Coubre” tragedy, the case files of this event remain classified.

Cuba is not the only country to cry for its children killed by your country. If we had to cite them all, the list would be too long! The Condor is still hanging over our memories.

Because it is recent, I would like to mention an odious crime. I was deeply moved recently when I learned that your soldiers executed children in Afghanistan. It happened on the 26th of December last year, in the Kunar province. Eight handcuffed schoolchildren and a young shepherd of 12 years old were killed in cold blood by your troops. War turns people into monsters.

It was also under your government, Mister President Obama, that Roberto Guillermo Bravo, the sinister Argentinean assassin for Operation Condor, was recently arrested on February 25th and then released on bail by Judge Robert Dubé of the Miami Court! Bravo made a name for himself during the massacre at Trelew on August 22nd 1972 where he executed 16 political prisoners. This hardly surprises us, knowing the ties between the Miami mafia and Operation Condor. After this crime and many others, Bravo was hidden and protected at the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base and then at the Argentinean naval station at Washington. During this time the necessary papers were procured enabling him to settle in Miami, where he lives in luxury.
In 1987, he obtained his North American citizenship without the slightest problem! Bravo’s company, the “RGB Group”, is flourishing thanks to numerous contracts with US armed forces. He also has as a client the “Homeland Security” (Department of the Interior).The extradition of Guillermo Bravo has been demanded vainly by the Argentinean Federal Judge Hugo Sastre for the past two years.

As we certify daily, Mister President, your country is not the most well-placed to give lessons on democracy to other countries! So, when we see that you are still holding prisoner the five Cubans (Gerardo Hernandez, René Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, et Fernand Gonzalez), we can only be filled with indignation. These men were protecting their country from the ravages perpetuated precisely by criminals cast in the same mould as Bravo, Carriles, Veciana and Co.

March 8th, which was the Worldwide Women’s Day, would have been a perfect occasion for you to allow the wives of Gerardo and René to obtain a visa in order to finally be able to visit their husbands. You didn’t seize this occasion. What a shame!
Mister President, it is not too late for you to rejoin the ten holders of the Nobel Prize who are demanding liberty for the Cuban Five. If, finally, you grant to these men, “executive clemency”, they so deserve, you would show that you are capable of doing justice and of political courage.

While waiting and hoping for such measures, Mister President, please receive my most sincere humanitarian sentiments.

Jacqueline Roussie

Copies sent to : Mrs. Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Mr. Harry Reid, et the US Ambassador in France.

(Translated by Bill Peterson)