letter of january to Obama

Mr President Obama

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington DC 20500 (USA)

Mr President,

I had a dream. A group of terrorists in the pay of Cuba blew up, in full flight, a U.S. Airways plane, causing a large number of victims. And, as if this were not enough, mortal terrorist attacks, carried out by Cuban agents, multiplied all over your country. A bomb was discovered at a grand university, where you were to have given a speech. Luckily, Mr President, you had had the wisdom to order your counterintelligence agents to keep a watch on the terrorist underground, and they were able to just barely avoid a huge carnage.

Two small planes belonging to an anti-imperialist organization had violated, several times, your country’s airspace, to the point where they even flew over New York. They dropped thousands of tracts denouncing your political stand into the streets and buildings. After having repeatedly protested against these acts, you put an end to these intrusions by shooting down the planes. The Cuban government claimed that you had shot them down in international airspace, but they refused to give proof.

Also in my dream, North American agents who had infiltrated the terrorist underground in Havana discovered that they were preparing to sabotage other airliners going to and from your country. You then demanded that Cuba send an official delegation to Washington to meet with FBI agents, hoping that Cuba’s government would take measures against these terrorist attacks. During this meeting, the FBI handed over a mountain of documents to the Cuban delegation, proving that Cuba was responsible for these attacks. Several months later, to everybody’s surprise, Cuban authorities arrested your agents.

After a parody of justice in Havana, in an atmosphere hostile to “the imperialist agents”, stirred up by hateful newspaper articles written by reporters paid by the Cuban government, your agents were handed down heavy sentences, going as far as perpetuity for some of them. The Cuban authorities even accused one of your agents of being responsible for the planes having been shot down.

Then I woke up, in a cold sweat, wondering what your reaction would have been had this dream been real. Without the slightest doubt, you would have demanded the international community their total support for a violent reprisal against the Cuban “regime”.

Nevertheless, Mr President, if you inverse the roles of Cuba and the United States, this situation is exactly what the five Cuban agents - Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, and René González, went through in September 1998 in Miami.

René González was let go last year, but his four compatriots are still incarcerated in different prisons in the United States. Even if these innocent patriots are keeping dignified and free in their spirits, their bodies are nevertheless still under lock and key!

Gerardo Hernández cannot even see his wife, your authorities having systematically refused her an entrée visa into the United States. This courageous woman is undoubtedly putting the security of your country in grave danger…

What a wonderful New Year’s present you could give to your own country and to Cuba were you to put an end to this injustice that has lasted for more than fifteen years! New relations, based on mutual respect between your two countries would become a reality. Such a gift would also motivate you to raise the genocidal blockade against Cuba, a blockade condemned by more than 92% of the international community last October 29th during a vote at the U.N.

Please receive, Mr President, the expression of my most sincere humanitarian sentiments.

Jacqueline Roussie

Copies sent to: Mrs. Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Kathryn Ruemmler and to Mr. Joe Biden, John F. Kerry, Rand Beers, Harry Reid, Eric Holder, Denis MacDonough, Pete Rouse, Rick Scott and Charles Rivkin, United States Ambassador in France.
Translated by William peterson