Johannesburg - The release of the Cuban Five from prison in the United States should serve as a reminder that the struggle for justice and democracy continues, including in South Africa, retired Constitutional Court judge Zac Yacoob said on Thursday.
“The release of the Cuban Five should not be the end of it all in our struggles as societies. To an extent that we think that having achieved democracy, is having achieved it all… and the fact is that we have forgotten about the poor people who struggle every day because lives for some of us have improved through the course of democracy,” Jacoob told an international symposium in Johannesburg attended by Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González
“I hope the Cuban Five will help re-energise all of us to achieve the kind of society we want in the Freedom Charter. Let us commit ourselves to the completion of the revolution… which is yet to be realised.”
Labañino, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González, commonly known as the Cuban 5, and their families were on a two-week long tour of South Africa and have been given a hero’s welcome.
The five men were sentenced to between 15 years and life in prison in the United States on espionage charges in 2001. One was released in 2011 and in December 2014, the Obama administration began releasing the rest in what observers saw as part of its plans to ease political ties with Havana.
The US president announced last week that Washington would open an embassy in the Cuban capital.
The Cuban Five will leave South Africa on Friday.
ANA