Cape Town - The Cuban Five are coming to Cape Town and the focus of their visit will be to “highlight the injustice of their detainment in a US prison since 1998”, ANC Western Cape chairman Marius Fransman has announced.
The Cuban Five were convicted on charges of espionage and received sentences that ranged from 15 years to life imprisonment during a tense trial in Miami in 2001.
Their release comes as a result of a prisoner swop between the US and Cuba after more than a year of “secret back-channel talks at the highest levels of government”, say US media reports.
Fransman, who is also the chairman of the Cuban Five programme committee, linked the imprisonment of Rene Gonzales, Ramon Labanino, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzales, to the incarceration of former president Nelson Mandela on Robben Island during apartheid.
“If you think about the Cuban Five, you think about the incarceration of Mandela for 27 years. It was unjust and illegal but it was done by a repressive regime,” Fransman said during a media briefing on Sunday.
Fransman further emphasised the role the Cuban Five played in fighting against apartheid: “Cuba was there when we needed them most.”
Fransman said Cuba and South Africa were building relations by sending medical sciences students to study overseas.
He also appealed to businesses to look to Cuba as an international trade destination in an attempt to strengthen relations.
“We are hoping that businesses explore the tourism and commodity processes offered by Cuba,” he said.
He previously stated that the ANC in the Western Cape would not rest until US sanctions imposed on Cuba were lifted. He said the five Cuban intelligence operatives were considered heroes in the Latin-American community which perceived them not as spies but as agents working to halt terrorist attacks.
They will arrive in Cape Town next Monday.
Cape Argus