By: Sam Heaton
Ottawa hosted award-winning Canadian journalist Stephen Kimber on Nov. 6 as part of a tour to promote his new book What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five.
The Cuban Five, as they became known, were five Cuban intelligence agents sent to the United States in 1994 to infiltrate and report on the activities of Miami-based anti-Cuba terrorist groups. Cuba has experienced numerous incidents of fatal, politically-motivated bombings on civilian airlines and tourist destinations in the past several decades.
As Kimber’s book explains, important information was uncovered by the Cubans about anti-Cuban groups operating in the U.S., and the intelligence was handed over to the U.S. government. Instead of arresting those allegedly involved in deadly attacks in Cuba, the FBI arrested the Cuban agents.
Tried by a Miami jury, the Five were convicted in 2001 of conspiring to commit espionage and sentenced to terms ranging from 30 years to double life sentences. Only one of the Five, René González, has been released to date.
While the case of the Five has occupied a prominent place in solidarity work by activists for over ten years, Kimber points out in his prologue that the story received scant media attention in the United States even in the midst of the Cubans’ legal appeal.
In writing What Lies Across the Water, Kimber hopes to change that, and with a lengthy op-ed in the Washington Post amongst other coverage, he may be succeeding.
The strength of the book is that it combines a wealth of documentary evidence with a compelling portrait of remarkable individuals. Kimber’s stop in Ottawa exemplified the latter aspect of the book by focusing on the love story between Gerardo Hernández and his “best friend” and wife, Adriana Pérez.
Hernández’s story is among the most tragic and compelling aspects of the case of the Five. The sole member of the Five serving a life sentence, he is also the only one who has been denied an official visit from his spouse for the entirety of his incarceration.
A talented amateur political cartoonist, Hernández illustrates behind bars to criticize U.S. policy towards Cuba and the hypocrisy of his imprisonment.
Though Kimber makes it clear that he did not begin from any particular standpoint on Cuba or the Five, his conclusions are unmistakable. What Lies Across the Water argues that the arrest and conviction of the Five without sound evidence was motivated by politics and to appease a ravenous Cuban exile community in Miami.
Kimber’s message as he tours his book across Canada is that unless a political movement secures the release of the rest of the Five, Gerardo will not survive his prison sentence, and Adriana may never see him again.
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 6, No. 3 (Nov/Dec 2013).
