NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- After Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize for Literature, alerted President Bill Clinton about plans of terrorist attacks by Cuban exile terrorists in Miami, the FBI decided to arrest the five Cuban intelligence officers who were trying to prevent the killing of civilians by dynamiting hotels where Cubans and foreigner tourists were staying.
The arrests occurred in Florida, and those arrested were Cuban intelligence officers, who were investigating a group of right-wing Cuban die-hards, who, because they opposed Castro's socialist regime, were blowing up hotels in Havana in a series of terrorist bombings in Cuba intended to deter the growing tourism trade on the island. An Italian-Canadian, Fabio di Celmo, was killed and 11 people wounded as a result. The Cuban Five were soldiers in Castro's war on homegrown terrorism.
The FBI claimed the five foreigners were spies, so they arrested them, tried them, and sentenced them to prison. This act increased friction between the U.S. and Cuba, where the Cuban Five were, and still are, regarded as heroes. The Cuban government has made repeated attempts to secure the release of the Cuban five, going so far as to offer the "release of all Cuban political prisoners in exchange."
The thesis of Gualdo Hidalgo's insightful book is that different cultures possess different and wholly individual ways of looking at historical incidents. Often the difference lies in each culture's perspective of terrorism. In other words, Hidalgo maintains that Cuba's war on terrorism is comparable to the United States war on terrorism. The separating factor is political.
What it comes down to is this: because the U.S. regards Cuba as communist, those individuals that Cuba regards as terrorists, the U.S. regards as freedom fighters. However, Hidalgo asserts that terrorism against any form of government is still terrorism, and cannot be countenanced. Therefore, according to Hidalgo, the Cuban five are heroes and not spies.
The Untold Story of the Cuban Five is recommended reading for those interested in political history, politics, and/or the Cuban culture.
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SOURCE Latin Heritage Foundation
