COSATU welcomes release of Cuban heroes
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is overjoyed and relieved at the long overdue release, and return to Cuba, of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, the three remaining members of Cuban Five.
These five comrades were sent by their government to the US to investigate those responsible for acts of terrorism against Cuba by CIA-backed Cuban exiles based in Miami. They were arrested in 1998 by the United States government, tried on trumped-up charges of espionage and unjustly incarcerated for 16 long years.
COSATU also welcomes the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the USA and Cuba, and the easing in economic and travel restrictions announced by President Obama, who said: "Isolation has not worked. It's time for a new approach."
The campaign continues however. The federation demands that this week's step forward be quickly followed by the end of the decades-long US economic blockade of Cuba, which can only be overturned by an act of Congress.
On the 20th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between Cuba and South Africa on 29 August this year, General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, summed up the importance of our campaign of solidarity with Cuba: