Exposes u. S. Support for u. S. Violent anticastro militants. Andhey were disobedient they did not ask permission to take away property. They took it away. They nationalized it. The u. S. , on the one hand, has never forgiven them. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The failed u. S. Policy against cuba which has for more than half a century stifled relations between these neighboring countries, and inflicted generations of horror upon the cuban people may finally be collapsing. On december 17, the two countries announced a series of moves to normalize relations. Cuba released alan gross, a u. S. Government contract or and a cuban who spied for the ca. The u. S. Released the three remaining jailed members of the cuban five. The cuban five were arrested in the late 1990s on espionage charges here in the u. S. But they were not spying on the u. S. Government. They were in miami infiltrating cuban american paramilitary groups based there that were dedicated to the violent overthrow of the cuban government. President obama announced that on inc. U. S. Cuba relations. Filleddministration has meetings about the case and other aspects of the relationship. His holiness pope francis issued a personal appeal to me into cubas president raul castro urging us to resolve alans case and to resolve the interests of been cubans who have jailed in the u. S. For over 15 years. Today, allen returned home, reunited with his family at long last. Allen was released on humanitarian grounds. Separately, in exchange for the three cuban agents, cuba today released one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in cuba and who has been imprisoned for nearly two decades. ,his man who sacrificed provided america with the information that allowed us to arrest the network of cuban agents including the men transferred to cuba today as well as other spies in the United States. This man is now safely on our shores. President raul castro also talk about the move to normalize relations. As a result of a dialogue at the highest level, which included a phone conversation i had yesterday with president obama, we have been able to make headway in a solution of mutual interests or both nations. As for dell promised on june,hen he said, they shall return her virgo, ramon, and antonio, have arrived today to their homeland. The enormous joy of their families and all of our people who have relentlessly fought for this goal is shared by hundreds of solidarity committees and groups, governments, parliament, organizations, institutions, and personalities who, for the last 16 years, had made tireless efforts demanding their release. We convey our deepest gratitude and commitment to all of them. President obamas decision deserves the respect and acknowledgment of our people. We turn now to the late awardwinning filmmaker saul landau who made more than 45 phillips, wrote 14 books, many about cuba. At age of 7713 from cancer. His film exposed u. S. Support for violent anticastro militants. Do you know who the cuban five are . Werent they the guys that play the u. S. In the semi finals of the panamerican games . The cuban five . Are they that salsa band . Why havent i ever heard about that . They are the rock band, right . Do you know who the cuban five are . Do not take my picture. They infiltrated terrorist groups in miami in exile planning attacks on the cuban people and foreign citizens inside cuba. The cuban five had a right to defend the cuban revolution. That was danny glover and a clip from the documentary will the real terrorist we stand up . This is another clip. It begins with retired colonel lawrence wilkerson, the former chief of staff of secretary of state colin powell. Look at diedrich only in sentences they got, two licenses was 15 years and this is supposed to be because of the brothers to the rescue shootdown and so forth which i have absolutely no way of knowing the truth about because our government, cubanamerican community and others have so clouded the fax and so obfuscated all of the available material on it. Own behalf, he said it is necessary for some countries to send their sons and daughters to defend themselves. Carry out dangerous missions, be they in afghanistan or self order. It is not whether they were sent here because acts of terrorism were happening in cuba. You do not send people to spy in other countries because you think that they are committing or you say they are committing that. Are trying to be painted as heroes are murderers. All the men were given maximum sentences, kept in solitary confinement or more than a year, barred from seeing for certain family members tom and what they believed was the most prejudicial am a they were not granted a change of venue out of miami. There was ample evidence of intimidation of the jury and in fact some of the jurors during the process when they were being selected specifically said that they were afraid for their families if they reached a verdict in the case that was not acceptable to the Exile Community in miami. I dont understand why the trial proceeded in dade county, florida. A change in venue, to me, is a layman, is something that is demanded when there is absolutely no chance of the defendant or defendants getting a fair trial in the area where they are going to be tried. Areot all terrorists treated the same. Clearly those favored by the administration can operate within the United States with impunity. Violent acts against cuba are protected and yet you see individuals who are trying to top those acts of terror, make american Law Enforcement aware of these activities, are the people that end up being prosecuted. These people end up in jail and those who blow up airliners and hotels, those who conduct acts of violence are free, the toast of the town, because the administration is paralyzed by their own policy with respect to respect to the war on terror, and you see a level of duplicity that is incredible. With june 2012, i sat down saul in new york to talk about his most recent film will the real terrorist please stand up. About u. S. Support for antique anticastroiolent actors. I was curious to see how fidel castro and his other revolutionaries would last. I did not think they could, so i went to cuba to check it out. Runningople my age government ministers and sleeping three hours a night and using a lot more of their brains than i would, and i was impressed watching people make history. Like many other people who went down there at the time, this place seemed to really different. They were going to make a different kind of revolution and it was going to have an impact. I think it did have its impact on the world. That is how i got there in the first place. Working to, i was stop the United States from invading cuba, like a lot of people who had gone down there, and one of the first talks i gave was in new york city at townhall. As i came out, a guy try to cut me on the back with a razor, a cuban exile. I guess he took reading the speech more seriously than i did. Subsequently, i made a film with fidel castro in 1968. The Theatrical Release was supposed to have been in new york in 1970 at the 5th avenue cinema. I think it wouldve happened if somebody had not put two bombs in the theater. That ended the opening in new york, so we were going to open in los angeles. The day before it was green, the theater was burned down and the police determined it was arson. No one was caught in either case. Who was at levinson, that time a new director at the center for cuban studies, was going to show it there. Then that center for cuban senders studies was bombed. Encounter with a cuban terrorist was when my two colleagues were assassinated in washington, d. C. By cuban exiles working for the Chilean Secret Police. Over the years i have had my share of credible death threats. Orlando was a chilean diplomat under the chilean ambassador in washington. That is how i first met him. I invited him to come to the institute for policy studies were i was working, and he did. He was not there even a year and he was blown up in his car on sheridan circle, three quarters of a mile from the white house. An audacious act of terrorism. You have been with him close to the time when he was killed. Them sundayner with night, he was killed tuesday morning. That sunday night, my wife and i came out of his house. I remember talking outside with our elbows on his car, which was parked in his driveway, not knowing there was a bomb underneath the car. Do you think it was there at that point . According to the witnesses who later testified, they had put it on early sunday morning, placed the bomb on the car then. And had not used it until tuesday. They misted monday somehow, so they got him on tuesday. And this relates to cuba because of the assassins. They came from a cuban group in northern new jersey called the Cuban Nationalist Movement. Sometimes they went under the name of omega 7. The fbi had infiltrated the man knew early on that they had been the actual perps who did the thing under the auspices of the Chilean Secret Police who had ordered the assassination. Did they know before that orlando was under such threat . According to what we know, from the fbi agents and from the found out, they after. The assassination was on a tuesday. Friday or saturday, their informant called and said it was the Cuban Nationalist Movement who did the job and he named the people who did it. They were all arrested by the fbi very quickly and held in contempt for refusing to testify , and then they were tried and convicted, three of them. Two later were caught and convicted. One got out because the prosecutor made a procedural error. In the second trial, their lawyer apparently learned more than the prosecutor and i got off. It was at that point that guillermo, right after the trial, looked at me and in spanish said, now we are going to get the rest of those commie i held my finger up, he advanced toward me, then the fbi came between us. Shortly afterwards, i was told that i was on his target list, that he had put a hit on me. The late saul landau in a 2012 interview. We will talk more about his film will the real terrorist please stand up. [ ] this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As the United States and cuba move toward normalizing relations, we return to the late filmmaker saul landau. I interviewed him in 2012. Your film is called will the real terrorist please stand up. There is a very interesting review of your film by the former chief of staff of secretary of state colin powell, lawrence wilkerson, who also appears in your film. He says what surprised him the most was the procuba aspect of the film. He said it was clear that this aspect was not conjured by the filmmaker, but by history. Perhaps, he says, i told myself much of this history intellectually and academically but i have not seen it such graphically ahead of me in such a tight package that left off the screen. Explain that history between the United States and cuba, this history of terrorism and who the real terrorists are. Think cuba, in a sense, belongs in the guinness book of records for disobedience. Let me go back to a story. In cuba with gore of a doll and john burton, the president of the california senate. He was turned out of office. We were meeting with the person from the United States intersection in cuba which is the equivalent of an embassy but it is not a cause we do not have formal relations with cuba. Burton asked the man, the diplomat, what did cuba due to us again . He said, well, they violate human rights. The chinesee on, killed thousands of americans in vietnam is the same. What did cuba due to us again . The man went on and on about cuba violating human rights. Burton stormed out of the house. But there it is. What did cuba due to us . I think the answer is they were disobedient in our hemisphere and they did not ask permission to take away property, they nationalized it. The United States, on the one hand, has never forgiven them. On the other hand, has hosted a strange kind of lobby, maybe after 1981. We had an anticastro lobby in this country and was formed in part through the intervention of aipac, who sort of taught them how to do it. Why did they care . Israel has relations with cuba. They have economic relations with cuba. Israeli investment is obvious in cuba. They do not have diplomatic relations but in the reagan white house, they asked the aipac people to do this. I dont think it was their own initiative. Fascinating that it was anticastro cubans who attempt to assassinate president reagan, as you show in your film. Violencesed consistently over 50 years, even though it has not worked. If anything, the violence has helped to consolidate Fidel Castros rule and the subsequent government, but they continue to use it. If you ask them why they use it, they cannot tell you. He wasask orlando why violent, he says in the movie, well, he is crazy. Another guy takes credit for all another manngs and denies that he did anything. Explain who these men are. E had been a cia agent from 1959 on. He was recruited by david atlee phillips, who recruited quite a few people in that time. He also recruited antonio. He was the topic to kill castro over the years. He is in the film as well. Anyway, he, working for the cia, sometimes for himself, fired son cannon at a hotel in 1962 so that he could prove there were russians in cuba because the russians then complained that people have been fired at. Then formed an Organization Called brothers to the rescue which was originally to save the lives of rafters leaving cuba after the soviet union disappeared. He and his pilots would radio their positions to nearby ships. When the u. S. And cuba signed a migration accord, he lost his mission because there were no more rafters. They were being picked up by the coast guard and being returned to cuba. So he took a new mission, overflying cuba. The cubans got word that he would drop a weapon on them and they notified the United States that future overflights would meet the gravest of consequences, meaning they would be shot down. He was told by the u. S. Government that future flights would be very dangerous. In fact, the u. S. Government sent a note to the Federal Aviation Agency to take their licenses away and the head of the faa sent a note to the faa chief in miami to take their licenses away and not to let them fly. But he did not follow orders and 1996,lew, february 24, and two planes were shot down. Arlen and copilots killed. This brought about recklessly escaped. Clinton responded by signing the helmsburton bill which tightened their powers. That was jose. And then you have luis posada. He and Orlando Bosch had teamed up in october to knock down a cuban airliner, a passenger plane, which their agents excessively did over the island of barbados. The agents were caught and they anded on hose a koreas Orlando Bosch and both were arrested. Then there was a long judicial process in which very little happened. One of them was freed, came to the United States. President bush, the first, brought him in despite the complaints from the fbi and justice department, saying he was a dangerous terrorist. Bush ignored them and let him in. I want to go to a clip of your film, will the real terrorist please stand up. This is the moment that the cuban that airlines, with 70 passengers aboard, is hit. We have an explosion. We are descending immediately. We have a fire on board. Are you returning to the field . This is cubana 455. We are requesting immediate landing. Closed a door. Closeddoor. It is getting worse. Crash landing into the sea. This is the cbs evening news with walter cronkite. Ago, a cuban passenger jet en route from barbados to havana crashed into the sea following an onboard explosion. 73 persons, 57 cuban, were killed. You are watching an excerpt of saul landaus film will the real terrorist please stand up. Orlando bosch and luis posada blowup this airliner. They ultimately live freely in miami. We know this now from declassified documents from the cia and the fbi, that they had nailed them. Posada told an official that orlando has all the information, we are going to get an airplane. It is all there. I think we put it on the screen. The first thing they did was try to raise money off of this event. It occurred to me that this might have been, down deep, the real motivation behind this terrorism. Airplaneblowing up an going to change the government of cuba, or even placing a few bombs in hotels, or trying to assassinate . After all of these terrorist acts, these guys go doortodoor and say, you heard but we did lately. You have a nice store here. And they raise money. This is how they ended up making a living. Otherwise it makes no sense doing anything that they did. Going on with lawrence wilkersons review of your film, the man who was chief of staff of secretary of state colin talks about posada and bosch. He says clearly shown and vividly documented that the u. S. Sponsors terrorism. There are overtones of Osama Bin Laden and im in a house or greet. In the film, the deal is and bosch tell us this in their own words. Moreover, they seem to rejoice in it. That is who they were, that was their vocation. They ultimately got proud of it. Wasa bin ladens objective not to take power in the United States. He had another motive for bombing the World Trade Center and pentagon. I think these guys did not help to take power in cuba. They had another motive, and that was to make a living. There were over 600 assassination attempts on Fidel Castros light that the u. S. Was involved with. The u. S. Government or cia were involved in i dont know how many. According to a british film, they had pretty good documentation from the cubans. Castros life. The cia was involved in more than half of them. Why did they want fidel castro dead . In the u. S. Government, it was fun as soon as he was gone, the cuban revolution was gone, and they would get cuba back. It would be back in their pocket as they had it before. If you look at cuba before the revolution, it was an economic colony of the United States. The u. S. Government felt a sense of loss, humiliation almost. Who lost cuba . This was a discussion in the 1960s. Who was responsible for losing cuba . Eisenhower was blamed, kennedy was blamed. Was, look at those corporations that own the islands, the sugar companies, king ranch, other huge American Companies who had huge assets there, and they were all thats appropriated. Oil companies. Texaco. They all worked with batista, the former dictator. Batista was a brutal dictator, according to cuban figures, killed 22,000 people over five years, and tracked routine torture. He was supported by the u. S. Government until late in the game. So how did this group of , fidel castro, che guevara, overthrow batista . And his group used a combination of guerrilla war, which they fund from several mountains, the two mountain ranges in the Eastern Province in cuba. Then there was another Group Fighting from the other mountains. They tried to coordinate their activities within urban revolutionary group that was also causing Repressive Forces to put a lot of attention onto them. They were creating sabotage, propaganda. By 1958, was extremely unpopular. He had been a sergeant and not one of the Old Guard Army people. He really was not in bed with the old cuban aristocrats, did not owe them any loyalty. He was in bed with the mafia. He was on good terms with them for the gambler and prostitution and all that stuff. He did not feel any kinship with the uppermiddleclass or the aristocracy, many of whose kids were being picked up by the cops and tortured or even killed. So he lost a lot of popularity and when the revolutionaries won, they got overwhelming popular support. That did not last of course. As soon as the revolution showed they were serious about class things, distributing wealth out of the upperclass moved out and they went to miami. This is pretty much all completed by the late 1960s. The richest people in cuba had left the island. So tell us who the cuban five r. They were intelligence agents who are part of a larger web of intelligent groups wasps. 12 of them either got please or fled and got away. And they were charged with what . Failing to register a foreign agent, false identity. Has the u. S. Ever done that . The u. S. Has never tried anybody for failing failure to register a foreign agent. U. S. Is doing all of the all over the world, so they dont want to set a precedent. They deport people and arrest them and say go home. They expect that to happen if americans are caught, lets say in a foreign country in eastern europe, lets say. Having infiltrated some terrorist cells in chechnya or wherever. This is what this kind of intelligence is all about, and everyone understands it. Also identification, of course you have false id, or you will be known. So these are not serious charges. Legally, they do have penalties associated with it, but these heaviere charged with crimes, conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit , and these carried heavy sentences. The judge went overboard. She gave her argot two life sentences plus 15 years, almost unheard of. Some of the sentences were reversed by an Appeals Court which said these sentences are ridiculous and they listened to them. They forced the judge to resentence. One of the cuban five is now on. Arole in south florida but he is not allowed to travel outside of self laura. Anybody else would simply be deported and sent back home. The other three, how many years do they still have to serve . One of them has a light sentence. One of them will be out and about five years, another in about eight or 10. So murderers and rapists get far more lenient sentences . Yes, they got super maximum sentences. Is there any deal being made behind the scenes to free the cuban five in exchange for who is cuba holding that the u. S. Would be interested in releasing . The cubans caught a man named alan gross who was working as a contractor for a company that was contracted with the state department. Their job, essentially, was to promote regime change in cuba, and it said so in the legislation, and they got the money to do so. Alans job was to set up dissid ents with sophisticated Satellite Communication Systems that would work with satellite phones and laptops that were on trackable and impenetrable. I do not think that he was truly trying to keep the cubans from learning our secret muscle ball recipe. He says he is innocent, just trying to help the Jewish Community get Better Internet access. Total nonsense. Hillary clinton is still saying this, that he is innocent. Even his wife now says he is guilty. What you mean . Hillary says that all he was trying to do was to get the Jewish Community internet access. Why is his wife saying he is guilty . Thats defense was he was innocent, and then came a story in mid february of this year. Somebody leaked to him his trip reports that allen had made. This was his fifth trip to cuba and in each one he details how he smuggles in illicit equipment using other jews going down on religious missions. He had asked them to put pieces of the equipment in their backpacks to get through customs in cuba which he then reassembled, and he bought a sim card which made the system on trackable. The people could communicate with each other without cuban counterintelligence finding out where they were. That is why i say it was not just to protect our matzo ball recipe. Allen had done this in iraq and had done so in afghanistan. He had a track record. Did he know what he was doing in terms of what the ultimate goal was . Who knows. I dont know and i dont think it was relevant, but he knew he was violating cuban law. The cubans got his laptop, his hard drive, his flash drive they follow him all through cuba so they could track the people he was talking to before he was ultimately arrested when he was leaving at the airport. Thelan was picked up after first cuban agent he spoke to, a state security agent masquerading as a religious person. That was it. He was picked up. The Jewish Community that he went to once a meal he calls the cops on him. So alan was identified and the cubans followed him everywhere he went and got a list of all the people he visited and now had all of his equipment. So i think something that is possible how should i say it, reciprocal humanitarian gestures are not possible. The cubans could free alan gross and president obama could free the cuban five. The late filmmaker saul landau in a 2012 interview talking about his film will the real terrorist please stand up. He died last year at the age of 77. When we come back, we go to havana, cuba to speak to rene gonzalez, the first freed member of the cuban five. [ ] this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Gonzalez, thee first freed member of the cuban five. The last three were released earlier this month as part of the deal with the u. S. And cuba in beginning normalizing relations. Rene gonzalez was released in october 2011 after being jailed in the u. S. For 13 years. In october 2 thousand 13, just over a year ago, i spoke to reee gonzalez in havana via democracynow video stream. I began asking him why he came to the u. S. To investigate militant cuban exile groups. Cubans,y generation of it was part of our development, our common experience, to see people coming from miami, raiding our shores, killing people in cuba, blowing up familiar, so we were with the activities that the cuban people have been suffering for almost four years back then. To accept hard for me the mission of going there and monitoring the activities of some of those people who had been trained by the cia in the 1960s. Some of them had participated in bay of pigs. Some of them, after that, went to south america, as part of operation condor. If you look at the history of those people, you can see them linked to the worst actions of the u. S. Government. Even the kennedy assassination was linked to them. It was not hard for me to accept the mission and to go there could to protect the cuban peoples lives, and thats what i did. What were some of the groups that you and your colleagues came to infiltrate . What were their names and what did you specifically know what they were doing in miami . If we are talking about that, we should start with luis posada. He is still in miami under the protection of the u. S. Government. That is a long story of terrorism against not only cuba but even in the United States. He was responsible for blowing of the cube on airliner over venezuela. Later on when we were in miami, he was also organizing the bombs which were placed on the hotels in havana. But it is not only him, he does not work alone. The sad part is he was being paid for by the Cuban American National foundation, the Legal Organization linked to washington establishment, and organization which has a lobby in washington. For paid for the campaigns various people, and those people were paying to put bombs in havana in 1997. That is an example of the whole scheme we were facing there. Of course, there were other people like hosea bussell toe. Before that he had a long history of terrorism against cuba. We had Orlando Bosch, who together with luis padilla, was involved in plotting to blow up the cuban airliner. We also know of those that were linked to the assassination of orlando in washington with a car bomb. The list is long, but those are the people we were watching. That was our mission. How did you make it from cuba to miami . Explain how you came up. Cuba,as a pilot here in so i was flying with a skydiving operation here for sports operations. I took a chance and landed in key west. Of course, i had been born in the u. S. , so when i landed there , i showed my birth certificate and they allowed me to go back to my familys house. Then i ended up infiltrating the organization there. Linkwas the opportunity to with people, going from one group to another to find out their plot against the country. What most surprised you about what you found s of these groupm brothers to the rescue . Talk about what brothers to the rescue is doing, who is supporting them, what you report were reporting back to cuba . Rescue was to the say theby i would main person was hosea bussell toe. He was a young man trained by the cia during the bay of pigs. Not only him, but a bunch of guys from the infiltration team, they were the ones that created brothers to the rescue. Initially, i would say it was more of a side operation. They tried to get people to leave cuba by boat or raft, and theythey would pretend would rescue some of them and make propaganda out of that rescue operation. It was a very intelligent was aion because it was about saving people from rats. After 1995, when the immigration agreement was signed on between cuba and the United States, they resorted to invading cuban airspace, flying over havana, launching things, and they started to develop some other plans which included the use of some blows its in cuba. So they became really dangerous. By 1995, trying to do some Different Things than the ones they had done since the beginning. Those were the activities i was reporting on. Can you talk about basulto talking about a weapon that they needed to test in the everglades . That was presented as evidence in the trial. He devised a weapon that would be like a flare. Lets go back to beginning. Even when he was saving lives, he called me once and he asked for my advice to do some explosives in cuba. This was 1992. His idea back then was to blow up some power lines. Back then in 1992, the Economic Situation in cuba was really hard and we have blackouts every decided that he could do something to make those blackouts more common and he was the airplane to bring some explosives to the power lines. After that he was involved in the plot to buy some left over military russian planes. I remember he was trying to buy scene czechoslovak czechoslovakian training plane. He was also trying to buy a russian airplane. Can you talk about how you came to be arrested in the United States . It is a long process but i will make it short. By the middle of 1998, there was an opportunity for the governments of cuba and the u. S. To Work Together against terrorism. The fbi delegation had visited habana four sundays in june that year. Before they left cuba for the United States, they assure the cuban government that they would do something about the voluminous information that had been given to them on terrorist activities against cuba. Based mainly in florida. A few months after that meeting, all of a sudden, things changed and the fbi raided our homes and we were all arrested on attempted 12, 1998. They put us in solitary confinement for a year and a half. Then the whole story started to develop. What was your time in his unlike for 15 years, how were you treated . Werell, i would say there two stages. In miami, they did everything in their power to break us down. They put us in solitary confinement, they kept us in the hole for a year and a half. They used the conditions of confinement to prevent our access to the trial, which is one of the grounds why the rejected thes trial. They used my family also to punish me. They did not allow me to see my daughters. Reason it applied only to me because nobody else in the building have that limitation. I would like to say they were very brutal during our time in miami. To whenhat, going you go to pennsylvania, you are not known anymore, and that is why we say the trial could not be held in miami because once you leave, you are a normal person again. Where are the other members of the cuban five, the four still in prison . One is about to be released in february. Yes, fernando should finish his sentence in february, next year. So henot a u. S. Citizen, should be deported. Then antonio is still four years away. Ramon is 11 years away. It would be a crime to keep him in jail. Geraldo is still dealing with one light sentence. Where are they in prison . The prisonwent to where i am at now in mariana. Fernando is in arizona, and immigration prison, i believe lowerlevel. Ramon is in kentucky, i believe. Fernando is in victorville in california. What gives you hope that they will be released before their term . Is inample, gerardo prison on two life sentences. My main hope is that the nature of the trial is to withstand the pressure of the best people in the world. Injustice,hat this this trial will go down in history as one of the worst examples of what they call u. S. Injustice. I hope the u. S. Government will feel the way that this injustice is costing them more than solving the problem. Jailed. Re already in june 2001, you were convicted. You are in jail at the time of the 9 11 attacks. Im wondering about your thoughts at the time. Before that, the deadliest airline terrorism in the hemisphere was 1976, the downing of the globe on airliner in venezuela that took out the cuban olympic fencing team, killed 73 people aboard. Ultimately, Luis Posada Carriles was convicted in absentia in panama, who lives in miami. Your thoughts on what happened then, that kind of what is called terrorism and where you are imprisoned . My first reaction was shock, of course. No one can forget that day. I was in my cell. All of a sudden somebody called me, look at this. I walked out and there was a tv set. The first plane had already hit the first tower. I thought it was an accident at first. We were talking about how that happened, whatever. Then all of a sudden, i saw the second hit. I could not believe it. Of course it was shocking, i was moved. I can never forget those people having to jump from the buildings. It is something that you do not wish to happen to anybody. And then you have to think more about that. I talked about it a little bit. As long as somebody believes there are good terrorists and bad terrorists, terrorism will be there. It is a pity. As i said to the judge, you can be a capitalist, you can be catholic or muslim and be a good person, but a terrorist is not a good person. For me, the fact that some people, like my prosecutors, believed that some terrorism should be protected and some dont, i cannot believe that in the 21st century. What was your reaction to those that said shooting down the brothers to the rescue plane in 1996, killing four members of brothers to the rescue, was a terrorist act . Terrorisminition of does not go that far. Terrorism although i acknowledge the definition is sometimes politically motivated, but my definition is the imposition of violence and extremism to instill fear among the surviving people. I do not see how that fits what happened in 1996. We are talking about a guy who was trained to be a terrorist, who all of a sudden, discover he is a humanitarian. Withoutying for years any incident at all while he is saving rafters. Decides hedden he can break into the cuban airspace and do whatever he wants in cuba and even start devising plans to introduce explosives in cuba, weapons in cuba, using those planes. Anybody would accept defending the country in that sense as an act of sovereignty. Rene gonzalez speaking in september 2013 from havana, cuba. In october 2011 after being jailed in the United States for her teen years. The last three members of the inan five were just released a deal made by the United States and cuba to begin normalizing relations. If youd like a copy of todays show, go to our website at [indiscernible] at democracynow. Org. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. Heirlooms are treasures passed down through the generations. With heirloom meals, we seek to capture the essence of family traditions through our connections with our memories about food and meals, savoring yesterdays traditions today. Welcome to heirloom meals christmas special. We are going to walk down food memory lane with several guests as we explore how we all attach memories to smells, sights, and tastes around the family dinner table. Christmas is a magical season of love and celebration, so come along for the journey as we navigate the Christmas Memories of guests from across the country and explore our deep connection to our family food traditions. This program was nd