US Agent: Six weeks in a Cuban Prison
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES, Jan. 22 — Alan P. Gross a 60-year-old agent working for a US government program to subvert Cuban laws regarding communications equipment, was allegedly caught in the act and has been in jail since Dec. 4th.
The Washington Post ran an article Friday quoting a friend of Gross stating that the US citizen’s greatest mistake may have been “not seeing anything wrong with what he was doing.”
Working under contract of the US State Department, Gross was supplying satellite equipment for Internet connections along with laptops, not allowed under Cuba’s customs laws.
Washington has maintained an economic blockade on Cuba for the last half century as well as forbidding ordinary US citizens from visiting the neighboring island country.
Meanwhile, in the US, five Cubans known internationally as the Cuban Five, remain in maximum security facilities over 11 years after their arrest for having infiltrated exile terrorist groups allowed by the US government to operate out of Miami as long as their targets are Cuba and Cuban interests and personnel abroad.
Mary, why can’t you comment on the Cuban 5 or the US embargo? Because you are living in Cuba where there is no right of expression? Where you can’t say what you want to? What’s so fabulous about that? The fact is the castro brothers DO NOT want the embargo to end. Why? Because then they would have nothing to blame ALL Cuba’s problems on. They have used this tactic for the last 50 years and continue to do so. It’s obvious! And using this poor guy, Alan Gross, as a pawn in their old game is unacceptable. What’s wrong with him trying to help the Cuban population access to the UNFILTERED internet? NOTHING, unless your living in Cuba and those 2 dinosaurs don’t want you to read what is really going on. I’m writing this as a 1st generation US citizen from Cuban parents. Half my family, which I’ve never been able to meet, are still in Cuba and I feel the pain they deal with everyday. Maybe one day, after the castro regime ends, then finally my 2 countries can come together as 1!
I would only like if Cuba and the US would move on.. I have read today’s article in Granma re:: US arriving in Haiti, only negative, yet I know what the US is trying to do, and I know what Cuba has been doing and continues to do to assist and help…. so please let this experience in Haiti realize that we truly need to help each other.. I cannot comment on the Cuban 5 or the US staunch blockade which I think needs to end… but please let us all ask, what is it about this situation I can change…I think Cuba is fabulous, and I have family in the US. so I want it both to work out.. I am tired of this.. please please please, let us do what ever it is to make this world a better place.