Puerto Rican Left to Demand Release of The Cuban Five
San Juan, Sep 21. -Several Puerto Rican pro-independence organizations will mark the "Cry of Lares" on September 23 by demanding the release of five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters held in US prisons for over a decade. The main activity will be held in the mountainous municipality of Lares under the slogan "For the Release of Puerto Rican political prisoners and the five Cuban patriots held in US prisons," it was informed at a press conference in San Juan.
In this way, the Puerto Rican left joins, in a unitary event, the intensive international campaign for the release of Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino and Rene Gonzalez, known as The Cuban Five.
They will also demand the release of Puerto Rican revolutionary fighters Oscar Lopez Rivera and brothers Avelino and Norberto Gonzalez Claudio.
Every year, the Puerto Rican pro-independence movement marks the Cry of Lares that constitutes the proclamation of the Republic of Puerto Rico in 1868, then under Spanish rule.
Organizations taking part in the commemoration this year include the Nationalist Party, the Pro-Independence Party, the Socialist Front, the Socialist Workers Movement, the Pro-Independence University Federation, the Hostosiano Pro-independence Movement, the Movement towards Socialism, the Communist party and the Caribbean, Latin American Coordinating Office of Puerto Rico.
At the end of the ceremony, participants are scheduled to go to the western municipality of Hormigueros to pay tribute to late Filiperto Ojeda Rios, a leader of PPB-Macheteros, who was assassinated by FBI special agents on September 23, 2005. (Prensa Latina)
