South African unions made from the campaign for the release of the Cuban Five, who were held prisoners in the United States, one of the main referents of solidarity with the Caribbean country.
This statement was confirmed to Prensa Latina by Bonny Marekewa, second vice president of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU), who welcomed the solution of the Cuban Five case, after the return to homeland on December 17 of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero.
The release of the Cuban Five was the result of the pressure (of solidarity) about the U.S. government, stressed Marekewa.
She also condemned the persistence of more than 50 years of commercial, economic and financial blockade by successive U.S governments against the island.
The blockade should be eliminated, said the union leader after praising the struggle of the Cuban people for maintaining sovereignty and self-determination.
Hernandez, Labañino and Guerrero, along with Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, universally known as the Cuban Five, warned their country of terrorist plans organized by anti-Cuban groups in southern Florida.
However, they were detained on September 12, 1998 and condemned to disproportionate sentences at a biased trial held in Miami in 2001.
POPCRU is a trade union formed in 1989 working within the South African Police Service, the Department of
Correctional Services and the Traffic Police, representing more than 150,000 members.