NF: I do a lot of work with people who have been incarcerated. Some political prisoners and others who’ve just been incarcerated. I’ve come to realize that, sometimes, a long time in prison gives people a lot of chances to read and think and do things. Some of the most profound people I know. What kind of moral and philosophical revelations have 13 years in US prison given you?
RG: I don’t know if it’s revelation, if it’s that word. I believe that my moral principles had already been formed when I was arrested. I wasn’t a kid. I was 42 years old. But of course the whole experience made me more committed to my values because I’ve always thought that Cuban society is an alternative for a better world. I’ve always rejected the individualism, the hypocrisy of capitalism. But when you go through this and you see face to face how low somebody can behave representing a government, you get more committed to the goal that you don’t want that government in your country. And this whole experience made me more committed.
”The head of the FBI in Miami back then was a Puerto Rican guy who was tied to all those terrorists.”
I’ve never been naïve about the US government but I saw prosecutors behave in such a way which I just couldn’t believe it. They behaved like dogs, like criminals. They didn’t respect the whole system of law. The judges did the same and I just couldn’t believe that. And when you look at such people representing a society, you realize how sick that society can become. And that was – for me it was a lesson. And I didn’t want it to be like that, to tell you the truth. When I was arrested I didn’t feel any animosity to the prosecutors. I believe every country has to have prosecutors, people who enforce the laws. But then they began to behave like dogs and I just couldn’t believe it. Of course it comes with the nature of the case. Because in order to inflict that vengeance on us, they had to charge us with such heinous and surreal crimes, that you cannot do that without behaving like a criminal. But they did. And it was a political decision for them. It made me more committed to my country, to my society and to build an alternative to what they offered to us.
NF: Can you say something about your relationship and experiences with other inmates in the prison? Did you have friendships? How were you regarded in the prison? Because I know a lot of times in prison people like under your circumstances, you can win an amount of respect. I don’t know if you have anything to say about that.
RG: Yeah, they respected us a lot. I found a lot of people in prison who were better than the prosecutors. I can tell you that. They were better persons. There are a lot of factors that come into this. The US federal system is a joke. 95% of the people, they plead guilty or whatever because the system is so rigged that they know if they go to trial, they’re going to end up maybe paying twice or trice for the crime that they committed. So most of the people just decide to plead guilty and then to cooperate. And you can see they have a lot of respect to whomever goes to trial because they see you as somebody who can be trusted, who won’t betray anything. And that gives you a lot of status among the prisoners.
And of course then comes the political component of the whole thing. You know they look at Cubans with a lot of curiosity. Because they’ve been listening to things about Cuba, I mean that “hell that’s 90 miles out,” and they want to know. And then they approach you, and little by little as you establish personal relations they start to realize that they’ve been fooled about Cuba. That doesn’t mean that I want to make them into Communists or something like that. But they realize that something different must be happening down there. And that also starts to give you a little bit more respect from the prisoners.
And of course if you treat people well, they’ll treat you well in return. That helps a lot. And one thing that helped us a lot was support from abroad. I mean the amount of letters, the newspapers, the progressive newspapers that we received bringing articles about the Five. And then they read the articles and they realize that you are fighting for a cause. So the whole combination of things gave us a lot of respect from the prison population and even from the staff. A lot of people from the staff they would approach you, some guards, some of them came to me and offered their support. “I hope you get out of here, you shouldn’t be here.” Because they start realizing that you are not a criminal, you know. So in that sense we don’t have any problems at all. You just treat people decently, they return the treatment. The more acquainted they became with the case, with the facts. One thing with the African-American population, they also learned about Angola. You know, they look at you, “Man, hey brother, you went to Angola.” There are a lot of different pieces that come together and in the end we had a lot of respect from the population.
”I found a lot of people in prison who were better than the prosecutors.”