“This Island Will Not Surrender, Will Not Sell Out, and Is Not Negotiable”

Geraldina Colotti, Resumen, July 7, 2025 —

A meeting in Rome with Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban Five Heroes who spent 16 years in US federal prisons for monitoring the activities of anti Cuban terrorists operating freely in Southern Florida.

The emotion was palpable in the classroom at Roma Tre University. People of all ages listened to the story told by a symbol of Cuban resistance, Gerardo Hernández, who was imprisoned for years in US jails alongside Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González: known to all as the Five, the five Cuban heroes. Arrested in 1998 in the United States for attempting to prevent attacks by CIA mercenaries based in South Florida, they were sentenced to life imprisonment or disproportionate sentences and released only after a strong international campaign, to which movements in Italy also contributed.

The most veteran among those present had personally participated in those mobilizations. The younger ones, numerous in the classroom and all “proud to declare themselves communists,” were equally familiar with the story, having heard it from those who preceded them. Unlike capitalist countries, unlike an anarchic country like Italy, which became so after the defeat of the great cycle of struggle in the 1970s, Cuba, and also Sandinista Nicaragua, consider the historical memory of revolutions as a living heritage for resisting in the present and building the future. And, in this, it has influenced with the same spirit those who have stood in its way, transposing the ideals of the Great Twentieth Century into the 21st century: first and foremost, Venezuela, which has fought against the “democracies camouflaged as the Fourth Republic” even with weapons.

During the meeting, skillfully conducted by the Cuban ambassador to Italy, Mirta Granda, assisted by Minister Counselor Damián Delgado, and attended by the cultural advisor to the municipality of Rome, Massimiliano Smeriglio, Lanfranco Lancioni, president of the Cuba Social Association of Teramo, was honored. Gerardo, brought to Italy by the Italy-Cuba Friendship Association, then left for a tour of several Italian cities, where he was received with the same warmth.

For the occasion, we asked Hernández – now a deputy and member of the Cuban Council of State – for his opinion on the joint attacks by the Cuban and Venezuelan opposition, which are calling on both Trump and Netanyahu to “take advantage” of the opportunity to invade Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua once and for all, in order to put an end to socialism and finally establish the “freedom” of the oligarchies.

Here is his response: “I have no doubt that there are opponents in Cuba who do not receive money from the United States or groups related to it. Well, I honestly don’t know them. They are people who can become famous because, nowadays, social media facilitates these processes. They are people who, perhaps, aim to obtain a visa for the United States by criticizing our government. That is usually the easiest way. If they get it that way, they leave, they live somewhere else, in another country. Now they are in the United States. They made a statement a few days ago, when Israel attacked Iran. It said something like: I will collect money to pay for missiles to attack Cuba, where the presidency is, there in the presidential building. So I posted on my Facebook page, on my X page, a meme I had seen some time ago. It’s not mine, but I liked it when I saw it. It said: ‘When you ask for your country to be attacked, don’t do it from outside, do it from within, so you’ll know what a missile sounds like’. So, we can say that it’s not only these people now, not only now, but over time, many opponents of the government have asked and would have liked the United States to make us suffer with its army. Many are directly annexationists, and want Cuba to be like Puerto Rico, or even more, to be a star on the US flag.

And in the end, I think they have come to understand that they are just talking crickets. The continuous violations of Cuban airspace in 1995 and 1996 by light aircraft taking off from the United States and wanting to cause an incident, as they finally did, to provoke the United States to invade Cuba. The accusations that Cuba is a country involved in drug trafficking without any evidence and without any logic. The accusations, and I mention John Bolton because I am not making things up, the accusations that Cuba possesses weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons to use against the United States… It is enough for Miami to accuse Cuba of being the cause of climate change, and they launch a campaign about it.

The decline in the number of polar bears is Cuba’s fault. They will support anything that is said against Cuba because, in the end, their goal is for the US military to do their work of destroying Cuba and, above all, destroying the revolutionaries, the Cuban communists, so that they can then come and build the country they want. To sum up and answer the comrade’s question: what would I say to them? I would say that Cuba does not surrender, does not sell out, does not negotiate, and that as long as Cuba has a heroic people like the one it has, and as long as Cuba can count on sisters and brothers like you, Cuba will be invincible and our revolution will continue victorious.”