THE first of a series of roundtable broadcasts, presenting information
                   on the case of the five Cubans held prisoner and unjustly charged
                   with spying in the United States, made clear the reasons justifying
                   those young men’s behavior. It explained the principal actions taken
                   against Cuba in the ’90s and the revelation of the capture in April of a
                   team trying to infiltrate the country, in order to carry out terrorist
                   actions, including the destruction of the famed Tropicana cabaret.

                   As long as the United States has not taken action regarding any of
                   the events revealed, or condemned the criminals walking Miami’s
                   streets freely, Cuba has every right to gather information to defend
                   the life of its people, reiterated the panelists during the program,
                   attended by President Fidel Castro.

                   The five Cubans risked their lives in the very entrails of the monster,
                   to discover and reveal the anti-Cuban mafia’s terrorist plans.

                   René Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio
                   Guerrero and Gerardo Hernández were found guilty by a biased and
                   uninformed jury, under terrible pressure from the authorities, the
                   mass media and the poisonous atmosphere in Florida, and they could
                   be sentenced for the rest of their lives in hostile and inhumane
                   prisons in the United States.

                   The panel recalled the difficult year of 1993, when the economic war
                   was stepped up and a new stage began of violent actions against
                   industrial, social and especially tourism objectives.

                   Among the principal actions, which met with total impunity and
                   tolerance on the part of U.S. authorities, were the continuous
                   infiltrations on the part of mafia elements with abundant weapons
                   and explosives, financed by the Cuban American National Foundation
                   (CANF). In all cases, those elements were exonerated of
                   responsibilities.

                   The panelists noted that in 1994, when the Cuban economy touched
                   bottom and then began its upturn on the road to recovery, more
                   than 10,000 violent acts were registered, and incitement increased
                   to leave the country illegally.

                   They also denounced the utilization of a small aircraft belonging to
                   the U.S. State Department for spraying substance with the damaging
                   Thrips palmi blight on Cuban agricultural plantations.

                   Also on the list were 25 violations of Cuban airspace and international
                   norms by the terrorist organization Brothers to the Rescue, including
                   the serious incident in which two pirate planes were shot down on
                   February 24, 1996, which was the pretext employed for the
                   imposition of the Helms-Burton Act.

                   The roundtable discussion provided profuse data on terrorist actions
                   against the island between 1997 and 2000, and on the increase and
                   seriousness of those acts organized in U.S. territory and with the
                   tolerance and complicity of U.S. authorities.

                   It recalled in particular how throughout 1997, those unscrupulous
                   elements, supported and financed by the CANF, planned the planting
                   of bombs in the Meliá Cohiba, Capri and Nacional hotels in Havana
                   and the Sol Palmera in Varadero, as well as in front of the Cubanacán
                   offices in Mexico and the Havanatur offices in the Bahamas.

                   They pointed out how on September 4 of that year, explosives were
                   set off in La Bodeguita del Medio restaurant and the Tritón, Chateau
                   Miramar and Copacabana hotels in Havana, and in the last of those
                   places an Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, died as a consequence of
                   the explosion.

                   They stressed that after an investigation of these crimes, two
                   Salvadoran citizens and three Guatemalans were arrested, and all of
                   them were linked to infamous counterrevolutionary Luis Posada
                   Carriles.

                   In 1997, plans were made to assassinate President Fidel Castro
                   during the 7th Ibero-American Summit in Isla Margarita, Venezuela.
                   The conspirators were found with a cache of weapons, were tried in
                   Puerto Rico and were found not guilty.

                   Another assassination attempt on Fidel’s life was planned for his visit
                   to the Dominican Republic in August 1998, and Posada Carriles was
                   once again implicated in it.

                   Furthermore, the panel recalled the penetration of Cuban territory by
                   terrorist elements in April 1998, on the northern coast of Matanzas
                   province, and in May 1998, in the Santa Lucía region in Pinar del Rio
                   province.

                    TERRORIST PLAN TO DESTROY TROPICANA

                   It was also explained that a team of terrorists trying to penetrate the
                   country was captured on April 26 of this year along the northern
                   coast of Villa Clara province. Border Guard troops took prisoner
                   Ihosvani Suris de la Torre, Máximo Pradera Valdés and Santiago
                   Padrón Quintero, all Cuban-born and living in Miami, and backed by
                   the counterrevolutionary organizations CANF, Alfa-66 and Comandos
                   F-4.

                   The program showed a videotape of a telephone conversation
                   between Suris, now detained, and his boss in Miami, Santiago
                   Alvarez, who openly recommended that the former be careful and
                   continue with their counterrevolutionary plans, among them the
                   destruction of the famed Tropicana cabaret.

                   The long list provided by the panel included the capture in Panama on
                   November 19, 2000, of a group of counterrevolutionaries directed
                   by Posada Carriles himself, who planned to assassinate the Cuban
                   president and put the lives of hundreds of Panamanian students at
                   risk, during the 10th Ibero-American Summit. This case is not yet
                   closed and Cuba is demanding justice. The Panamanian government
                   has denied Posada’s extradition to Cuba.

                   Between 1990 and 2001, Cuban authorities learned of 16 plots to kill
                   Fidel, eight conspiracies against the lives of other leaders of the
                   Revolution, and 140 terrorist acts.

                   The journalists noted that some of these terrorist actions were
                   frustrated, discouraged and blocked by the work of the country’s
                   state security and intelligence bodies, in collaboration with Cuban
                   patriots who risked their lives in the United States to obtain
                   information on these operations.

                   The analysis also included the reaction to the terrorist actions in U.S.
                   territory and against the people of that country, which gives
                   additional value to the attitude of the five detained compatriots and
                   shows the significance of their valiant message from prison.

                   The roundtable journalists reiterated the innocence of those young
                   men, saying that they had not committed any crime; what they did
                   was to save the Cuban and U.S. peoples from the vandalistic and
                   terrorist actions of the Miami mafia.