Alicia Alonso Asks Obama to Bring the Five Home while Cuban Artists Thank U.S. Colleagues for Friendship and Solidarity

Cuban prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso invited U.S. President Barack Obama and his family to the next International Ballet Festival in Havana, and asked him to bring home the five Cuban antiterrorists imprisoned in that country for over 12 years.

"I want to ask you a favor: make us all happy, bring the Five," she said in perfect English.

Alonso conveyed the invitation during an event where Cuban academics thanked their U.S. peers for their solidarity by sending a letter to Obama asking him to review the case of the Five and release them immediately.

Alonso, director of the National Ballet of Cuba, praised the courage of that group of personalities, including Susan Sarandon, Ry Cooder, Danny Glover, Elliott Gould, Pete Seeger, Esai Morales, Bonnie Raitt, Martin Sheen, and Betty and Stanley K. Sheinbaum.

"I am very happy with that letter, they spoke on our behalf," she stressed.

Her words were a message of peace amid "a very serious moment, because we have to defend our lives. We have to be very united," she said alluding to a possibly imminent nuclear catastrophe.

Cuban artists have thanked their U.S. colleagues for their friendship and solidarity, and in particular for their support to the international demand for the release of the Cuban Five.

Below, the full text of the letter Cuban artists sent their U.S. colleagues:

Letter to our colleagues of the United States:

We, the Cuban artists and writers, who also love justice and peace, want to convey to you in this letter our deepest appreciation for the solidarity you have expressed whith the "Cuban Five" who are illegally confined in United States prisons. We are convinced that the letter you have written to President Barack Obama has contributed to break the outrageous silence that pretends to hide the truth of this noble cause.

On this anniversary our compatriots have suffered twelve large and tortuous years of imprisonment for protecting their mother country from acts of terrorism. As was properly expressed in your letter the "Cuban Five" did not commit any crime against the United States government, nor were these actions a threat to its stability.

The Cuban Artists and Writers Union (UNEAC) and the organization of young Cuban Artists and Writers (AHS) appreciate this gesture by Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone, Pete Seeger, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and many others who also signed this letter, just to name a few.

We hope that President Obama has both the wisdom and the courage to exercise his presidential authority and to free them, so our five Brothers can return to their country and to their homes and families.

We know that you represent the purest intentions of the American people for justice and peace.