René González Sehwerert

Flight instructor and specialist in aviation

René González Sehwerert was born in Chicago, USA, on August 13, 1956, in the midst of a Cuban family.his father was an emigrated metallurgist worker.

On the return of the family to Cuba in October, 1961, after the victory of the Cuban Revolution, he carried out primary studies at the José Martí school, in Santa María del Mar.

He always wanted to be a pilot, however, when he had that opportunity, he put off his dream to fulfill a duty that the one considered extremely important. First he was not accepted at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School (better known as Camilitos).When he was in junior high school, as he was militant of the Union of Communist Youths, he responded to a call to integrate the Manuel Ascunce Domenech Pedagogic Detachment, He was already teaching in a classroom in the "Socialist Republic of Rumania"Junior high School, when he received the citation to enroll.

He served voluntarily in the General Military Service a voluntary way because of his American nationality, so he postponed again his aspirations of becoming pilot.

However, he was soon happy with his new specialty in the Military Service. His love for the tank made him choose the Tanker's Day, April 17, to marry Olga Salanueva Arango, his present-day wife, mother of his two daughters' : Irmita and Ivett.

When this period of his life concluded, he finished with excellent marks and with the possibility to register in an aviation school, but when he knew that his unit had the mission of going to the People’s Republic of Angola to fight for the independence of that country, he himself postponed the supreme dream of his life.

He fulfilled an internationalist mission in Angola and when he returned to Cubahe finally became a pilot at the Carlos Ulloa Aviation School. He later worked as a flight instructor in the Military Patriotic Society of Education. It was squadron chief in the base of San Nicolás de Bari and chief of the section of aeronautical sports.

In 1990 he entered the Communist Party. At the end of that year he left for the USA.

His narrations of the faked trial held in Miami, where he was wrongly sanctioned together with four countrymen, revealed the exceptional qualities that he has as a writer and journalist.

His mother name is Irma Sehwerert Mileham and her father is Cándido René González

The Mission

The case of René González, as that of the other four Cubans detained and accused in Miami of attempting against the national security of United States, among other charges, is another political vendetta of Washington against the Cuban revolution.

Randy Alonso, member of the National Committee of the Union of Communist Youths of Cuba (UJC) asserted, before the delegates to the II Cuba-USA Encounter of Youths, that the five Cuban prisoners only had the mission of gathering information on the terrorist plans of the Anti-Cuban groups that operate in Florida.

He said that to understand the mission that they carried out in the American territory it was necessary to analyze the indifference of the different North American governments with regard to the accusations of criminal plans against the Island.

The attacks and terrorist actions against Cuba from 1959--year of the Victory of the Revolution – have caused the death to more than three thousand Cuban and lesions to a similar number , as well as material losses calculated in about 100 thousand million dollars.

Alonso who also hosts a television program on topics of interest of first order for the Cuban society, detailed the circumstances in which the five Cubans were arrested in September ,1998, and he denounced that this political and manipulated trial was rather against the Cuban Revolution.

In 1998-- the juvenile leader added-- it was said in the Pentagon that Cuba didn't constitute a threat for the United States. And even the antidrug czar (Barry) McCafrey assured that the Caribbean nation was not a point of drug traffic due to the government actions to combat that lash.

However-- Randy related-- two months later (July, 1998) after Cuba handed in to Washington tests of the terrorist activity organized by ultraright groups that reside in Miami, like the National Cuban-American Foundation , the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) responded with the arrest of the five Cubans.

Alonso stated that the Ministry of the Interior of Cuba gave abundant material on the counterrevolutionary activity organized and financed in that country, as well as audio recordings on similar plans, thanks partly to the work of these five arrested collaborators.

Only in the last decade, when the Island went through its worst economic crisis after the revolutionary victory of 1959, worsened by the blockade of Washington, they were able to prevent 170 actions terrorists, even attack plans against President Fidel Castro.

Alonso reiterated that the five Cubans detained in Miami, three of which were condemned to life imprisonment, gathered information about terrorism toward their country, but they never attempted against the American national security because they didn't have access to classified information.

"They worked and they lived like they could, they didn't receive a millionaire wage, nor had they access to strategic programs of that country."