NM officials applaud bringing captive home

Staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON — Alan Gross emerged Wednesday from five years of captivity in Cuba praising the Cuban people and offering a lesson he said he learned: Freedom is not free.

In his first public remarks after arriving in the U.S., Gross also spoke supportively of President Barack Obama’s move to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than a half-century of discord. He said that more than five decades of history had shown that the previous U.S. approach to its old foe wasn’t effective.

“Two wrongs never make a right,” Gross said. “I truly hope that we can now get beyond these mutually belligerent policies.”

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, applauded efforts to return Gross home and said it was time to end the “failed embargo” against Cuba.

“This is a sea change as our nation is finally embarking on a 21st century approach with Cuba, one that will open opportunities for New Mexicans and other American interests in Cuba,” Udall said in a release. “American citizens are the best diplomats of our values and I hope their future interactions shine through with the Cuban people. It is time to act, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Obama administration, to build upon this announcement and move forward to lift the embargo on Cuba, which has only served to isolate the Cuban people and limit American opportunity.”

Appearing in decent health and walking without support, Gross spoke to reporters at a Washington law office shortly after a U.S. plane flew him from Cuba back to the U.S. Despite his harrowing experience, Gross said he had the utmost respect for the Cuban people and said he was pained “to see them treated so unjustly.”

“In no way are they responsible for the ordeal to which my family and I have been subjected,” Gross said, describing the vast majority of Cubans as “incredibly kind, generous and talented.”

Gross, 65, was freed from prison Wednesday as part of an agreement that included the release of three Cubans jailed in the United States, officials said.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, said he applauded the decision to “abandon an outdated Cold War policy of isolation that failed to advance America’s goal of an open and free society for the Cuban people.”

The new course, he said, “is consistent with our national security interests, and will help make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba and increase economic opportunities.

“But more importantly, I hope this change in course will lead to more progress in reversing the Cuban government’s history of suppressing the human rights and other civil freedoms of its citizens.”