CUBA:
Officials Demand
Explanations from US on
Dissident Funds
By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, (IPS) -
The Cuban government
demanded that the United
States provide
explanations for what it
described as "obscure
ties" between U.S.
diplomatic personnel in
Havana, "terrorist"
groups in Miami and
members of dissident
organisations, in a case
that has further heated
up relations between the
two countries.
"We demand that they
face up to this," said
Cuban Foreign Minister
Felipe Pérez Roque in a
news briefing Thursday,
after three different TV
programmes were aired
between Monday and
Wednesday exhibiting the
results of an
investigation that
allegedly showed that
U.S. diplomats ferried
money to dissident
groups in Cuba.
Although he described
the incidents as
"extremely serious,"
Pérez Roque did not
indicate whether the
government planned to
close down the Interests
Sections opened in
Havana and Washington in
1977 to provide consular
services and maintain a
minimal channel of
communication, in the
absence of diplomatic
ties since 1961.
In the decades-long
conflict between the two
countries, the U.S.
embargo is the thorniest
issue, costing Cuba some
89 billion dollars in
four and a half decades,
according to Havana.
This is not the first
time that Cuba has
accused the U.S.
Interests Section (SINA)
of serving as the "chief
headquarters" of
dissident groups.
However, the accusations
this time have been
stepped up a notch,
going beyond questions
of ideology and into the
terrain of national
security.
In Pérez Roque’s view,
the most serious aspect
is the origin of the
funds that he said were
carried in letters, on
several occasions, by
SINA chief Michael
Parmly and SINA official
Robert Blau.
He said the funds were
brought in at the
request of Martha
Beatriz Roque, a
dissident with radical
views who heads the
Assembly for the
Promotion of Civil
Society.
The official reports
referred to
investigations by Cuban
intelligence, which
intercepted emails,
telephone calls and
receipts signed by Roque
and other dissidents in
Havana revealing that
funds were sent from the
Legal Rescue Foundation
based in Miami, Florida
and headed by
Cuban-American citizen
Santiago Álvarez.
Álvarez, who is
currently in prison in
the United States for
weapons possession and
other offences, is a
long-time anti-Castro
activist with a record
of violent action
against Cuba, and a key
supporter of Luis Posada
Carriles, whose
extradition from the
United States has been
requested by Venezuela,
which wants to try him
for the 1976 bombing of
a Cuban airliner in
which 73 people were
killed.
"It is money stained
with blood, that comes
from terrorists," said
Pérez Roque.
However, the minister
did not make it clear
whether legal action
would be taken against
the recipients of the
funds. "This is an
ongoing investigation of
terrorism and its
connection with
subversives in Cuba, and
we must await the
results," he said.
Laura Pollán, of the
Women in White movement,
signed a receipt for
2,500 dollars to be
distributed among 18
wives of imprisoned
dissidents. She told IPS
that "at no time" did
they know that the funds
"had anything to do with
Santiago Álvarez."
"Martha Beatriz brought
it to us, and it was
humanitarian aid from
the Legal Rescue
Foundation," she said.
"We didn’t know that
Álvarez was the main
benefactor," said Pollán,
who described the Women
in White, so called
because of the colour
they wear in their
demonstrations, as
"peaceful women" who are
merely seeking the
release of their
husbands.
Pollán’s husband is one
of 75 dissidents
imprisoned in 2003 on
charges of conspiring
with Washington.
Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a
moderate dissident who
is critical of U.S.
policy towards Cuba,
told IPS by telephone
that he had no doubt
that Álvarez is in
favour of violent
action, "which has
doomed any role he could
have played in this
country to failure."
In the view of political
scientist and researcher
Rafael Hernández, the
investigation showed
that "dissident groups
are not just ordinary
Cubans expressing a
different point of view,
who limit themselves to
using freedom of
conscience and of
expression and are
peacefully fighting for
democracy and freedom,
but are allies of a
foreign power."
That, he said, is the
"central message" that
the government of Raúl
Castro is sending to the
United States, the
European Union,
dissident groups, and
the Cuban exile
community in Miami,
which does not quite
know what to make of the
recent opening up of
debate in Cuba.
But he said the main
target of the Cuban
government’s message
would be the U.S.
administration, in case
"it is thinking that,
with the broadening of
public debate and the
changes introduced by
Raúl, there might be a
new climate that they
can turn to their own
advantage, including the
use of these groups."
Hernández remarked that
the media offensive is
also directed at the EU
and other governments
concerned about human
rights in Cuba, which
consider the dissidents
to be "punished for
crimes of conscience,"
in spite of their own
embassies in Havana
"knowing perfectly well
who they are and what
they’re up to."
Hernández, the editor of
the cultural journal
Temas, said that
political parties,
whether legal or
illegal, do not fit into
a definition of civil
society in any part of
the world, and the
dissident groups that
operate in his country
"do not organically
represent any social
sector, nor are they
backed by a consensus."
"Their support comes
from abroad, and mainly
from the United States,
other governments and
the Cuban-American
right. Now if we’re
talking about a
diversity of positions
and political change,
these are clearly
present in Cuba’s own
organisations and civil
society institutions,"
he said. |
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