Americas Features
Cuba intensifies campaign against dissidents amid changes
By DPA
May 20, 2008, 21:39 GMT

Havana - Cuba's latest crackdown on its internal dissident movement - amid allegations that it received funding from Miami-based 'terrorists' with the help of the US Interests Section (USINT) in Havana - has caused a stir in the framework of changes undertaken by President Raul Castro.

First in a press conference Monday, and then in a television programme set to continue Tuesday, high officials of the communist island accused USINT officials including the highest-ranked US diplomat in Cuba, Michael Parmly, of acting like 'vulgar couriers' to transfer funds to dissident Martha Beatriz Roque from Santiago Alvarez.

Cuban authorities describe Alvarez, an anti-Castro activist jailed in the United States for illegal possession of firearms, as a 'terrorist.' They accuse him of carrying out 'pirate attacks' in the 1960s and 1970s, and of having taken part in an attempt to murder Cuban leader Fidel Castro during an international summit in Panama in 2000 alongside well-known radical Luis Posada Carriles, among others.

The allegations are the climax in a campaign that has in recent months shaken Cuban dissidents - whom the authorities in Havana call 'counterrevolutionaries' and 'mercenaries' in the service of the United States and other countries.

The ailing historic Cuban leader Fidel Castro - who formally stepped down in February after close to half-a-century in power - was the first to attack dissidents on the fifth anniversary of the so- called 'black spring.'

In 2003, 75 dissidents including Roque were condemned to high prison sentences based on allegations similar to the ones that have been made now. Some 55 of these dissidents are still in prison, although Roque was released for health reasons.

In a recent article, Fidel Castro termed dissidents on the island as 'traitors' and 'ringleaders of a fifth column of imperialism on the payroll of the United States government.'

Then, the Communist Party daily Granma warned in an editorial that 'there is no room for the dreams of adversaries, of fifth columnists and internal mercenaries' in Cuba.

In late April, just hours after a sit-in by the Ladies in White, the wives and relatives of the 75 dissidents jailed in 2003, the government defined the protest as a 'mercenary hoax.'

The allegations now happen at a time of change or at least perceptible movements in both the United States and Europe in relation to Cuba.

Michael Parmly is set to complete his mission at USINT in the coming months, and according to US media he is to be replaced by Jonathan Farrar. Farrar has been until now principal deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, precisely one of the issues that Cuba is most sensitive to in its relations with the outside world.

The alleged 'evidence' of ties between US diplomats and dissidents was further made public as Washington prepares to launch a 'day of solidarity with the Cuban people' and as the island, situated a few kilometres off the coast of the US state of Florida has become the subject of attacks and counterattacks in the tight race for the US presidency.

Moreover, the campaign against Cuban dissidents comes just weeks before the European Union (EU) is due to meet to discuss what to do about the island. Havana demands the 'complete elimination' of sanctions imposed in 2003 following the arrest of dissidents.

Dissident Vladimiro Roca interpreted the latest crackdown from the authorities as 'an attack to defend themselves.'

'They always look for the international question to justify the internal repression and the lack of change and (to explain) why they are not adopting opening measures. They close themselves up more and more,' Roca told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Miriam Leiva, a member of the Ladies in White, believes the aim of the move is to 'sidetrack attention' from the 'fundamental' question, which according to her is 'the release of prisoners of conscience' in accordance with EU demands.

For Leiva, the current crackdown is 'a chapter of the 2003 novel with some new characters,' but she also sees an 'internal' interpretation.

'The internal situation is difficult. They are promising changes and so far nothing has been seen of them. It is no more and no less than the situation in 2003: the government sees that there is less fear, that people are criticizing more and more, and it creates a situation to instil fear, even within the government,' she said.

The social democratic dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua agreed. For him, the changes undertaken by Raul Castro after he succeeded his brother in February 'in some way legitimize the enemy (the opposition), and the government is not prepared to do that.'

'That would be an explanation for the government's forceful reaction. It fears that people in the long run say, 'those people were right.' It is one more effort to try and bring down the work of the opposition by taking over its discourse,' he added.