CUBA: Dissidents Close Ranks Around Activist Accused as Spy

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Aug 19 2003 (IPS) - Opposition groups in Cuba closed ranks around human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, dismissing as ”slander” allegations that the well-known dissident was a government spy.

”In my view this is a merciless attack aimed at destroying a person,” social democratic dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa told IPS.

Oswaldo Payá, with the Christian Liberation Movement, described the allegations as ”slander against our brother.”

Sánchez, 59, the president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, is portrayed in a book released Monday as a secret agent of the state’s security apparatus and someone who has profited from the ”counter- revolution.”

The book, titled ”El Camajan” – a pejorative term for a shrewd opportunist – was produced by Cuban reporters Arleen Rodríguez and Lázaro Barredo. It includes an array of photos and documents, such as alleged evidence of monetary payments that Sánchez supposedly made to dissidents.

The prominent activist, a member of the coalition Todos Unidos (Everyone United), who spent years behind bars as a political prisoner in the 1980s, told IPS that he is not an ”agent,” although he admitted to ”contacts” with police officials since 1988.

”I and others who think like me are willing to talk to anyone, including Satan, if that helps improve things in Cuba,” said an apparently cool and collected Sánchez, who added that the ”contacts,” in which ”the situation of political prisoners” was discussed, began in 1988.

After that, ”I was in prison from 1989 to 1991. The contacts resumed in 1997. Sometimes they visited me at home or formally summoned me. On other occasions they would arrest me, although they always clarified that it was just to chat,” said the activist, who was accompanied by Vladimiro Roca, another member of Todos Unidos.

However, the authors of ”El Camajan” claim that it was Sánchez himself who ”insistently sought to make contact with the state security apparatus”, and that the meeting finally took place on Dec. 13, 1997.

The collaboration that began at that time ”contributed valuable information on subversive activities against Cuba” and led to Sánchez being decorated for ”outstanding services,” the book states.

The activist staunchly denies such allegations. ”It is a lie. That is a photo montage. They were always taping or filming our conversations,” he said, referring to photos that show him being decorated and embraced by an Interior Ministry agent.

Sánchez, who was supposedly a spy known to the Cuban police as ”Juana”, ”Eduardo” or ”Pestana”, said the book written by Barredo and Rodríguez is an attempt to discredit him that will merely create ”confusion” and ”distract people’s attention for a week.”

”My circle of friends might shrink a little,” he said. ”But I’ll continue working, and I will still be willing to talk to anyone, and if they throw me in prison, I’ll continue working from there.”

The ”slander” against Sánchez is a mechanism for sowing disinformation, and ”does not merit analysis, or even a response,” said Payá, who is behind the Varela Project, an initiative aimed at modifying Cuba’s socialist system.

”But he does deserve, and has, our solidarity and support in the face of this slander. At least we, his companions, will not be drawn into the trap,” said Payá.

Sánchez said Payá had seen a copy of the book ”The Dissidents” before it was published and distributed in May. The book contains interviews with 12 government agents who infiltrated the ranks of the opposition.

”The Dissidents” was published after the March arrests of 75 opposition activists, who were tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. But the sweep did not include well-known opposition figures like Sánchez or Payá.

”I know it will not be the last one, and that a third edition of the lies is coming out soon, perhaps this time against me,” Payá told foreign correspondents on Tuesday.

According to Sánchez, the title of the third book, which he said is already at the printer’s, will be ”Who is Payá”.

”In this country there are no secrets. Everything is known,” he remarked.

Cuesta Morúa said the government appeared to be ”determined to destroy the opposition,” as demonstrated by its attacks on ”renowned leaders who go back a long way, to the very founding of the opposition movement.

”These tactics create confusion and mistrust in Cuban society, while drawing attention away from the problems that the country should really be concerned about. Other books are probably about to be published as well,” said Cuesta Morúa, the spokesman for Arco Progresista, a coalition of social democratic groups.

This kind of attack is ”ruthless,” especially because the people who are targeted have no way of defending themselves in the state-owned media, he added.