CUBA: Dissident Congress Annoys Both Gov’t and Other Opposition Groups

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, May 19 2005 (IPS) - A dissident congress to take place Friday and Saturday in Cuba has drawn criticism from other opposition groups, which have described it as a “fraud” and a “provocation”.

The meeting organised by the Assembly to Promote Civil Society (APSC) will be held outdoors, in the back yard of one of the leaders of the coalition that claims to represent 350 of Cuba’s outlawed opposition groups.

“Everything is just about ready, and it seems the government will not stop the meeting from happening, although it has tried to put hurdles in the way,” René Gómez Manzano, a member of the Assembly’s executive committee, told IPS.

The other members of the committee are Martha Beatriz Roque and Félix Bonne.

According to the APSC, the member groups are meeting to draw up a joint working plan aimed at “reaching the goal of a free and democratic Cuba.”

Gómez Manzano said that around 55 delegates from different provinces had already arrived to Havana Wednesday to help organise the meeting, to which foreign diplomats and international personalities were invited.

But the activist said many of those who were invited will not make it because they failed to obtain visas to travel to Cuba, including Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union before it broke up in 1991.

Around 18 European Parliament deputies interested in participating as “international observers” were among those who failed to secure visas.

European diplomats confirmed that Cuban immigration authorities did not allow Polish legislators Boguslaw Sonik and Jacek Protasiewicz into the country on Tuesday.

Czech lawmakers Karen Schwarzenberg and Arnold Vaatz were more fortunate, and are getting ready to take part in the meeting, which will also be attended by delegates of another dissident coalition, Todos Unidos (Everyone United), and members of the opposition Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, as guests.

“We will bring greetings and advocate an end to sectarianism, divisions, and denigrating remarks among us,” Todos Unidos spokesman Vladimiro Roca, the president of Cuba’s Social Democratic Party, commented to IPS.

The son of late Cuban communist leader Blas Roca spent five years in prison for “anti-government activities” before regaining his freedom in May 2002. Roque, Gómez Manzano and Bonne, who were sentenced at the same time, served shorter terms.

They made up the so-called Group of Four, which had signed a document titled “The Fatherland Belongs to All”, considered “subversive” by the socialist government of Fidel Castro.

Roque was arrested again in March 2003 and tried along with 74 other dissidents, on charges of “conspiring with a foreign power” (the United States). But she was paroled for medical reasons in July 2004.

In a harshly worded attack on the organisers of the two-day congress, the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), headed by activist Oswaldo Payá, described it as “a fraud against the opposition, facilitated by the imprisonment of the majority of its leaders.”

“It is public knowledge that Martha Beatriz Roque and her two assistants (Gómez Manzano and Bonne) were working with state security agents and were supported by hard-line exile factions,” said the MCL in a communiqué Thursday.

The MCL complained that “the May 20 manoeuvre” will actually benefit the government and is aimed at sabotaging the Varela Project, in which the MCL collected thousands of signatures in favour of introducing changes to Cuba’s socialist system.

Payá’s group also complained that the dissident congress would give the opposition a negative image, as a movement “allied with extremists.”

The MCL’s other major undertaking is the National Dialogue, in which citizens are invited to participate to design a transition to democracy.

The APSC meeting has been endorsed by controversial anti-Castro exile groups, like Alpha 66 and admitted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who described the meeting in Havana as “historical,” just before he was taken into custody by immigration officials in Miami this week.

IPS attempted without success to contact the APSC leaders once again after the MCL issued its statement.

The dissident congress also drew fire from Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, an opposition activist who has been waiting since August 2003 for authorisation to live legally in Cuba and open a local office of his organisation Cuban Change, which was founded during his years in exile in the United States.

He told IPS that the dissident meeting was “manipulated” and “infiltrated.”

“Perhaps it will have an impact in terms of propaganda, but it will do nothing to boost the size of the internal opposition,” he maintained.

The Arco Progresista (Progressive Arc), a coalition of social democratic organisations critical of the confrontation between Washington and Havana, also distanced itself from this week’s gathering.

“Nothing that is at all close to the current U.S. policy towards Cuba can count on our support,” Manuel Cuesta, spokesman for the Arco Progresista and secretary-general of the Cuban Democratic Socialist Current, remarked to IPS.

Another reason the Arco Progresista is not taking part, said the activist, is the “loner style” of the APSC’s political leadership, which he said weakens the effort to reach common stances, which are “fundamental for democratising Cuba.”

Gómez Manzano said the dissent would not have a negative impact on the congress, which, he underlined, has been financed by “Cuban exile organisations and non-governmental organisations,” not the U.S. government.

On Monday, Castro once again repeated that members of opposition groups in Cuba are “mercenaries at the service of the United States” and said the congress was a “provocation” organised by “counterrevolutionary elements.”

Castro referred to the gathering when he commented on Washington’s May 12 announcement that it would provide six million dollars to the Support Group to Democracy (GAD), through USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development).

The Miami-based GAD says it merely provides assistance to activists, political prisoners and their families in Cuba.

But according to Castro, the funds will go towards “destabilisation, conspiracy and subversion.”