GRANMA INTERNACIONAL DIGITAL

© Copyright GRANMA INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL EDITION. La Havana. Cuba
Total or partial reproduction of the articles in this Website is autorized,
as long as the source of the copyright,

Who are the dissidents and prisoners
of conscience in Cuba?

SINCE the very triumph of the Revolution, 40 years ago, the United States - already an imperialist superpower and our neighbor at a distance of only 90 miles - has not abandoned for one moment its effort to destroy us. That was and continues to be a fact. The reality is that it has not been able to and, no matter what the circumstances, will not achieve that aim.

The most varied strategies and tactics have been employed, from the most brutal, putting the world on the brink of a nuclear war, to the most subtle, aimed at destroying us from outside or from within. Money, possibly its most powerful weapon, has been of no use to them whatsoever. They discovered very early on that neither the Cuban people nor the men and women leading what is already a long-standing revolutionary process could be bought. Ideological weapons have shattered against ideas and convictions that have demonstrated their invincibility.

Today, our neighbor is much more powerful. It is a hegemonic superpower reigning in a unipolar world. With the disappearance of the socialist bloc and the Soviet Union, we were left on our own in the battle, defending our trenches, without giving an inch. A number of compatriots, those who were the weakest ideologically or less capable of resisting the rigors of such a heroic struggle, have given in; others, much more experienced and hardened, are increasing their morale, their strength and their convictions. New and valiant fighters and young cadres are nourishing the unvanquished revolutionary ranks.

In this edition we are going to expose current U.S. policy and demonstrate the shady and incredible methods it uses against Cuba, very subtle on occasions, quite often underestimating and derogatory, clumsy and crude on not a few occasions, almost always brazen, and always arrogant and overbearing.

For many months now, the Revolution has been the target of an intensive defamation campaign, resulting from the unavoidable necessity of arresting and bringing before the courts four traitors, because of their increasingly shameless counterrevolutionary conduct and close contact with U.S. government officials and the Miami counterrevolutionary mafia.

As on so many occasions, the United States is the principal promoter and organizer of these campaigns, whose objectives are located both within and outside of our country.

On the external level, the objective of these campaigns is to weaken Cuba's growing influence and prestige in its heroic and invincible resistance to the monstrous economic warfare being waged by the United States against our people; to justify that war before world public opinion, which has condemned its criminal policy, and before its own internal public opinion, increasingly opposed to the shameful crime committed against Cuba for over 40 years; and to increase obstacles to economic relations and the development of the country, which has been subjected since the start of the special period to new laws, amendments, political tactics and subversive strategies.

In the internal context, the objective is to blatantly promote destabilization and subversion. To this end, it employs substantial financial resources and equipment for the transmission of thousands of hours of radio and television broadcasts every week, directed at our population. It lies, disinforms, launches subversive political slogans; gives instruction on the most varied forms of economic sabotage, incites theft and crime and attempts to demoralize our valiant and militant people.

In order to effect its plans for internal subversion, the United States pays agents, organizes and finances groups, promotes leaders who are only known abroad and totally unknown within the country. During the years of the Bay of Pigs invasion, counterrevolutionary harassment in the Escambray mountains, the dirty war and the Missile Crisis, it instigated over 300 organizations to place bombs, engage in sabotage and set up small armed bands. Now it is trying to procreate dozens of mini-groups which it supports, incites, gives publicity to, orientates and finances. It contributes so much money that it has transformed internal counterrevolutionary activities into an occupation and an easy lifestyle, thus creating a new category of slacker, without patriotic values, social or humane ideals of any type, without any sense of justice or current world realities, who do not work or sweat, or produce anything other than intrigues, vain illusions, and cheap and hollow verbiage. They repeat slogans and lies supplied to them from abroad, and receive checks for their infamous task of defaming the nation and sullying their people's glory and heroic sacrifice. The United States has established mechanisms that contribute to the exultation of such characters abroad in its mass media. In this undertaking it has not lacked the cooperation of some accredited journalists in our country and certain foreign press agencies, whose mission within Cuba is to dispatch abroad any intrigue or calumny launched by U.S.-paid agents whose sole ideology is annexationism, a parasitic life and the dream of living in one of the consumer societies, whose standard of living is becoming less and less sustainable. It has coined a new appellation for them: "dissidents."

If those "dissidents" should go too far in the exercise of their activities in the service of a foreign power, in flagrant violation of the laws under which our people fulfill and will continue to fulfill the essential duty of safeguarding the Revolution's achievements and the most sacred interests of the nation and the people, and if they are sanctioned for that, then they move on to become "prisoners of conscience." They are not moved by conscience; they are moved by instinct.

The Revolution's opening, the comings and goings and goings and comings of members of the Cuban community abroad and of citizens resident in our country, tourism, joint investments with foreign capital, the possibility of receiving family remittances from abroad, unlimited communications without any restrictions whatsoever and other facilities in relation to communication and exchange, are utilized to the maximum by the U.S. imperialists to effect their objectives, in the midst of the difficulties and great sacrifices that the rigorous blockade and economic warfare impose on us.

The trial of the four individuals in question took place on Monday, March 1. In this type of internal trial, where national citizens are tried for counterrevolutionary activities, it has never been the practice to authorize the presence of the foreign press, various of whose members, temporarily or permanently accredited in our country, have contributed in no small measure to conspiracy and defamation campaigns against Cuba, as we shall see later. In this globalized and convulsive world of unipolar hegemony, replete with monopolistic contradictions, the information transnationals, in fierce competition, search furiously for news, but not necessarily for the truth. The Cuban Revolution has always been more interested in the truth than the news.

The pages of Granma are not usually given over to the adventures and doings of such criminals. This time, however, we consider it necessary and appropriate to devote some space to them, given the extent to which they illustrate, confirm, denounce and expose the United States' policy against Cuba.

Granma has obtained comprehensive information from experts, prosecutors and persons who witnessed the oral, documentary and material evidence presented, and accurate details related to the development of the trial and the findings in the case before the court on Monday.

The proceedings revealed with absolute exactitude everything concealed behind the activities of the four accused - Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, Félix Antonio Bonne Carcassés and René de Jesús Gómez Manzano - who were unable to refute any of the charges made against them.

Their own defense lawyers found themselves in the difficult situation of confronting the gravity of the facts and the conclusiveness of the evidence and, intelligently, limited their brief to technical and legal aspects, questioning the coincidence of facts, proven in accordance with the articles of the Penal Code and presented brilliantly by the prosecuting attorney representing the people in that trial, as to whether or not their actions were of a seditious nature. Actually, the defendants are not charged with sedition but with inciting sedition.

How did the U.S. imperialists react immediately after their arrest?

Of course, in the first place, logically, they mounted a big international campaign in favor of the four unjustly arrested "peaceful dissidents" and "prisoners of conscience."

Aside from the publicity campaign, the U.S. government traditionally utilizes all kinds of pressure whenever persons working for it find themselves in difficulties of this kind as a consequence of their activities; the stronger its interest and the greater importance it assigns to the task being carried out, the greater the effort made by the U.S. government. Its general practice is to utilize political figures with some relationship or links of friendship with Cuba to make gestures on behalf of the rapidly known and even famous and innocent "prisoners of conscience."

After the arrest of the four citizens in question, the Department of State sent a list of "prisoners of conscience" to every Western visitor of rank traveling to Cuba. That list invariably included these four individuals, in absolutely first place, and those contacted in this way were exhorted to press for their release. It is an invariable aspect of their dirty game. Some of those visitors, with greater or lesser embarrassment, did so. Our government remained firm and unshakable.

Experience increasingly shows - and this experience in particular, as can be seen later in this article - that the generosity frequently demonstrated by the Revolution doesn't always bear the best fruits. Its open humanitarian spirit is taken as forced concessions in the face of the economic warfare and imperial blackmail. On the other hand, the U.S. government would never yield to a demand for the release of a Puerto Rican patriot condemned to a lengthy prison term, or a commutation of sentence for an African American or someone of Latin American origin sentenced to death, who constitute, almost without exception, the only prisoners to receive this sentence in the United States.

In order to understand this story, it's necessary to go back to a document circulated in Miami in May 1992, signed by a group of the most notorious counterrevolutionary and terrorist organizations to have acted against our country from the United States. It is titled "OPEN LETTER TO FOREIGN INVESTORS," and reads as follows:

When the time comes, we will take all appropriate measures to encourage and guarantee due protection for private investment in a democratic Cuba, and we will likewise consider with due responsibility the legitimate obligations of the international debt. Nevertheless, we maintain the position that any investment made in Cuba in the current circumstances will not be worthy of the shelter of legislation drawn up by a future Cuban government for the protection of private property. We sustain that such investments should be considered as part of the national heritage and, as such, can be freely disposed of. Investors should bear in mind that, in many cases, they are participating in "joint ventures" or signing agreements with bodies or agencies which, in all probability, will cease to exist....

We believe that it is important for the international community of investors to be aware of our intentions, and for those who are thinking of investing in Cuba to be fully aware of the political responsibility of their actions, and the risks that could befall them. We know that our position is shared by political groups within Cuba which, for obvious reasons, are unable to add their signatures to this document.

Among others, it is signed by five of the most important terrorist organizations: Independent and Democratic Cuba, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Directorate, the Rebel Army in Exile and the former Association Club of Cuban Prisoners and Combatants.

Another letter dated October 15, 1994, sent to foreign investors in Cuba by the notorious Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) stated in part:

We wish to communicate to you that your investments or commercial transactions with Cuba are viewed as an act of collaboration with a totalitarian system.... This is without taking into consideration, moreover, that your investment is being undertaken in total contradiction and disparaging detriment to the property rights of the former owners of land, buildings or businesses.

All the democratic organizations in opposition to the current Cuban regime, both within and outside of Cuba, agree that, in a post-Castro Cuba, all financial or other kinds of resources invested in Cuba will become part of the national heritage and placed at the disposition of the new government, so that it might dispose of them in accordance with the best interests of the new republic.

...your entrepreneurial, commercial or economic activities in Cuba, in addition to constituting an illegal activity... are considered immoral....

May your decision be to withdraw from or not invest in the island and to wait for a secure opportunity in a democratic Cuba. Otherwise you will have to deal with the consequences....

This letter is signed by the infamous Jorge Mas Canosa, at that time the head of CANF.

In association with these actions, a letter written in City of Havana, dated April 10, 1997, signed by Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, Félix Bonne Carcassés and René Gómez Manzano, and sent out to all foreign entrepreneurs, informed them that:

PART II