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DE RUEHUB #1957/01 1591306
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R 081306Z JUN 06
FM USINT HAVANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9154
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES
RUEHWH/WESTERN HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS DIPL POSTS
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HAVANA 011957 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE DEPT FOR WHA/CCA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/08/2016 
TAGS: PHUM KDEM PREL KWMN SOCI CU
SUBJECT: CUBA HUMAN RIGHTS ROUNDUP 
 
 
HAVANA 00011957  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: COM Michael Parmly for Reason 1.4(d). 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  With Internet advocate Guillermo Farinas up 
to Day 128 of his hunger strike, 38 supporters have announced 
a sympathy fast.  Oswaldo Paya of Varela Project fame is 
summarizing his "Program for All Cubans" in a pamphlet.  Paya 
is also collecting evidence on bogus pro-democracy activists 
who he says frequently end up reaching the United States as 
refugees.  Some "Ladies in White" were ordered to strip naked 
before or after visiting their jailed relatives.  Angel Pablo 
Polanco of the Pro-Change Committee says his group is 
identifying local-government leaders, to prevent them from 
some day playing a role in a democratic Cuban Government. 
Independent journalist Armando Betancourt is detained and 
accused of public disorder for trying to report on an 
attempted eviction in Camaguey.  In Matanzas, State Security 
broke up a 14-person meeting of the opposition Marti 
Revolutionary Party and detained all participants for 72 
hours.  Activists say the GOC is covering up the true death 
toll from May's torrential rains and flooding.  End Summary. 
 
SYMPATHY FAST FOR FARINAS 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) Thirty-eight supporters of hunger-striking dissident 
Guillermo Farinas are taking part in a sympathy fast.  Among 
the participants are members of the Martha Abreu Women's 
Movement, including Farinas' common-law wife, Noelia Pedraza 
Jimenez.   Another sympathy faster is Juan Carlos Gonzalez 
Leiva, a well-known blind dissident from Ciego de Avila.  Ten 
of the 38 intend to fast for 24 hours or less.  Farinas, now 
up to Day 128 of his hunger strike for Internet access, is 
being sustained with IV fluids at a Santa Clara hospital.  On 
June 3 or 4, he underwent a third operation to remove 
coagulated blood from one of his lungs.  Leading activist 
Martha Beatriz Roque of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society 
continues to call attention to Farinas' case.  On June 5, she 
told us that a number of Assembly members are among the 38 
carrying out the sympathy fast.  Roque said Farinas' mother 
Alicia Hernandez, with whom she speaks regularly, is 
cooperating with State Security.  Roque warned that Hernandez 
would be pressing the USG to provide refuge to Farinas. 
(Note: Hernandez has not yet made any such appeal.  End Note.) 
 
PAYA FOCUSES ON BOGUS ACTIVISTS 
------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) Paya told us June 1 that he and his colleagues are 
summarizing into a 16-page pamphlet the "Program for All 
Cubans," their plan for a peaceful transition to democracy, 
including a draft Constitution.  Separately, he said, his 
network is collecting evidence on bogus activists who apply 
as, and frequently qualify for, refugees to the U.S.  Paya 
said some such "activists" use the name of Paya's Christian 
Liberation Movement (MCL) in crafting fake letters, false 
police citations and other materials to bolster refugee 
cases.  Paya said he suspects considerable State Security 
involvement, noting that such activity could generate 
profits, create bad blood among activists and perhaps help 
the GOC place agents in Miami.  "We are close to identifying 
some unscrupulous people," he added. (Note: Veteran activist 
Roberto de Miranda told COM June 6 that "in Cienfuegos, 
there's a big business churning out fake prison-sentence 
letters, bogus police citations" and other materials to 
support migration cases.  End Note.) 
 
HARASSMENT OF MCL MEMBERS CONTINUES 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) Paya, like Roque, has not been targeted for recent, 
intense harassment, but a number of his colleagues have.  In 
late May in the southern city of Palma Soriano, Communist 
militants held an "act of repudiation" aimed at Catalina 
Pina, a MCL member who facilitates phone calls to political 
prisoners.   Another Paya-affiliated activist, Jorge 
Aguilera, was warned by a Bayamo court on May 31 that he may 
be charged with "dangerousness," unless he finds a job. 
Aguilera was fired after his dissident activities came to 
light. 
 
"LADIES IN WHITE" ORDERED TO DISROBE 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶5. (C) Clara Lourdes Prieto Llorente, a member of the "Ladies 
in White" and the sister of political prisoner Fabio Prieto 
Llorente, told us June 5 that she has created a new 
opposition political group, the Pines Autonomous Party. 
Based in Nueva Gerona, on the Isle of Youth (formerly known 
as the Isle of Pines), the party has seven members and hopes 
 
HAVANA 00011957  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
to attract at least 33 more, she said.  Clara, an economist 
fired from her job, said Fabio, one of the 75 peaceful 
activists jailed in March 2003, is doing time at El Guayabo 
prison on the same island.  She said he is not mistreated by 
guards or other prisoners, although he is grappling with 
emphysema, gastric woes and other health issues.  Clara and a 
relative were strip-searched at El Guayabo on March 29, 
following a two-hour meeting with Fabio.  Clara said the 
search was intended to humiliate.  A similar incident 
occurred on May 18 at Kilo 5.5 prison in Pinar del Rio.  The 
wife of 75er Normando Hernandez, Yarai Reyes, who is also a 
Lady in White, was ordered to completely disrobe and perform 
deep knee bends before visiting her husband.  Reyes refused. 
 
"A VERY DANGEROUS MAN" 
---------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Clara also said her cousin, who lives in the 
countryside outside of Nueva Gerona, met in January with a 
local youth who had been recruited for military service and 
was serving as a prison guard at El Guayabo.  The young man, 
aged 17, did not know of the cousin's connection to the 
dissident.  He informed her that his supervisors had just 
told him that "a very dangerous man" had come to the prison 
and that he and the other recruits should not get close to 
him.  The man's name was Fabio Prieto Llorente. 
 
GROUP IDENTIFYING MUNICIPALITY LEADERS 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Angel Pablo Polanco, head of the dissident Pro-Change 
Committee, which advocates replacing the current Constitution 
with a modified version of the 1940 Constitution, told us 
June 5 that his network is working on identifying key 
individuals in power in all of Havana's 15 municipalities. 
"We're identifying the chief of each municipality's Poder 
Popular, education office and public health office," Polanco 
said. "We can't allow people who take part in repressive 
activities to hold any position in a new, free, democratic 
Cuban Government."  Among the changes that Polanco would like 
to see made to the 1940 Constitution is the scrapping of its 
ban on capital punishment.  He said the death penalty is 
merited for "any Cuban official found, in a fair court of 
law, to have taken part in the more than 500 executions that 
have occurred since the revolution."  In Polanco's vision of 
a peaceful transition, a provisional government would consist 
of eight key leaders - four chosen from on-island 
pro-democracy groups, and four from the Cuban exile 
community.  These eight would in turn select a provisional 
president.  Polanco envisions only two realistic contenders: 
Martha Beatriz Roque, and Dr. Oscar Biscet of the Lawton 
Human Rights Foundation. 
 
JOURNALIST DETAINED 
------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Independent journalist Armando Betancourt is 
reportedly being held at a police station in Camaguey, 
central Cuba, after he tried to report on a May 23 attempted 
eviction of several families in the city's La Guernica 
neighborhood.  The families were living in unauthorized 
houses they had built on land previously used as a trash 
dump.  A large group of police officers was  unable to evict 
the families because of the presence of numerous protestors, 
some armed with machetes.  However, the police took 
Betancourt into detention and accused him of public disorder. 
 (Note: The Norwegian Charge d'Affaires noted his country's 
keen interest in the case during a meeting with the COM.  End 
note.) 
 
DISSIDENT GATHERING RAIDED 
-------------------------- 
 
¶9. (C) Jorge Luis Cruz Arencibia, president of the opposition 
Marti Revolutionary Party, told us June 6 that State Security 
officers in the Matanzas city of Jaguey Grande raided his 
home on May 20, shortly after the start of a dissident 
gathering.  Cruz said all 14 participants were taken into 
custody and held for 72 hours before being released. 
 
GOC SAID TO BE COVERING UP DEATH TOLL FROM FLOODS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶10. (C) The GOC statistic on the number of deaths caused by 
May's torrential rains and flooding is far lower than the 
true number, according to freed political prisoner Edel Jose 
Garcia Diaz and dissident doctor Darsi Ferrer.  Garcia, a 
75er freed in 2004, told us June 5 that 20 or 21 people are 
believed to have died, rather than the GOC's figure of seven. 
 
HAVANA 00011957  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
 Garcia explained that when the Quibu river overflowed, "A 
number of houses were simply dragged away."  Ferrer told us 
June 4 that the GOC is covering up the true death toll to 
prevent any popular expressions of discontent over the GOC's 
flood response.  Ferrer also expressed outrage over the 
treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers, an issue he 
and his colleagues have been researching.  Ferrer said 
foreigners with MS who seek medical treatment in Cuba receive 
injections of Interferon B, at a cost of thousands of 
dollars.  However, he said the more than 3,000 Cubans with MS 
are given the less-expensive and far-less-effective 
Interferon A, with the result that "their quality of life 
suffers." 
PARMLY