DEAR FRIENDS OF CUBA: Once again the North American government, in its endless obsession of destroying the Cuban Revolution, mobilizes its considerable resources and influence in order to confuse world public opinion regarding a trial in Cuba against four confessed mercenaries, by presenting them as peaceful "dissidents". These people, without the least political or social relevance in our country, have been created, promoted, financed and publicized abroad by the North American administration. Now our enemies want to misrepresent an obvious crime of shameless incitement to sedition as a punishment for freedom of thought and a violation of human rights. We are already accustomed to these infamies and our friends well know the modus operandi of the Empire. So that you may be informed about the facts and their background, we send this information by electronic mail. Fraternally, WHO ARE THE DISSIDENTS AND PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE Part I Since the triumph of the Revolution four decades ago, the United States, already the most powerful imperialist power and neighbor, only 90 miles away - has not ceased for an instant in its zeal of destroying it. It is something that has been and continues to occur. The true fact is that it has not and will not be able to succeed, regardless of the circumstances. The most varied strategies and tactics have been used, from the most brutal - placing the world on the edge of nuclear war- to the subtlest, in order to destroy us from without or from within. Money, perhaps their most powerful weapon, has been to no avail. They discovered very early that neither the Cuban people nor the men and women who direct what is already a historical revolutionary process, could be bought. Ideological weapons have collided against ideas and convictions that have proven be invincible. Today our neighboring country is much more powerful. It is a hegemonic superpower ruling a unipolar world. Since the disapperance of the USSR, we have remained alone in combat defending our trench, without giving an inch. Some countrymen, the ideologically weakest and less able to resist the rigors of a heroic fight, have capitulated. Others, much more experienced and hardened, multiplied their morals, their forces and their convictions. New and valuable combatants and young cadres have joined the unbeaten revolutionary lines. We are going to unmask here the current policies of United States and to demonstrate the murky and incredible methods it uses against Cuba, sometimes very subtle, very frequently overconfident and contemptuous, not seldom rude and harsh, almost always shameless, always arrogant and patronizing. For many months the Revolution has been the subject of an intense campaign of slander for the unavoidable necessity of arresting and placing in the hands of the Tribunals four persons without country for their shameless acts, in close contact with officials of the Government of United States and the Miami counter-revolutionary Mafia. As usual, United States is the main promoter and organizer of these campaigns whose objectives are situated as much abroad as inside the country. Its external purpose is weaken the growing influence and prestige of Cuba in its heroic and invincible resistance to the monstrous economic war that the United States carries out against our people. It attempts to justify that war to a world public opinion that condemns their criminal policies. Before its own internal public opinion -increasingly opposed to its shameful crime of 40 years- the US multiplies the obstacles to the economic relationships and the development of our country, subjecting Cuba to new laws, amendments, political tactics and subversive "tracts" since the beginning of the special period. Its internal plan is to openly promote destabilization and subversion. It employs considerable funds and technical means to direct thousands of hours of radio and television broadcasts every week at our population. It lies, disinforms launches political and subversive slogans, it provides instructions for the most varied forms of economic sabotage; it exhorts to robbery and crime attempting to demoralize our brave and combative people. In order to carry out their plans of internal subversion it pays agents organizes and finances groups; it promotes leaders that are only known abroad and totally unknown in Cuba. If in the years of Girón, the Escambray, the dirty war and the Crisis of October promoted more than 300 organizations in order to bomb, sabotage and organize armed bands, today it tries to create dozens of minigroups which it supports, stimulates, promotes, guides and finances. To such extremes the US provides them with funding, transforming internal counter-revolutionary activities into an occupation and an easy way of life, thus creating a new category of vagrants, devoid of patriotic values, social or humane ideals; without a concept of justice or current world realities, who neither work, sweat nor produce anything other than intrigues, vain illusions, cheap and hollow words, repeat slogans and lies from abroad and receive a paycheck for slandering the Homeland while blemishing the glory and the heroic sacrifice of the Cuban people. It has created mechanisms to glorify such characters abroad through their massive means of communications. The cooperation of some journalists credited in our country and certain foreign press agencies, whose mission is to refer abroad all sorts of intrigues, slanders and provocations manufactured by salaried agents whose only ideology is annexionism, the parasitic life and the dream of living in any of the increasingly untenable consumer societies has not been lacking. These type of acts are now coined with a new title of nobility: "dissident." If in the exercise of their activities in the service of a foreign power they have gone too far, flagrantly violating the laws with which our people comply with the unavoidable duty of saving the conquests of the Revolution and the most sacred interests of the nation and the people, and being sanctioned for it, they become "prisoners of conscience", they are not moved by conscience, but rather an instinct. The opening of the Revolution, the ins and outs and the outs and ins of the members of the Cuban community abroad and the citizens who reside in our country; the tourism, the investment shared with foreign capital, the possibility of family remittances from abroad, the unlimited and unrestricted communications, other facilities of communication and exchange, are used to the maximum by imperialism to carry out their purposes, amid the difficulties and the big sacrifices that the rigorous blockade and the economic war impose on us. The trial of the four mentioned archetypes took place this past Monday. In this type of judgment of internal character, where national citizens are judged for counter-revolutionary activities it is not customary to authorize, and therefore was not authorized, the presence of the foreign press, several of whose members are temporarily or permanently accredited in our country, did not contribute in the least measure, as we will see later, to the conspiracy and the campaigns of slanders against Cuba. The world of unipolar hegemony, globalized and convulsive, full of monopolic contradictions, the information transnationals, evidently look for the news, but not necessarily the truth amidst ferocious competition. The truth more than the news has been always the highest interest of the Cuban Revolution. Our pages are not usually used to publicize the adventures and activities of such criminals. This time, however, we have found it necessary and convenient to dedicate them a space, because they well illustrate the proof, accusation and unmasking of the policies of United States against Cuba. Granma has obtained wide information from experts, prosecutors and witnesses of the oral arguments, documents and materials of presented proof, precise details on the development of the process and of the facts tried on Monday by the Tribunal. The trial revealed with absolute clarity all that was hidden behind the activities of the four accused: Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, Félix Antonio Bonne Carcassés and René Jesus Gómez Manzano, that they could not rebut any of the formulated accusations. Facing the difficult task of confronting the gravity of the facts and the strength of the evidence, their own defense lawyers intelligently bounded their presentation to technical-juridical elements in order to question the coincidence of the proven facts within the common practice defined in the articles of the Penal Code, brilliantly presented by the district attorney who represented the people in that trial, in other words, the seditious character of the facts. In fact the four were not accused of sedition but rather, inciting sedition. How did the imperialism maneuver as soon as the four were arrested? Certainly, in the first place, it was logical to conduct a great international advertising campaign in favor of the four "peaceful dissidents "and "prisoners of conscience wrongly arrested". Independently of the advertising campaign, the government of United States is traditionally accustomed to use all type of pressures every time somebody who works for them is in difficulties as a result of their activities and show to be more active in proportion to the magnitude of their interest and the valuation of the task in process. They typically use political personalities with a relationship or ties of friendship with Cuba in order to demand activities in favor of the already well-known and also famous and innocent "prisoners of conscience." Since the arrest of the four mentioned citizens, every Western visitor of some rank who traveled to Cuba would be provided a State Department list of "prisoners of conscience" which invariably included, at the top of the list, the four individuals. The visiting dignitaries were exhorted to exert pressure for their release. It is invariable part of their dirty game. Some visitors, would do it with greater or less embarrassment. Our government remained firm and unshakable. Experience teaches again and again -and this in particular you will see later on- that the generosity of the Revolution does not always generate the best results. Its open humanitarian spirit is confused with forced concessions under imperial economic war and blackmail. The US, on the other hand, will never accept the liberation of a Puerto Rican patriot sentenced to a long prison term, or commuting the sentence of a black North American or mestizo, or a Latin American sentenced to death, who are almost without exception the only ones punished in this fashion in United States. In order to understand this history, it is necessary to begin from a published in May of 1991 document in Miami and endorsed by a group of the more notorious counter-revolutionary and terrorist organizations acting against our country from United States. Titled " OPEN LETTER TO FOREIGN INVESTORS," it says the following: "At the opportune moment, we will take all the measures that serve to encourage and guarantee the due protection of private investments in a democratic Cuba and we will also consider, with due responsibility, the legitimate obligations of the international debt. However, we maintain the posture that any investment in Cuba, under the current circumstances, does not deserve the help of the laws that will formulate a future Cuban government for the protection of private property. We sustain that those investments will be considered as part of the national patrimony and, as such, can be freely disposed. The investors should keep in mind that, in many cases, they are participating in "joint ventures" or subscribing to agreements with entities or organisms that, in all probability, will cease to exist. " "We believe that it is important for the international community of investors to know our intentions, and that those who are thinking of investing in Cuba to fully realize the political responsibility of their acts and the risks involved. We know that our position is shared by political groups inside Cuba which, for obvious reasons, can not add their signatures to this document." It is endorsed, among others, by five of the most important terrorist organizations: Independent and Democratic Cuba, the Cuban-American National Foundation, The Revolutionary Democratic Cuban Directorate, the Rebel Army in Exile and the former Club Association of Prisoners and Cuban Combatants. On the other hand, in a letter dated October 15 of 1994, sent to foreign investors in Cuba by the well-known, Cuban-American National Foundation states the following: "wanted to inform you that your investments or commercial negotiations in Cuba are considered an act of collaboration with a totalitarian system". "This is without considering, that your investment is carried out in absolute contradiction, detriment and scorn of the property rights of the previous owners of land, buildings or business." "All the democratic organizations opposing the current Cuban regime, inside as well as outside of Cuba, concur that the financial resources, or of another nature, invested in Cuba will become, in a post-Castro Cuba, part of the national patrimony and placed at the disposition of the new government in accordance with the best interests of the new republic." "your managerial, commercial or economic activities in Cuba, besides being an illegitimate activity, is considered immoral. It remains your decision either leave or not invest in the island and wait for a better opportunity in a democratic Cuba. Otherwise, you will have to face the consequences" ...This letter is signed by the sadly celebrated Jorge Mas Canosa, who presided over the CANF. In addition to these actions, a letter dated April 10 of 1997 in the City of Havana, signed by Vladimiro Antúnez Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, Félix Bonne Carcassés and René Gómez Manzano, sent to all the foreign entrepreneurs, communicates the following: "Sooner rather than later, a transition towards democracy in our country will occur and it would be advisable to adopt measures to avoid the valuation of current capital investments in the near future, as a form of complicity in the causation of the wrongs suffered by the Cuban population." As can be appreciated, there is an exact coincidence, almost textual, between the paragraph in the letter of the mentioned individuals and the letters of terrorist organizations in Miami and the Cuban-American national Foundation, headed by Mas Canosa with the perfidious objective of obstructing the development and the economy of the country in the midst of the special period. On April 10 1997, a "CALL TO COUNTRYMEN IN EXILE," dated in the City from Havana and undersigned by Vladimiro Roca and the other three members of the group, says the following: "The debate is latent about whether it is convenient or not to send help to
relatives and friends on the Island. "Cases in general show that the help is sent by people who went into exile for being against the system. However, although those who receive it here have similar opinions, the additional income has, in practice, led many of the latter to adopt an apparent indifference to the national crisis. "Under these circumstances, we want to address those who, despite criticisms, economically support their loved ones residing in the country. We call their attention to the fact that, if alongside the money they would send firm demands that the addressees join the peaceful fight for change, it would create a dramatic increase in the numbers of those who have already taken that road in Cuba." "If a fraction of the recipients of help (from abroad) would abandon the so-called "mass organizations" would stop faking support for the regime, would cease attending political rallies summoned by the government and would refuse to participate in "communist-styled elections," in which nothing is chosen -although it is not mandatory to vote- it would represent an invaluable support to the peaceful fight that is taking place inside our Homeland for the attainment of change." It justly beckons the exiled brothers who send that help, to influence their relatives and friends so that they may understand reality and act accordingly. Fraternally, The Miami Mafia did not delay in responding to the call. One of the staunchest promoters of the economic war against Cuba and of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws, the federal delegate for Florida, Lincoln Díaz-Balart, in conversation with Luis Fernández, moderator of the program "Press Round Table" of Radio Martí, eulogized the work of the group that launched the Call on the use of the remittances sent from the United States, in exchange for the recipients to do at least three things: I Find ways of helping the internal dissidency II Do not continue to collaborate with the government III Attempt to achieve a good level of electoral abstentions In an interview granted by Vladimiro Roca to journalist Alvaro of Insua, in the program "The news -As Is"" of Radio Martí, for the purpose of celebrating May 5, the first press conference summoned by this same group, the following dialogue takes place: Journalist for the counter-revolutionary radio station: "Vladimiro Roca, President of the Socialdemocratic Party, is the promoter of a call to electoral abstentionism. What is the role of Cuban exiles in that call? Vladimiro Roca answers: " One of the first tasks of the conference -being the Call to Brothers in Exile so that people would send remittances to the Cubans who are here- is to please ask them they use abstention in order to accelerate democratization a little more. In other words, pressure them with the problem of sending remittances: if I am sending you money, you are better than the others! do something for change! And it is a very easy thing, to abstain, not going to vote." While the Cuban government authorizes remittances -that it never accepted before the special period for being a source of social differences and inequality- it is revolting that the "dissidents" would subject relatives who send them, and the ones who receive them, to such outrageous conditions and demands, saying that the recipients in general must think like them and they, therefore, should stop pretending. Again on May 15 of 19997 the group goes on the air again, that is, on the Yankee mass news media, with a DECLARATION that says: "several weeks ago our task force made known the essence of their position on the electoral process announced for within a few months, exhorting our countrymen to use of their right not to vote. We propose it because we deem it to be the most appropriate thing at this juncture; because the government uses the number of voters as a measure of its popular support; because it lends itself to manipulation of the electoral results by unscrupulous people who count the annulled ballots as valid; because voting means to legitimatize a process that -not being pluralistic- it is only legitimate to the communist system and we would sin as naive if we compare it with countries that are truly democratic. "the other alternative for those who don’t agree with the government’s policies, annulling the ballot, in fact does not require public declarations or opposition campaigns, because they will happen spontaneously among those who feel forced to vote against their will." ON July of 1997 "A CALL TO THE CUBAN PEOPLE" is drafted proposing the following: "our task force reiterates the call formulated in the sense of exhorting the citizens not to participate in the suffrage, something that will not infringe upon any duty. We know that this is not easy, because, in spite of the fact that it is not mandatory, the authorities pressure the citizens in a thousand ways to vote, and thus present a high index of participation as a supposed sample of support for the system. We are conscious that those who have ties to labor or enjoy any privileges are afraid to lose them; that the ones who have minor children are afraid to jeopardize their future in any way, if he doesn’t behave as expect by the regime. But we also trust that the people will overcome fear and take advantage of this small possibility in order to demonstrate their determination for peaceful change." Later on they state: The infamous claim of the supposed possibility of altered or manipulated votes does not deserve public rebuttal. Millions of citizens of this country who have participated in 12 elections, including a plebiscite since 1976, know that the ballot boxes are guarded by the Pioneers, the recount is made in view of any one who wishes to be a witness and that in 23 years of elections there has not been single well-known case of fraud. Furthermore, the mere idea, that a Cuban child could suffer the consequences of their parent’s refusal to vote, is simply repugnant. To be continued in Part II Group of Four Receives money from US diplomats and Cuban terrorists Becomes principal spokeperson and news reporter in Cuba for international press agencies and Radio Marti. Carlos Balino Institute for Advanced Cuban Studies |