Wave of arrests targets Cuban activists
Nationwide crackdowns against Cuban government opponents remain consistent.
Posted on Fri, Jul. 18, 2008
BY FRANCES ROBLES
Cuban activist Jorge Luis García Pérez has lost count of how many times
he has been arrested since last year, when he finished serving every day
of a 17-year prison sentence and then some.
García, better known as ''Antúnez,'' thinks it's 15, which would be an
arrest a month.
The last detention came over the Fourth of July weekend, when about 200
other anti-government activists also were picked up on highways and at
homes, hotels, airports, bus and train stations around the island and
prevented from attending a U.S. Independence Day celebration in Havana.
They were held for a few hours or a few days and sent home in what
critics say was the latest and most massive illustration of a nationwide
operation to crack down on opponents.
''Raúl Castro's strategy is to create a mirage of change for the
international community to mask the fact that acts of repression are
increasing,'' Antúnez said in a telephone interview from Placetas, Villa
Clara, in central Cuba. 'They arrest you and let you go tomorrow to hide
the sense that there is a wave of repression. I'd call it a `wave lite.'
It's different, and we don't know what lengths it will reach.
``It's an extremely critical situation.''
Raúl Castro, who formally took over the presidency in February, has been
hailed internationally for taking initial steps at reform in the months
he's been in power. But activists argue that just as he allowed
cellphones and computers for the first time, Castro launched a
harassment campaign against members of the opposition through frequent
detentions. The crusade appears designed to keep the overall number of
political prisoners steady while sending a strong message that Castro
has a firm grip on dissent.
HOUSE ARREST
Democracy activists in Cuba say the campaign is akin to the 2003 wave of
arrests that landed 75 dissidents in prison for as long as 28 years. In
a report made public Thursday, the Cuban Council of Human Rights
Monitors documented more than 700 short-term detentions so far this
year. The group counted at least 44 people put under house arrest
between July 2 and 6, and dozens more deported from Havana or prevented
from leaving outer provinces.
The increase in detentions came in late June, immediately after the
European Union lifted sanctions it had against Cuba since the 2003 arrests.
Dissidents said the level of strong-arm tactics appears to vary from
province to province, with Villa Clara protesters suffering the most.
''It hurt them to see how many people were willing to take risks to go
to that event,'' said María Antonia Hidalgo, of Holguín in eastern Cuba,
who was stopped from attending a July 4 party at the Havana residence of
U.S. Interests Section chief Michael Parmly. ``They are afraid to see
the truth before their eyes.''
Saying the driver had been in an accident and they needed witnesses,
police stopped Hidalgo in a taxi on the way to the Holguín airport. At
the airport, authorities questioned her infant daughter's identity
papers and did not let them board the flight to Havana. The next day she
tried to go by rail but was taken off the train, so she attempted the
bus instead.
Police made Hidalgo get off the empty bus because all the tickets ''had
been sold,'' she said. Hidalgo never made it to Havana.
In an extraordinary demonstration of its state security apparatus, Cuban
agents stopped people nationwide.
Among the nearly 200 detentions: René Gómez Manzano was arrested at
Hotel Inglaterra in Havana; Yoel Espinosa at a bus station in Santa
Clara; Lourdes Esquibel off the street in Miramar, and Amado Ruiz Moreno
at a train station in Placetas.
'Raúl Castro wants to let people know: `We knew you were mobilizing and
stopped you at every point in the country,' '' said Cuban American
National Foundation spokeswoman Sandy Acosta Cox. 'They established: `We
are watching you. We haven't fallen asleep at the wheel.' ''
In Miami, another human rights group -- the Foundation for Human Rights
in Cuba -- released a separate 50-page report Thursday detailing the
recent wave of temporary detentions of anti-government dissidents. The
agency is the human rights arm of the Cuban American National Foundation.
Omar López Montenegro, the human rights foundation's executive director,
told a news conference that the brief arrests appear to be part of a new
Cuban government tactic aimed at intimidating an increasingly active
dissident movement.
''The regime at this moment is trying to scare, to create a mental state
within the opposition that something is coming,'' López Montenegro said,
``though that something has not materialized itself.''
Cuban exile organization Democratic Directorate said Castro's new
strategy makes it tougher to rally international support for jailed
dissidents.
''If someone gets arrested, we do telephone campaigns, calling leaders,
calling the prison, getting the international community involved,'' said
executive director Marcibel Loo. ``It's harder to get people mobilized
if they are released in one day. Maybe it was one day, but it may be a
day after they were beaten, and their families were harassed.''
López Montenegro said more arrests reflects increased opposition activity.
''We have noticed that the opposition is much more active, more defiant
and, very important, with more vision and strategy,'' said López
Montenegro. ``This is hopeful because in the end, the regime is not
going to stop repression. That's its nature.''
As an example of intensified opposition activity, López Montenegro cited
last month's restaurant protests by eight members of the dissident
Federation of Latin American Rural Women. They were briefly arrested
when they tried to pay for meals with regular Cuban pesos. The
restaurant where the protest occurred accepted payment only in
convertible pesos, a parallel currency tied to foreign money such as
dollars or euros.
López Montenegro said dissidents have become more active and creative in
their protests, because they are better connected to the outside world
through cellphones and computers and have learned tactics from
anti-government movements in Poland, Serbia and Ukraine.
For example, there are videos of Antúnez on YouTube, where he criticizes
things like substandard housing.
Antúnez served 17 years in prison for denouncing the government publicly
and for escaping from prison to attend his mother's funeral. He resumed
his protests right after his April 2007 release.
`FAITHFUL DISCIPLE'
Antuñez says Raúl Castro's dissident strategy is as harmful as his
brother's.
''I don't think this repression is new; Raúl Castro was in his brother's
shadow for 50 years,'' Antúnez said. ``He's a participant in all his
crimes. He's been a faithful disciple.''
Raúl Castro officially took office Feb. 24 after serving 47 years as his
brother's right-hand man.
''They are trying to create a climate of terror so that people do not
attend opposition events,'' said Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, who heads
the Human Rights Council of Human Rights Monitors. ``They don't even
have to be violent. It's a subtle and intelligent way to repress.''
Miami Herald staff writer Alfonso Chardy contributed to this report.
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