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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Cuban dissident faces scrutiny at home, in Miami

Cuban dissident faces scrutiny at home, in Miami
Posted on Thu, May. 22, 2008
By FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

When Martha Beatriz Roque uses an Internet cafe in Cuba, not only does
the government read all the dissident's electronic missives, but they
dust the keyboard for fingerprints.

They tap her phone and film her walking, protesting, shopping and even
typing. Then they show it all on TV, as proof that the 63-year-old
former economist is on the dole of Washington and Miami militants with
ties to terrorism.

''This is a never-ending soap opera that is being released episode by
episode,'' Roque told The Miami Herald by phone from Havana. ``Today
they'll show the second part and maybe tomorrow there will be a part
three. I will speak out when the show is over.''

After nearly two decades as a member of Cuba's dissident movement, Roque
finds herself under attack again as the Cuban government releases copies
of her emails and footage of her movements showing she allegedly
received money from militant anti-Castro activists in Miami and that the
head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana served as the ''mule'' to
deliver the cash.

Roque is still on parole from a 2003 conviction on ''crimes against the
state,'' and this latest controversy could be the thing that lands her
back behind bars to finish the 18 years left on her sentence.

The Cuban government newspaper Granma on Wednesday published several
emails she allegedly wrote blasting other dissidents, calling them
brazen pimps. Officials also have said more evidence of her
''mercenary'' activities will be released in coming days.

The first series of emails the government published indicated that she
allegedly took $1,500 a month from a Miami group founded by Santiago
Alvarez, the imprisoned benefactor of Luis Posada Carriles, a longtime
anti-Castro militant accused of a deadly 1975 airline bombing.

''Cuba says Santiago Alvarez is a terrorist,'' Roque said. ``The only
thing he's been charged with is illegal possession of weapons.''

Roque was a professor at the University of Havana and an official at
Cuba's sugar ministry before joining the fledgling opposition movement
18 years ago. A vocal advocate for democracy who heads the Assembly to
Promote Civil Society, she has spent five years behind bars.

''Do you remember the `Kiss of Death?''' said Domingo Amuchastegui, a
former Cuban intelligence officer who defected in 1994. ``To me, every
dissident who connects themselves to the Interests Section and to the
exiles in Miami are losing any possibility of legitimacy.''

He said Roque in particular was always controversial, in the past
because she had a harsh style, and now because she puts too much
emphasis on the goings on in Miami and Washington.

''Martha Beatriz was one of the most hated officials in the Ministry of
Sugar for many, many years. She was an extremist,'' Amuchastegui said.
``I did not take her seriously in the days she was a staunch communist,
and I don't take her seriously now. I don't think she's a political
leader of any sort.''

Roque is one of Cuba's most prominent dissidents and a favorite of some
exile groups in Miami. But her close ties to both Washington and groups
that advocate a hardline policy toward the communist-ruled nation have
long rankled not only the Cuban government but also other members of the
opposition in Havana. She is considered a hardliner who openly supports
George Bush, and once cast a mock vote on his behalf.

''Martha is a very brave woman who has been in prison a long time,''
human rights leader Elizardo Sánchez said by phone from Havana. ``I
don't think this is going to make her change her mind.''

Roque was one of six children born to Spaniards from the Canary Islands.
Her father lost his taxi company after Fidel Castro took power in 1959,
but despite that, Roque was a firm believer in the revolution, even as
her siblings left one by one for Miami.

''I believed in the revolution, yes, yes, yes,'' Roque said this week.
``I believed in all their lies.''

She said it was not one single event that made her join the opposition.

''The process is slow and reflective,'' Roque said. ``It creates an
emptiness inside you. You think about your work, your inspirations, your
life. And then realize you were struggling for something that doesn't
work. That's truly disappointing.''

Roque was the director of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists
in the mid 1990s when she and three other dissidents collaborated on a
leaflet called The Homeland Belongs to All. The four were charged with
threatening foreign investors, lying about the state of Cuba's economy
and plotting to disrupt local elections.

In 1997, she was jailed and in 1999 was sentenced to three and a half
years in prison. She was released in 2000 after a 52-day hunger strike.

''She saw how the government was killing people and didn't let young
people study in the university. All those things made her change and
struggle for the nation,'' said Nenita Roque, one of Roque's three
sisters in Miami. ``She is not a terrorist or anything. She is simply a
person who, with her writings and her word, has struggled and continues
to struggle to see Cuba free.''

In Miami, the longtime dissident is widely praised on conservative Cuban
exile radio shows, while other government opponents on the island who do
not back the economic embargo are sometimes shunned. Roque recently
spoke on the telephone with Bush, and surprised some when she asked him
to ease controversial travel restrictions.

Roque is closely associated with the American diplomatic mission in
Havana, where she attends special events, uses the Internet and is
dialed in to the U.S.-funded Radio Martí in Miami to speak out against
the Castro government.

In 2003, the former chief of the Interests Section, James Cason, was a
guest at a meeting with dissidents at her house.

Weeks later, the government rounded up 75 government opponents across
the island in what came to be known as ''black spring.'' Sentenced to as
long as 27 years, most of them remain imprisoned. Roque also was jailed
and sentenced to a 20-year prison term, but was one of 14 people
released for medical reasons.

''She is smart, dynamic and committed, but she is not a team player,''
said Vicki Huddleston, a former head of the U.S. Interests Section in
Havana. ``She does not want to play second fiddle to anyone. She wants
to be the leader in Cuba.''

A 2004 survey by the University of Miami polled 217 Cubans within three
days of their arrival in the United States. Only 5 percent had ever
heard of her.

The only coverage the Cuban government press ever gives her are exposés
showing her shopping or allegedly conspiring with American diplomats.

''Cubans see her as a political representative,'' said Andy Gomez, a
senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban
American Studies. ``The last thing a Cuban wants to talk about is
politics.''

Roque, he said, is ''honorable and highly respected in her inner
circle'' but has trouble selling her agenda within the dissidence
movement. Like other opposition leaders in Havana and Miami, she's
becoming irrelevant particularly among young people, Gomez said.

Her sister Nenita pleads with her to leave Cuba.

''I don't want her to be martyr,'' she said. ``I have begged her many
times to leave and she won't do it... She will struggle till the end.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/542171.html

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