ROQUE ROUGHED UP, BLOCKED FROM ATTENDING USG EVENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HAVANA 009060

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE DEPT FOR WHA/CCA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/26/2016
TAGS: PHUM KDEM SOCI CU
SUBJECT: ROQUE ROUGHED UP, BLOCKED FROM ATTENDING USG EVENT


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Classified By: COM Michael Parmly for Reason 1.4(d).


1. (C) Summary: Leading Cuban pro-democracy activist Marta
Beatriz Roque was recovering on April 26 after being roughed
up by Communist militants who prevented her from leaving her
neighborhood to attend a USG-organized event. Roque was not
alone in being blocked; Elsa Morejon, the wife of political
prisoner Oscar Biscet, was turned back while en route to the
event, and Cuban authorities prevented independent journalist
Roberto Santana from attending. Dissident Felix Bonne
attended the event but returned home to find a militant mob
awaiting him. He said they threatened him but did not
assault him. There are indications that at least one other
invitee had been unable to attend the event. End Summary.


2. (C) Marta Beatriz Roque of the Assembly to Promote Civil
Society told Poloff April 26 that she had been pushed,
punched and otherwise mistreated the previous evening, as she
left her home to attend a USINT-organized videoconference at
the COMR, on privatization. Showing redness on her cheek and
elbow, and a bruise on her arm, Roque said the trouble
started at 1745 when she exited her housing complex and was
confronted by Communist militants. She said a female
neighbor approached and told her, "You're not leaving today,"
and shoved her in the chest. Roque said she tried to make
her way around a wall of eight or nine men, but that they
pushed her to the ground. Roque said she stood up but was
then punched in the stomach by a stocky male neighbor. Roque
said she then headed back toward her home, repeatedly
yelling, "Down With Fidel!" The female neighbor slapped
Roque in the face, and a man who Roque believes was a State
Security agent approached and warned that if she kept it up,
he'd "haul her away." Roque was then inside her home,
yelling through the open doorway, at which point the man took
a step inside and punched Roque in the cheek. Roque,
appearing shaken, told us she planned to seek medical
attention, and complained of vision trouble. (Note: USINT
took several photos of Roque on April 26. End note.)

ACRIMONIOUS MESSAGE
--------------


3. (SBU) Roque also showed Poloff a message the militants
slipped under her door, written on the back of a poster
featuring Hitler, Posada Carilles and President Bush. The
militants wrote: "Nobody believes your lies; everyone knows
you've sold out to the Yanks." They addressed one line to
the COM: "Sergeant Parmly, I need a small donation of 50
million USD for the Conference of the Plumbers, I mean,
Independent Librarians." The authors went on to say to
Roque: "Your (U.S.) Government is without medical attention
for 140 million American citizens, and without primary
education for 50 million children ... You and your Sergeant
have no right to talk about democracy."

OTHER DISSIDENTS BLOCKED
--------------


4. (C) Roque was not alone in being prevented from attending
the videoconference. Elsa Morejon, wife of celebrated
political prisoner Oscar Biscet, was en route to the COMR
when she was forced to head home. Morejon told Poloff that
as she started the second leg of a two-taxi trip to the COMR,
she was shoved inside the taxi and suddenly flanked by two
other people, who told her she was not going anywhere. One
of the two assailants then allegedly told the taxi driver
that they were State Security officials, and ordered him to
head to Acosta Street No. 464 in Lawton - Morejon's address.
Morejon arrived home unscathed. Meanwhile, independent
journalist Roberto Santana told us he was blocked from
attending the videoconference, having been warned by
officials of State Security, the Communist Party and the
Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Another
dissident who was able to attend the event, Felix Bonne, told
us he returned home to find a militant mob waiting for him.
Bonne said the militants did not touch him but threatened
he'd be "dragged" if he kept up his counter-revolutionary
activity.

COMMENT
--------------


5. (C) It is unclear whether it was our videoconference that
provided the impetus for the GOC action, or whether the GOC
simply used the occasion to try to deliver another blow to
the opposition. We'll talk to more invitees and try to get a
better sense of who else might have been blocked. Roque, for
her part, is in poor spirits, and understandably so. We will
stay in close contact with her.

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PARMLY