ANATOMY OF AN INJUSTICE: CUBA'S RENE GOMEZ MANZANO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HAVANA 000106

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE DEPT FOR WHA/CCA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/31/2017
TAGS: PHUM KDEM SOCI CU
SUBJECT: ANATOMY OF AN INJUSTICE: CUBA'S RENE GOMEZ MANZANO


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Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Buddy Williams for Reason 1.4(d).


1. (C) Summary: Cuban political detainee Rene Gomez Manzano,
who has spent more than 18 months in prison without charge,
is a poster child for legal-system injustice. An attorney
disbarred in 1995 for advocating legal reforms, Gomez was
nursing a cold at home on July 22, 2005 when five political
police officers arrested him for public disorder. He was
accused of taking part in a protest earlier in the day
outside the French Embassy in Havana. In fact, he had not
participated. This annoying detail has yet to prompt the
Cuban Government to set Gomez free. He is a close associate
of Martha Beatriz Roque, and only one of 283 documented
political prisoners and detainees in Cuba. End Summary.


2. (C) No protester, eyewitness or journalist has ever placed
Gomez, now 63, near or at the scene of the 2005 French
Embassy protest. However, January 30 marked his 558th day
behind bars. He was held first at a police station, then at
the Villa Marista detention center, where he launched a
hunger strike. Four foodless days later, the GOC transferred
him to the Carlos Finlay military hospital and, not long
thereafter, to Nieves Morejon prison in Sancti Spiritus
province, in central Cuba.

POLICE DOSSIER UNDER WRAPS
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3. (C) The police dossier on Gomez has never been made
public. However, the Havana City Provincial Tribunal noted
in a written statement on Nov. 16, 2005 that the dossier
accuses Gomez of having "participated in disturbing the
public order... in front of the French Embassy ... with the
subversive objective of destroying the independence and
economy of Cuba." (Note: The protest was aimed at
criticizing the arrests and beatings, nine days earlier, of
around 40 dissidents who commemorated the GOC's 1994 sinking
of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat. The July 22, 2005 protestors
chose to demonstrate outside the French Embassy because the
French had invited the Cuban Foreign Minister to attend a
Bastille Day celebration on July 14, 2005. End Note.)

ROQUE: GOMEZ OPPOSED THE PROTEST
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4. (C) Although the July 22, 2005 protest was organized by
Martha Beatriz Roque, head of the Assembly to Promote Civil
Society (APSC),of which Gomez is an executive, Roque told us
on January 30 that Gomez strongly opposed the protest idea.
She said Gomez argued that the 40 citizens who carried out
the "13 de Marzo" protest were merely trying to burnish their
refugee credentials, to be allowed to leave the island.
Roque, who has worked hard to draw public attention to
Gomez's case, made clear that he had played no part in
organizing the event or taking part in it.

SIX-MONTH MAXIMUM
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5. (C) The lack of a connection between Gomez and the July
22, 2005 protest has not compelled the GOC to release him.
According to Cuba's Code of Penal Procedure, police
investigators have no more than six months to forward their
dossier to the Public Prosecutors Office for action. Article
107 of the Code also allows the Attorney General (AG) to
grant "a new term" (usually lasting one, two or three months)
to give the police more time for investigation. In Gomez's
case, the AG has authorized nine new terms, and appears
likely to grant more in the future.

LEGAL CHALLENGES REJECTED
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6. (C) Gomez, who is unmarried, receives periodic visits from
his only sibling, Jorge, who has spent much of the past year
and a half waging a legal battle with the GOC to win freedom
for his brother. Jorge, a sculptor aged 74, told us on
January 29 that the GOC had accepted but eventually denied
six separate legal petitions he filed, including a writ of
habeas corpus, formal complaints with the AG, and several
appeals. Thus far, 30 provincial-court judges and
Supreme-Court justices have ruled that Gomez's "provisional
imprisonment" is being carried out in strict accordance with
Cuban law. Jorge, who mocks the "provisional" designation,
faults the GOC for proceeding with a case that "they know is
false; they know he wasn't at the protest." Jorge adds: "The
fact is, my brother's case is being decided at high levels.

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The judges have no say in the matter."

GETTING BY
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7. (C) Gomez, a Havana native, continues to kill time at
Nieves Morejon, a maximum-security prison known for its
brutality. He has not been mistreated, his brother says,
adding that guards seem to have an unspoken respect for him,
although fellow prisoners sometimes steal food brought in by
visitors. This is not Gomez's first incarceration. In 1997,
he started serving a four-year term for being one of four
signers of "The Homeland Belongs to All," a document written
in response to a Communist Party manifesto on Cuba's
"genuinely democratic system." Jorge says Gomez remains in
high spirits and "rooted in his convictions."

COMMENT
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8. (C) The likely reason for Rene Gomez Manzano's arrest and
detention was his leadership and organization of a large
gathering of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, on May
20, 2005. He is only one of 283 political prisoners and
detainees documented by Elizardo Sanchez's Cuban Commission
for Human Rights and National Reconciliation. Thousands of
other Cubans are serving prison terms of up to four years for
"dangerousness," in the absence of any criminal activity.
The well-being of Cuba's political prisoners and detainees is
difficult to ascertain. The GOC allows occasional visits by
close family members but not journalists or human rights
advocates. The ICRC has not been allowed to visit since 1989.
WILLIAMS